The Frozen Prince (The Beast Charmer #2) - Maxym M. Martineau Page 0,67

to dry. The cool air was thick with pine, and as I took a staggered breath, the fresh scent of earth and blood skated along the back of my tongue. My eyes flew open. The world of gray traded for an indigo expanse dotted with millions of stars. Treetops towered high like jagged spears against the sky. And darkness. Thin tendrils of shadows unrelated to the night snaked through my peripheral vision, as if they’d always been there. As if they belonged.

Someone knelt beside me and placed a hand over my chest. A man I didn’t recognize peered down, his curling hair the color of weathered bark falling about his shoulders. Framed by heavy wrinkles, his dark eyes held nothing but wisdom—and perhaps a glimmer of pity.

“Where am I? What happened?” My words were a harsh rasp, and I desperately wished for water.

The man didn’t move. “You’re safe. You’re still in Lendria.”

“Did you heal me?”

“No, I didn’t heal you. You died as you intended, and I merely brought you back.” His gruff voice was oddly soothing, but his words set me on edge. I shouldn’t be back. Prince Aleksander needed to stay dead to end the war. It was a decision I’d made of my own volition, and apparently it had been ripped away from me without my consent.

Curling my hands into fists, I stiffened in place. “Who are you? Why did you resurrect me?”

“My name is Talmage. I’m the guild master of Cruor. You’re alive because of Kostya.” With a nod, he indicated a man standing to my left wreathed in shadows. Just like outside the camp, he hadn’t made a sound. But this time, I could hear the subtle inhale and exhale of breath, the minute scraping of cloth on cloth as he straightened his tunic. The way his swallow seemed forced. Death had done something to my senses, and the unease in my gut ratcheted up several notches.

“I don’t want to be here.” Anger colored my voice. I hardly recognized it.

Talmage clasped his hands together. “That can be arranged. I won’t force you to live as an assassin of Cruor if you don’t want to.”

I ignored him entirely and glared at Kostya. He averted his eyes, unwilling to meet my gaze.

“I felt responsible for your death. I…I fear my words may have driven you to take such extreme action.” He cleared his throat and gripped the back of his neck. A beat later, he dropped his arms to his sides. “While it may have ended the war, you didn’t deserve to die. I thought, if you wanted a second chance…” His low voice was clouded with guilt, and some of my anger fled. Perhaps his words had been the catalyst, but the decision was my own.

“You chose your death. Kostya found you without armor, without weapons. I can’t say this life will be easier, but it will be new. You can move on. You can forget. We leave everything from our past in the ground.” Talmage’s words hinted at a possible new beginning, at a life outside of the wars I’d grown so used to. But that was the thing—no matter how alluring it sounded, no matter how much he promised my previous life could be left in the dirt, there was simply no way a prince of the realm would be forgotten.

There was no outrunning who I used to be. Who I was.

Pushing myself into a sitting position, I bit back a growl. “I don’t get that choice. As long as I live, Rhyne will continue to fight. I died so my men could find reprieve. I died so all of this would end. You might as well kill me now, because I’ll walk right back to their forces if I have to. I won’t let my country suffer any longer.”

“We have ways of hiding your identity.” Talmage’s words were so soft I barely heard them. “The only people who would know of your past would be myself and Kostya.”

“And what of my body? I’m supposed to be dead. Rhyne won’t accept my disappearance as proof, and the war will continue.”

“About that.” Kostya gave a curt nod to my wet clothes. “They were transporting your body to the main ship on a rowboat when I came to…extract you. During the confrontation, the boat capsized. No one was seriously injured, but your body was lost to the depths of the ocean. Or so Rhyne thinks.”

“One of the men transporting your body was a high-ranking official. His word