my sweaty skin.
My power surges through me, lighting up the fissures of scars that wind across my bloodied skin. They burn the orange of fire. A veil of light dances from my skin. I don’t have time to marvel at it. I press my finger to his temple.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Screams. Begging for mercy. Something.
Prince Castian simply stares at me, his face covered in blood and shadow and moonlight from the single dirty window. His breath comes in quick pants. I recognize the look there. He’s daring me.
I let my magics free, push through his memories to grab hold of them and drag them out.
Images flash before my eyes, too quickly to make out places or faces. The rush of wind in my ears and then nothing.
I see nothing.
Complete and total darkness, as if there’s a wall there I can’t breach.
“Impossible,” I gasp. Somehow, he’s found a way to block my power. That won’t work on me. He really meant it when he spoke those words in the Forest of Lynxes.
A smile creeps up his face and then he grabs me, and something comes undone. Up is down and down is up. The room spins as he flips me over and grips my wrists.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
He doesn’t respond. Damp hair falling over his face. He’s weak, barely keeping himself up. I can feel his heart racing to the same rapid beat of my own right through his palms. That shouldn’t be. “Surrender, Renata. Please.”
Please? The dizzying feeling in my head clears when I hear a scream. Not mine. Not his. We are not alone.
“My prince!”
“No!” Castian shouts. The pressure on me alleviates as he staggers to his feet, stanching the wound at his shoulder. A wound that looks like it was inflicted by my hand.
I realize Leo is at the door, crashing into the room, the attendant he was flirting with beside him. The redheaded man screams and keeps shouting, “My prince!”
They freeze at the sight of us, bloody and ragged on the floor, surrounded by oil and glass and shadows. Leo grabs the attendant by the hand, but the boy wrenches himself free.
“Help!” the attendant shouts, then rushes out of the room before Leo can stop him. “She’s killing the prince!”
“Wait!” Castian shouts.
But the young man is running down the corridor crying, “Guards! Guards!”
Leo shuts his eyes and hits the edge of the secret door. He squeezes the bridge of his nose, helplessness making his body slack. “You stupid, stupid girl. She told you not to. . . .”
Castian’s eyes change. They’re furrowed and dark and angry as the day I saw him in the woods. It’s like he’s two people in the same body.
“Renata Convida.” Castian says my name, his voice like gravel in my wounds. So very different from the whimper of please moments ago. He takes off his belt and binds my wrists with it. “You are under arrest for treason and attempted murder of the prince of Puerto Leones.”
I don’t struggle as Prince Castian leads me down to the dungeons. There are only torches on the wall and the sound of guards far below. I can see his jawline ripple as he clenches his teeth, the vein in his neck pronounced in the firelight that moves across his face.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Castian says in the darkness.
“It was only ever going to be this way,” I say.
He turns me around, face twisted with rage, distorted by shadow and blood. “I have worked night and day for the betterment of this kingdom. Its people.”
“You’ll never be more than a killer, Matahermano.”
His nostrils flare and his mouth is a taut line.
“You don’t want to see what’s right in front of you—” he says, but heavy footsteps echo from below.
“Your Highness,” a guard says, brandishing a torch as he ascends the steps. “Your father sent me to take the prisoner to her cell.”
“As you can see, I am already doing that. Dismissed.”
“I cannot obey, Your Highness. The order came from your father. H-he w-wants to see you straightaway.”
He doesn’t move for what feels like ages, the flicker of fire burning through the torch. Then Prince Castian hands me over to the guard, who tightens the belt around my hands before grabbing the back of my shirt and pushing me along. My hands are numb, and a prickling sensation runs up and down my arm that has nothing to do with magic.
We get down to the cells. The stench