pulls my back against his chest, so there’s no room to move, to lash out.
“Help me!” I scream, twisting in his arms and stamping my feet, bending backwards and forwards, throwing my head back into his chest, anything to get him off me. “Someone help!”
“Errin, shut up.”
The sound of my name on his lips feels like a punch to the stomach. My blood boils so violently I’m surprised he can touch me without burning.
“How could you?” My lungs fill with air and I scream again, scraping my throat raw. “How could you?”
He claps a gloved hand over my mouth. “Stop it,” he hisses insistently into my ear, but I continue to struggle, screaming into the glove, trying to bite him. I understand then that I’m done for; he’s overpowered me. But I can’t stop thrashing, can’t stop trying to fight, my body moving without my command as I writhe in his arms. It can’t end like this. Please, please, if I can—
I look to my mother and it’s as though a bucket of cold water has been thrown over me. I stop struggling immediately, staring at her.
Her eyes are fixed on the flaking whitewash of the wall opposite the bed, and I see that he could kill me in front of her and she wouldn’t blink. He will kill me in front of her and she won’t raise a hand to stop him. And just like that, all of the fight goes out of me and I become limp in his arms.
He spins me round to face him, still holding my wrists in his long white fingers, his head tilted as his terrible golden eyes sear into mine. I start to tremble, my blood running cold. I don’t want to die like this. Gods, please, I don’t want to die here, now. I don’t want this to be it. And Mama … I don’t want her to die like this.
I force myself to speak. To beg.
“Please let us go,” I say, my voice cracking. “I beg you. Please. I won’t tell anyone I saw you. I won’t say anything. Please let us go—” Then my control breaks and the words come out as a sob. “Please, please. Have mercy on us…” I’m shaking so hard now that I can’t speak; all my courage has left me. I’m afraid I’m going to wet myself; I’m afraid it’s going to hurt. I’m ashamed that I begged; Lief never would have. I can’t remember what you call a prince. “My Lord.” I try to bow as best I can. “Please, Your Grace…”
“What?” he says sharply, his words sounding as though they’re coming from far away. “What the hell, Errin?” Confusion colours his cheeks, suddenly making him look vulnerable, human. Then his face falls, and he blinks at me, once, twice, before letting go of me so fast that I stumble. Before I’ve had time to right myself and pick up my knife, he’s grabbed his cloak, flinging it angrily around his shoulders and pulling the hood up, covering his hair. I can still see his face, though. His eyes.
He glares at me fiercely, his golden eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “I’m not the Sleeping Prince, Errin.”
My chest heaves as I watch him, poised to move if he does, his words ringing in my ears until all the meaning is lost from them. My heart still beats triple time. I watch him warily.
“Gods…” His eyes are bright inside the rings of black, feverish. He looks … he looks distraught. “Really? You truly thought—?” He runs his hands through his hair, knocking the hood back, before his forefinger starts to tap his thumb, the motion so fast it blurs.
And that small, familiar movement takes the edge from my fear, making me feel ashamed, because it’s a gesture I know so well. It’s anxious, fretful, nervous, Silas. I’ve seen him do it dozens of times.
I know then that I want to believe him. I want this to be a simple misunderstanding. But I can’t believe him. Not yet. Not completely. Because there’s too much that doesn’t add up, and I’m still shaking, and my lungs are still pumping as though I’ve been running for miles.
My gut is still telling me to run.
I look at him – really look at him – at his strange eyes and his hair and his face. For three moons I’ve watched his lips, but now I can see the small bump in the bridge of his nose, his forehead, his white