Marai hastily yanked her hand from his and shoved both in her pockets, cursing herself. She’d forgotten. “It’s nothing.”

Ruenen stared at her blankly.

She sighed, remembering how unwise it was to withhold information from those she cared about. “The magic, the day I left you . . . I took it from something else.”

“What do you mean?”

She avoided his scrutinizing gaze. “I took from magic that doesn’t belong to me. In my panic, I pulled magic from a dark place. A place I shouldn’t have, and it left a mark.”

“Lirr’s bones, Marai, it looks like Rayghast’s—”

“Arms? Yes. He has magic, too.”

Ruenen’s jaw dropped as if she’d slapped him. She’d withheld that particular fact from Ruenen after they’d escaped the dungeons. She hadn’t wanted him to worry. Marai had always been good at keeping secrets. I’m no better than Keshel.

“When we were in the dungeon and Rayghast touched me, I could feel his magic writhing beneath the surface of his skin. But his human body shouldn’t have that kind of magic inside. Dark magic is corrupting the drop of fae blood in his veins.”

“Rayghast has faerie blood?” Ruenen took a step back, the realization hitting him. “But he . . . he hates magical folk!”

“It was probably many generations back. I think the percentage of faerie blood in him is miniscule, which is why the magic is too strong for the vessel, and Rayghast doesn’t have the ability to use it properly. He’s entirely human, otherwise, thus why he’s been calling upon dark magic to help him.”

Ruenen let out a long, amazed breath. “Dark magic . . . I’ve never heard of that before.”

“No one is supposed to touch dark magic. It taints you. That’s why Rayghast’s arms are blackened, and it will continue to consume him as long as he pulls from it.”

Ruenen looked sharply at Marai. “So you’re permanently marked this way?”

“Magic isn’t free, and every magical creature has its limits. It was a mistake I won’t make again, especially now that I can control my powers better.”

Ruenen glanced down to where her hands remained in her pockets.

“I’ll put on my gloves if it bothers you.”

His face tightened, eyes flecked with fear. “You resorted to pulling magic from somewhere else just to get away from me.”

Marai’s heart lurched. Her face softened. “Not from you, Ruenen. Never from you.”

Ruenen studied her for a moment, pinning her in place, until he bit his lower lip again, and Marai had to turn away. She placed her focus on a mouse scurrying across the forest floor.

“It’s getting dark. We should camp here for the night,” Ruenen finally said.

They went to work clearing the ground and gathering firewood, as they had so many times before. Ruenen watched her intently as she used magic to light the fire again, but this time, concern was etched into every plane of his face. He glared at her blackened fingertips, and Marai knew he blamed himself.

“Please, think about taking up the throne, Ruen,” she said to him across the fire. “I meant what I said. You’d be a great king.”

Ruenen’s mouth twisted. Flames danced in his eyes. “Go to sleep, Marai.” He lay down in his blankets amongst the leaves, cushiony moss, and grass, turning his back to her.

The atmosphere around their campsite wasn’t hostility . . . instead, Marai felt the gentle pulse of Ruenen’s fear. Fear of becoming king. But more than that, fear for her. 

He may not have forgiven her yet. That might take days or weeks, but Marai was resolute to continue trying to earn his forgiveness. She’d given up on him once, and she’d never do it again.

Ruenen was alive, and that mattered more than anything.

Chapter 9

Ruenen

He never expected to see her again.

Lying in the dark, Marai merely a few feet away, Ruenen couldn’t believe she’d found him again. He didn’t hear her slow, steady breath of sleep. She was awake, as anxious as he was.

He replayed her words: I wanted to kiss you. That . . . that was real.

It had felt real. She was the answer to a question he’d been asking himself for years. The boy with a thousand questions . . . now he only had one.

I wanted it more than anything, she’d said. But peering at her across the fire, body so rigid, maybe Marai kissed him out of obligation, not affection.

She’d looked so utterly terrified running through the portal that he’d barely been able to breathe. Because it was him she’d seemed afraid of. His touch she had run from.

Ruenen didn’t know what he’d done wrong . . . he’d always tried to be respectful. He wanted her to be in charge of when they stepped over that line. But she’d kissed him when he’d least expected it in that alley. He’d forgotten about her boundaries. The second her lips touched his, all common sense left his brain. The clouds around his life had finally parted. Her kiss was a melody swirling around inside him; a song that burst brightly into creation from his heart. He would have held her forever if she hadn’t backed away.

But her expression, eyes so wide, skin deathly pale, froze the blood in his veins. A face he would see over and over, in his dreams, out of the corner of his eyes as he wandered. Was he the villain? Did he overstep? Did he misunderstand?

Then she’d left him . . . disappeared through the portal as the hunters grabbed him. He wasn’t afraid, not when they subdued him, not when they bound his hands behind his back. No, he thought of Marai. He thought of her face. And he hated himself, and her, and the whole messed up situation. He’d been wronged, but had he also wronged her?

When the kind stranger appeared and stabbed the two hunters holding him, Ruenen stopped feeling. A hardness had settled in his core; a heavy stone trampling his emotions. He didn’t want to return to Tacorn to become Rayghast’s plaything. He wouldn’t allow himself to be tortured to death; his mangled body to be paraded around in conquest.

With a knife, the stranger had cut through the ropes binding Ruenen’s hands. The silver-eyed, mahogany-skinned man had given Ruenen an opening, and he’d asked himself, what would Marai do?

Ruenen had grabbed hold of a sword dropped by a fallen hunter, and then slit the throat of another.

You’re too heavy on your feet, Marai’s voice critiqued. Ruenen dodged and whirled, maneuvering around the hunter’s blade, and stabbed Rayghast’s man in the side, angling his blade upwards. The hunter collapsed. Ruenen killed three more, then he was free.

He grumbled now as the darkness lifted and the forest became gray with early morning light. Ruenen hadn’t slept a wink. He sat up with a groan and packed up his blankets, snuffed out the campfire embers. It was the first time he’d ever risen before Marai. She stirred on her patch of soil. Like the first time he’d ever seen them, her violet eyes pierced his lungs, stabbed his heart, and froze him solid.

He made sure to keep his face solemn. He hadn’t forgiven her yet, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult the longer he stared into those eyes . . .

“Let’s go,” he said, although he had no destination. He knew they couldn’t linger, not after Marai’s incident at the Three White Cranes.

She blinked, surprised by the command. She packed up quickly, and followed him through the woods. “Where are we headed?”

“I don’t know,” he shot grumpily over his shoulder. He stomped through the dirt, taking out his frustration by snapping twigs and kicking rocks.

A melodious sound drifted up to him. Ruenen spun. Marai strolled behind him, hands in her pockets, surveying the forest.

“Are you humming ‘The Lady Butcher?’”

Marai gave him an innocent shrug and kept humming. She didn’t exactly have an ear for music; her rhythms were off and the notes were quite pitchy. But she smiled at him as she passed by, taking the lead. It was a real, true smile, directed solely at him.