Get up.
Clean up.
Hide the mess.
Gods, the mess. It’s the push I need to be able to climb my feet and force myself to reach for my toothbrush. The maids will be in soon, and I can’t allow anyone to see me like this or smell the vomit. Mint drives the wretched taste from my tongue, and I scour my mouth raw until my gums bleed.
I clean everything, and then slip inside the rain shower, washing away the remnants of the night until the water has long run cold.
Clean. Dry. Half-dressed.
Empty.
By now Vi will know the truth, and there’s no coming back from this.
It’s the emptiness that slays me as I rake my hand over the foggy mirror. I promised myself I’d never do this again, but my eyes fall on the washbasin, and there’s my dagger, neatly sheathed and tied to my belt.
I need this.
I need to feel. To bleed. To cut this poison from my veins so that it’s no longer bursting inside my skin.
Vi. I keep seeing her face. And as I draw the knife and lift my gaze to my reflection, I feel sick again. Just once. Just once to get the feelings out, so I can go back to being the perfect princess.
Somewhere that no one will ever see it.
I don’t even feel the knife slice across the smooth skin of my upper thigh, but the relief is instant. Pain screams through me, and it’s all rising to the surface. I’m no longer hollow. No longer empty. It’s all there, and I need more, and I use the knife again.
There’s never any coming back—
“Andraste! Andi, stop!” Hands close around the knife, jerking it from my grasp, and it’s like waking up from a dream.
There’s blood all over my hands. But all the pain in my heart is now in my skin, and I can breathe. The knot in my chest is finally gone, though when I look up into Edain’s eyes, a new one forms.
Panic flares. “What are you doing in here?”
“Erlking’s cock,” Edain breathes, lifting my hands away from my thigh with an expression of horror. “What were you thinking?”
The fae heal swiftly. By morning there will be no sign of even a single mark. It will all be smooth, unblemished skin.
“I slipped.” Even as I say the words, I realize how pointless it is. Each cut is long and straight and deliberate.
He knows.
Hot eyes rake over my face and then he’s cursing under his breath as he tears his jacket off and rips strips from the sleeves. “What happened?”
I know he’s not talking about the knife.
“What are you doing in my chambers?” I push him away, but he grabs my arm and shoves me back against the basin.
“If you leave this room, I’ll tell your mother what you’ve done to yourself.”
My gaze snaps to his. “You wouldn’t.”
But his lip curls, and he pushes me against the vanity as he tears the linen into thin strips. “Of course I would. Look at you. You’re a mess. What happened out there in the woods?”
“I don’t know. My sister was there with her husband, and—”
“I wasn’t talking about Vi,” he growls. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re not just covered in blood for no reason.” He reaches out to jerk the faucet on. The enchantments set over the royal apartments mean hot, fresh water at any time of day or night, but it takes a few moments for the spells to work. Steam begins to fill my washroom as Edain dips a cloth in the pooling water and then uses it to wipe some of the blood from my skin.
“This isn’t necessary.” I’m starting to become aware of the fact I’m wearing nothing more than a towel.
“Well, someone has to hide all the blood.” There’s a flash of his dangerous smile. “It’s what I’m best at, isn’t it?”
Bedplay. Wet work. All of it done in the shadows.
Not even my mother dares talk of Edain’s talents with a knife and the way many of her enemies suddenly disappear. But I’ve seen him slip into her chambers unannounced, and I’ve seen the blood on his clothes and the emptiness in his eyes.
And then news will come of a mysterious death, and my mother will smile to herself in private and offer condolences in public.
“And what are you best at?” he murmurs, wiping the blood from my skin with strangely gentle hands. “The crown princess who stalks around this palace with such a flawless mask it’s difficult to even catch a glimpse of the woman beneath it? A crown princess who spends hours each day drilling with the best of her guards, as if she’s trying to fight an enemy she never names? A crown princess who murmurs caution in her mother’s ear and tries to hide the horror in her eyes when her mother ignores her words?”
He may as well have slapped my face.
“What?”
He looks up. “Sometimes the mask slips. Sometimes I see you. The real you. And if you think I’m unaware of where your sympathies lie, then you should think again.”
No. He can’t know.
I capture his wrists, and for a second there’s a part of me that wonders if I can get rid of the threat—
“Make me promise, Princess. Make me swear that I won’t breathe a word of it.” There’s a savage heat in his eyes, as if he can read me like a book. “Because if there’s one thing we both know, it’s that you don’t have the means—or the heart—to kill me.”
Every inch of me thrums with the need to either fight or flee. The knife’s still on the bench, the hilt slippery with blood, but it’s close enough. “Nobody’s invincible.”
His hand cups my cheek, and then the rasp of his thumb strokes down my jaw. “I am.” He leans closer, and then his other hand comes up to cup my face. “And you will lose if you even reach for that knife.” His breath whispers against my ear. “Because
