Chapter Twenty-Eight

He stood up, lurching away from her. Tanitha skittered back several paces, her back striking the wall. Before her eyes, his appearance changed. His wings sprouted feathers, jet black and sharp as a falcon's. The scales over his body receded, leaving tanned skin over sculpted muscles, but she barely noticed that, because she'd suddenly recognized his face. He had proud features, a strength and nobility to the sharpness of his cheekbones and the chiseled line of his jaw, and his amber eyes were intense with emotion. She had never seen him before in person, but she still knew him from a thousand places, from coins and statues to mosaics, all depicting the heir to the Ivory Throne.

"You're… you're Prince Darius," she whispered.

" That's what you're taking from this?" he demanded. She shook her head in a frightened motion, confused. "Tanitha, what did you do? "

"I don't know!" she said, her voice edged with panic. "I don't understand what just happened!"

"How could you possibly not understand?" he shouted, anger and fear warring for dominance in his voice. "I didn't simply fall asleep , Tanitha! Why would you do this?"

She dropped to her knees. He stopped talking, startled by this, and she bowed her head, trembling. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Your Highness, I'm sorry. But I don't understand what just happened."

"Stand up," he said roughly. "I'm not going to have you kneeling to me like some supplicant, not when—" He broke off, apparently unable to put whatever it was into words. Tanitha couldn't make herself move beyond a small, frightened shake of the head. It was too much, his anger and the shock of his identity, and she couldn't seem to process any of it.

He crossed to her, and a small, frightened noise escaped her as he seized her upper arms and wrenched her to her feet.

"Stop it," he snapped at her, his hands gripping her tightly enough to bruise. She averted her gaze, too afraid to even try to pull away. "This— this act of frightened innocence. You know very well that I can't—" He broke off, releasing her abruptly and stepping back.

Tanitha shrunk back against the wall. She managed to keep to her feet, but she couldn't make herself look at him, too frightened and confused. A few painful seconds later, he spoke again.

"You really didn't know." It wasn't a question. "You didn't know about the soul-binding."

She gave a tiny shake of the head, her shoulders still hunched. She'd heard the term before, but only in the context of marriages of those from higher castes. Some humans from the wealthiest classes would undergo a ritual as part of the marriage ceremony where an elementalist would bind their souls one to another. It was a way of ensuring that both parties always acted in the other's best interest. It served as a strong guarantee that the terms of the marriage agreements would be met, but she'd always thought it was a twisted practice, one based on distrust and control.

"I don't— soul-binding?" she asked, her voice still barely above a whisper. "That's… what does that have to do with…?" She trailed off, thinking of the strange sensation, the tendrils of magic that had suddenly formed between them. Her breath caught. The custom came from the city's rulers, the demons. Their marriages were almost always political, so she'd assumed it was simply a matter of practicality for them. But… her mind flicked back to what he'd told her about another custom the demons observed, that of showing their true form only to their mate.

What if… what if there was no ritual involved, in their case? What if it was just two people who could soul-speak seeing each other in their truest form?

What happened if one of those people didn't have a true form?

She pressed her hand to her mouth as realization struck her. Her eyes wide, she finally looked up at him.

He nodded, one short motion tight with pain. "You understand, then," he said, his voice flat.

Tanitha swallowed. "Your Highness, I…"

"Fires below, stop calling me that!" he said, his voice taut with anguish. "That's not who I wanted to be to you! Gods, Tanitha, why ?"

Tanitha gave one short shake of her head. "If you could have just told me," she started, then stopped herself. Of course he couldn't have just told her. Of course a demon prince couldn't have told a human commoner that she had the ability to bind him to herself, that simply seeing him as he truly was would be enough to tie his fate to hers. No matter how he might feel toward her. It was too dangerous.

She swallowed, then finally looked up to meet his gaze. "I had to know," she said softly. "I had to know what you were. I'm…" The words died on her lips. How could she tell him right now, when he was desperately afraid of the power she had over him, that there was yet another thing tying them together? One perhaps stronger than a soul-binding?

"Why?" he asked, his voice still rough with emotion. "I told you it wasn't safe for you to see me. I did everything I could to protect you. Why couldn't you have just trusted me on this one thing?"

She forced back tears. Yes, he'd protected her. Yes, he'd treated her with kindness. And yes, she loved him. She loved him with an intensity that she'd never even dreamed of. But she had never seen his face. She'd never even had a name to call him by.

"You kept me in darkness," she said. In every way possible, she thought, but she didn't need to add that. They both knew it. "From the very start, you kept me blind," she continued, her voice near to breaking. "How can you tell me I'm at fault for not knowing how far I could trust you?"

He turned away, silence stretching between them. "You've soul-bound a prince," he said quietly, finally breaking it. "Do you understand what that means? You're in more danger right now than you ever have been in your life." She swallowed, the meaning suddenly becoming clear in her mind. The other demons would never tolerate her having this much sway over their prince. They'd kill her in an instant if they knew.

He glanced back at her. Their eyes met for the barest instant. "I'll do what I can for you," he said. "If this binding can be broken, I might still be able to protect you. Stay here, where you'll be safe. Once it's done, I'll send you away, like we first planned." He turned toward the still-open doors leading to the balcony, his shoulders tight. "As I should have done a long time ago." He took a step.

"Darius, wait, " she said. His entire body went rigid with his suddenly arrested momentum. He took a ragged breath, turning to look at her with a pain that she immediately recognized as betrayal. Her own breath caught as she understood what had just happened, as the full import of what she'd just seen struck her. She'd given an order, and he'd been powerless to ignore it.

Her knees were trembling. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean that as a command. Please." She sank to one knee, suddenly unable to look at him. The utter wrongness of it all hurt almost more than the betrayal she'd seen in his eyes. "Please don't hate me for this."

He shook his head once. "Goodbye, Tanitha," he said quietly. The words were spoken with such finality that her heart clenched in her chest.

When she was finally able to look up again, he was gone.