Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Rule of Three

I watched my creature retreat with all the fury of a storm. I did not understand her. Perhaps I did not want to. I had given her what she wanted, offered her a letter from my name so that her shame might not feel so heavy, and instead of expressing gratitude, she had struck me.

It is because you are an idiot.

The mirror’s voice echoed in my mind, and I ground my teeth against his words.

“She clearly regretted our time together,” I said aloud.

Did you ask her what she regrets?

“She said it!”

Only after you offered a letter. Perhaps she was not so regretful but more embarrassed.

“They are the same.”

They are not the same.

“You expect me to rejoice that my creature was embarrassed about our time together?”

Perhaps it has nothing to do with you, said the mirror, who paused and then added, Idiot.

I pressed my hand to my face, but the memory of her lived beneath my skin and all over my body. I knew I would never be rid of this hold she had on me. It was just as strong as the Mountains that had cursed me, and I did not know why, but I felt it with more certainty than I had anything else in my long life. It felt silly to think such a thing, especially in the aftermath of what we had done, but I had had sex with many, many people, and I had never felt this way before.

Perhaps this was the Mountains’ attempt to curse me further. Had they taken her flesh only to make me crave it?

You have always craved it. You have always craved her. You only expected that your appetite would ebb once you had a taste, but it has only made you ravenous.

I left the garden outside my palace and went to visit the mortal prince, who was standing on the bench beneath his window, hands wrapped around the bars.

“I will give you anything you desire if you tell my father where I am being held prisoner,” he was saying.

“Careful of offering desires,” I said. “That is a good way to end up giving away your firstborn.”

The prince froze and turned toward me, his eyes wide with fear.

“Don’t…don’t kill me.”

“I will not kill you,” I said. “But I will settle for stripping you of what you hold most dear.”

“You mean my hair and the red feather in my hat?”

“I have not yet taken the feather in your hat,” I said. “But I will take it now.”

The mortal was wearing his hat over his shorn hair, and the feather vanished from it with a pop. He did not take it off to check that it was gone.

“So you saved her from danger, and she still does not love you?”

I knew she did not love me, but there were moments when she looked at me differently since last night, and I did not know what they meant or if they were even real.

“When you rescued your princess, what happened?”

The prince shrugged. “She was grateful.”

“And?”

“And?” he repeated, confused.

“What else happened?”

“We returned to her kingdom where her father declared that we would wed,” he said. Then he asked, “Did you rescue your princess?”

“I did,” I said.

“And what happened?”

“I fucked her in the woods all night long.”

The prince gasped and his eyes widened. “You… Are you married?”

“Do I look married?”

“Well, not exactly, but you cannot…fuck…a lady until you have married her. You will ruin her!”

I raised a brow. “Have you never had sex?”

“Not with a lady. I am honorable.”

The prince might be many things, but honorable certainly wasn’t one.

I frowned. “How is sex not honorable?”

The prince hesitated. “I…I don’t know.”

“Then why do you speak on things you do not know?”

The mortal was quiet and then he asked, “Do you love this woman? The one you fucked in the woods?”

I did not know what to say.

“You must,” said the prince more to himself than to me. “Or you would not want her to love you.”

“Do not presume to know how I feel, mortal,” I hissed. “I need her to love me.”

I needed her to speak my true name.

“At some point, if you do not love her, someone else will.”

“What do you know about love?” I countered. “All your advice has only made my creature hate me more.”

“What worked for my princess may not work for yours. Have you tried asking her what she wants?”

She wanted freedom, and that was beyond what I could give even if I wanted to. Magic was binding. She was the only person who could free herself now, and her choices were to speak my name or live out the next six years while I descended into madness and eventually ceased to exist.

“What if she does not tell me?”

“Then I suppose you will take something else from me.”