Page 51 of Heartbreak Prince

“Orders were to kill her and keep the prince alive,” puts in the second soldier.

“Those weren’t the instructions I received.” Vawn’s response is swift and smooth, but I can feel his fingers moving against my thigh, shifting one of my knives out of the sheath. “Who gave you your orders? Holgrave?”

“Holgrave?” The first soldier’s voice sharpens with suspicion. “We don’t use names. We use call signs.”

“Well, fuck it,” Vawn sighs. “Here. Catch.”

He tosses me at the soldiers. Caught off guard, they both reach for me reflexively, but one of them receives the full brunt of my weight, and the impact makes him stumble on the uneven ground, falling backwards with me on top of him.

The other soldier didn’t fall, but he’s distracted. Vawn darts behind him, wraps one arm around the man’s helmet, and jerks his head back. The prince’s hand moves, a vicious whip of my knife across the exposed throat. Blood spurts from severed vessels, fountaining over me and the first soldier.

The soldier throws me off him and I land face down, my cheek pressed to cold, gritty stone.

I can’t see what’s happening. Bodies collide, boots scuff and thump, and the two men grunt under the strain of their conflict. Vawn lets out a cry of pain that shears straight through my soul, but then he voices a growl of vengeful determination. He’s alive, and strong enough to keep fighting back.

There’s a scrape of metal on a rough surface—one of the helmets, maybe? Then repeated thick impacts, like punches against a body. A final solid blow, and then everything goes still.

Someone is panting heavily, and the sound clarifies as they remove their helmet. I shut my eyes briefly, dreading the outcome of the fight. Within the next few seconds, I will either be killed where I lie, or I’ll be gathered into the prince’s arms again.

11

Hands roll me over, and I look up at the face of the prince, who’s kneeling beside me. The moon’s glow highlights his cheekbones, painting deeper hollows into his cheeks and illuminating his full mouth. His eyes shine like moons themselves, his irises luminous pools rimmed with black. Blood trails down his throat and chest from a small cut under his jaw. The second soldier tried to slit his throat.

I struggle to speak, but I can only manage a whimper.

“Sorry for throwing you, sweetheart.” Vawn brushes my hair out of my eyes with bloodstained fingertips. “And thank you for the loan of your knife. I think we’d better get off the streets as quickly as we can. Even if I could find the gondolas, these assassins will be watching them, and the bridge as well. I don’t think I have it in me to defeat another pair. I got lucky with this one—they didn’t have a chance to activate any glyphs. Strictly hand-to-hand, no magic. I won’t be so fortunate next time.”

I want to scream at him to stop talking and go, but talking aloud seems to be part of his process. He needs to voice his thoughts in order to make decisions. I suppose we’re somewhat alike in that way.

“I know the carpet is waiting for us at the red gondola,” he muses. “I wish we could communicate with him somehow. Have either of us linked with him yet, I wonder? Maybe I could try calling to him.”

He clears his throat and inhales like he’s actually going to yell for the carpet, which would be incredibly stupid. Fortunately he apparently thinks better of it and opts for a quiet, “Severin?” instead of a shout.

For a moment he waits, standing between me and the bodies of the two men he killed. He seems unbothered by their deaths. Were those the first lives he has taken? If so, the impact of what he did will probably hit him later.

If there is a later. If we manage to get out of this city at all.

He’s right about the gondolas and the bridge being watched. Which makes this city a death trap.

If we can get the carpet back, we could try riding it out of here. But even with a carpet in perfect shape, the wind currents above the gorge and along the cliffs are considered too dangerous for such a mode of travel. The air might seem calm, but a gust can come rushing through like a battering ram, knocking riders off their carpets or wyverns. Besides which, our carpet is damaged. Trying to flee Zeletas on it would be suicide.

Of all the stupid ways to design a city, the founders of Zeletas chose the worst. Sure, their precious mountain fortress might be difficult to invade, but it’s also fucking hard to escape. In prioritizing defensive security, they created a prison. And I brought the last surviving member of the Molloi dynasty into this death trap. If he perishes here, it will be my fault.

Vawn slings the bags over his shoulder and picks me up again. When I try to move my lips, they twitch slightly, which is encouraging. I should regain most of my motor functions over the next half hour.

I try shaping the same word Vawn did. It’s merely a breath, combined with a tugging thought, an unspoken wish. “Severin.”

Something chimes in my head. That’s the only way to describe it—it’s a soft, quick sound, like a tiny bell rung only once.

I can’t tell Vawn. I barely managed to form that single word, and I don’t think he heard it.

The prince keeps trudging up the slope, heading for the next street, probably hoping to put some distance between us and the soldiers’ bodies. But we’ve barely turned the corner when a streak of pink and blue light appears a few blocks away, dipping and swerving even though there are no obstacles in sight. The carpet appears to be trying to stay in the shadows, beneath awnings and overhangs, but it keeps having to pause and find its bearings.

I watch it approach, my head lolling over the curve of Vawn’s bicep. Judging by his quickened pace, he sees the carpet, too.

“By the fates, it worked,” he mutters. “I actually summoned him.”

I groan inwardly. He’s going to be peeved when he finds out I’m the one who has a link with the carpet, not him.