The Cornish Princess by Tanya Anne Crosby
ChapterThirty-Nine
The last rays of sunlight glanced off the armor on her gilded mount—a gift from her prince, as majestic as she… The Dragon Princess, for whom his heart burned, and for whom the land yearned. But if there was a choice to be made between them, he was destined to lose.
The burden on his back was twofold—his own heavy sword and the sword of his people. But neither lay heavier nor cut more deeply than the burden he now carried in his heart.
She is not your destiny,he told himself.
But you already knew that, didn’t you?
What made you believe you alone could turn the hand of fate?Thanks be to a youngling princess for keeping her head better than you.
This was all he cared to see. Now that it was done, he could leave.
Shifting the weight of one sword from his back to his shoulder, he turned from the celebration, heading northeast along the Small Road, his back to the city, his eyes to the sea.
Alas, though he was not a seer, it didn’t take one to understand Gwendolyn’s journey was only beginning, and her trials, as well.
“Gorthugher da,” said Esme, materializing by his side. With long, graceful fingers, she shoved back her blood-red cowl and grinned, revealing sharp, savage teeth to mirror his own.
As stunning as she was—as cunning as she was—Málik now found her beauty a much paler shade, like shimmering pearls against a vivid flame.
“I have the sword,” he told her crossly, displeased with her presence, yet knowing this was what she’d come to find out. If he gave her what she sought, perhaps she would leave.
“Yes, I see,” she said excitedly, and her ensuing laughter was sharp, like a cackle. “Does it burn for you the way she does?”
“It does not,” Málik said, but lower, “Neither does she.”
“You mustn’t allow yourself to be chased by the shadows in your mind, young drus. Remember, we were born for this.”
For what?
To watch an innocent fall prey to her mortal enemy?
Feeling betrayed, Málik refused to speak again.
Once before, he was sent to intervene against the Fates and he failed. The Trojans were not to be trusted. And Gwendolyn was not the first they would use.
Too long without the practice of using her feet, Esme glided along beside him. “There is a charm to the forbidden that renders it unspeakably desirable,” she suggested. As though this would be the reason he did not choose her—the woman his own sire would see him wed.
“Málik,” she said, more soberly, a note of pain in her voice. “Your enemy does not come cloaked with pointed ears. It comes to you as the one thing you most desire.”
Not you,he wanted to say, but he continued to ignore her, placing one foot firmly in front of the other, stubbornly using his limbs because if he stopped now—if he gave himself over to the Aether, he had a fear that he would fade from this realm, become only a specter, and then a memory, too soon to be forgotten.
“She is not Helen,” Esme suggested, and old wounds bled afresh.
No, she wasn’t. Gwendolyn was nothing like that lady. She was sweet and innocent and far too uncertain of herself to understand the sway she held, whereas Helen had been a siren, playing kingdom against kingdom, friend against friend.
Even so, Gwendolyn, too, would lure a wooden horse into her father’s gates, and Esme was the one who, both times, had orchestrated his collusion.
“Go away,” he said. “Tell my father I am on my way.”
Her voice held a pleading note. “You will disappoint him if you tarry.”
“It is not me he wishes to see, but this sword, and it comes when I come,” he said. “Now, leave me.”
“As you wish,” she relented with a sigh, and her fading was not gentle, more like a tear from this realm, a bandage ripped from a wound.
Alas, everything she’d said was true. His only comfort was this: Gwendolyn was where she should be. The dragon banners were united, and someday… his golden princess would be Pretania’s queen.