Page 27 of Wicked Prince of Shadows (Wicked Princes #2)

He grunted as he rifled through more papers.

“Things…heal in this place. If you can call it healing.

But the magic takes something every time this happens, and it happens at midnight each night.

The more something is damaged, the more it loses.

Our walls were once covered with colorful murals and tiles.

The gardens overflowed with flowers and herbs of all types.

Every time the behemoth or anything else attacks that destroys sections of the palace, the walls and architecture and furniture are restored but with less of what made them what they were.

The magic of the Witheringlands works with ours to restore the palace and provides enough to meet our needs.

Barely sometimes. More generously in others.

But it always takes color and vibrance."

His tone grew more plaintive as he spoke.

"The Hall of Memorials once held portraits of those who served, and now there remains nothing but blank canvases. The charcoal sketches and ink drawings have longer in comparison, but when they are destroyed and reformed, they too lose their depth and nuance. Color fades no matter what, but even the distinguishing features are erased into…nothingness. Torn pages may not be restored with all their text. Broken tablets may not have all of their marks. It erases what separates us and drains us of our lives until some things turn simply to dust and ash.”

An uncomfortable sensation twisted within my stomach.

He continued sifting through pages, setting some aside and stacking others in front of him.

“It’s been crushing for all those with artistic magic like Osric.

There was a time when we tried to best it by working in more textures and layers.

Carvings and embellishments provided some sort of connection.

But those started to be erased as well. The paintings I mentioned before…

some frames soon became no more than blocks.

Each time something is destroyed, its restoration is flatter and duller. ”

A shiver swept down my spine as I tried to imagine the palace not stripped of its beauty and individuality. All I saw in my mind were blank canvases, dull stone, empty walls. A kingdom bled of its life.

“Like it’s being hollowed out,” I murmured. I curled my fingers into the folds of my skirt, knuckles lightening as I held back what I wanted to say.

His head lifted sharply, eyes flashing. The intensity of his stare pinned me where I crouched, heat rising beneath my skin. “Exactly that.” His voice was low, roughened.

He leaned closer, his shadow spilling over me, his claws rasping faintly against parchment as he sifted through another stack. The scent of smoke and pomegranate clung to him, sharp and heady in the close air.

My lashes lowered, my gaze dragging to his mouth before I snapped it away. He was handsome in a sharp way.

It was hard not to wonder how he might have looked when he wasn’t cursed and hollowed.

Perhaps in those days he also had claws and smoky skeletal wings.

Perhaps his eyes were a different shade, a deeper, richer amber.

I could imagine him dressed in vibrant colors instead of somber darkness.

His hair might have been a different shade too—perhaps a rich brown or deep auburn instead of the stark black it was now.

His smile would have likely been less barbed, his manner more unguarded. Still casually arrogant most likely but the kind of person easily moved by another’s weeping plight.

I realized I was staring just as he looked up at me. His gaze locked on mine—still and unreadable, but something had shifted. The usual bite wasn’t there.

No mocking smile.

No cruel flicker.

Just a long, quiet look that made my pulse stutter.

Heat crept up my neck. “H-how have you managed to survive so long? Without losing your mind, I mean.”

His eyes dipped. I felt it more than saw it—the slow sweep over my mouth, the curve of my jaw, the pulse fluttering at my throat. “We remember. So long as the memory exists, some part of it carries on.”

His mouth tilted, not quite a smile. Something smaller. Slower. Like he hadn’t decided yet whether to mean it. He shifted his weight toward me.

I bent to reach for the scattered pages, needing a break in the tension—or an anchor in it. My fingers grazed parchment. His brushed mine.

I flinched. Not from pain, but from the shock of coolness. His skin against mine startled me, but I didn’t hate it.

He stilled.

So did I.

When I looked up, he was watching me—eyes sharp, unreadable. But not unfeeling.

“What do you call me in your mind, Sabine?” he said, voice barely louder than a breath. “After all that has happened, what am I to you? Wretch? Hollow? Evil? Bastard?”

There was more to the question than what he was saying. I remained in place, hands on my knees. “What would you have me call you?”

“Vetle. I am Vetle.”

“Vetle,” I repeated softly. I’d heard the others use his name with his title, though he had simply said it now to me as if his name were equal to mine.

The name tasted strange on my tongue, sharper than I expected but not unpleasant. Not the title of a monster or a curse or a king. Just a man.

He inhaled as though I’d struck him but made no move to pull away. His hand hovered near mine.

“What does it mean?” I asked, trying to focus more on the pages in the rubble. I shifted a little to the left but closer to him to reach some of the pages that were under the table leg.

“Nothing impressive. Simply 'winter traveler.' For an uncle who passed into the north and never returned. What does Sabine mean?”

I paused, my fingers brushing against a torn edge of parchment, a rueful smile tugging at my mouth. “Sabine? It just means 'of the Sabine people.' My mother…she heard it from a traveling merchant, and she loved it.”

“But you did not?”

I frowned at his question. How had he picked up on that?

The truth was I hated it. I’d only come to terms with it after her passing because it reminded me of her and her zeal for life and how one small thing could delight her.

“I would have preferred a name with deeper meaning. But…it has grown on me.”

“You have the kind of spirit which gives meaning to your own name.”

My gaze snapped up to his once more, startled by the gentleness in his voice.

The way he said it—without mockery, without that sharp edge—caught me off guard.

I ducked my head, pretending to study the scattered pages more intently.

"That's... kind of you to say," I managed, my voice smaller than I intended.

He made a low sound in his throat, not quite a laugh but close.

"I'm rarely accused of kindness these days.

Ah. Found it." He pulled free a roll of parchment, unrolling it carefully. The edges were worn, and the surface was covered in strange symbols and markings. “It isn’t damaged much. You can see what it says.”

He turned the parchment over and then spread it out on the broken slab of table where both of us could see and gestured for me to come closer.

I moved closer, kneeling beside him with care as he smoothed the parchment flat.

His shoulder brushed mine, and I caught my breath.

There wasn’t time for this. Even if he and I married one another on the last day of the blood moon’s cycle, it wasn’t as if there was anything between us.

He’d likely send me on my way as soon as his people were freed and restored to the Waking Lands. I forced my focus onto the page.

The symbols etched across the page were unlike anything I'd seen before. It was something between pictographs and hieroglyphics. It was done in three parts with a great figure stretching over the top.

“Your Queen Tanith said that the Witheringlands was formed because a demon lost his love, but it was an eidon,” Vetle said, tapping his claws against the parchment. “You know what eidons are?”

I nodded. I’d seen them a few times, always hard to spot unless you knew how to look for them.

They were spirits who walked through the layers of the realms, never fully present in a single one.

Not so high as the Maker or his warriors but cultivators of the natural world.

“My family has always drawn strength when they are near. It’s why I asked if there was one. They seem to love plants.”

“Well, there was once one here,” he said.

“But now it is her tomb.” He gestured toward the open window as the moon rose higher.

“Chaori and Aerithyn. I’d heard legends before our kingdom was brought to this place.

In the one we were told, a war broke out among the eidons and perhaps others, depending on which version you hear.

Chaori and Aerithyn loved one another beyond all knowledge and reason.

Some warned them against the all-consuming nature of their love and the danger of cutting themselves off from their communities, especially when war was tearing everything apart.

But their love overcame that, and they escaped to some place quiet and peaceful. But war is not so easily escaped.”

As he spoke, the glass on the floor started moving.

It rolled back toward the mirror as the table slowly shifted.

Slowly the pieces were moving back together, but as he had said before, they were smoothing out, losing traces of imperfections and nuance that had once made them what they were.

I shifted away and stood as the table started to push up.

My skin crawled, this active magic uncomfortable to be around. “The war found them then?”

He nodded. “It did. And somehow in that conflict, Aerithyn was struck down. Her body formed the Witheringlands that trap us here now and Chaori enacted the curse when no one would help them.” He stood as well, lifting the parchment and stepped back.

"Why did no one help them?" I asked, surprised.