Page 33 of Heartbreak Prince

“Feel what?”

“Everything. The sorrow, the agony, the despair. The loss of them. And the anger. So much of that.”

“Your lower glyph set… it controlled your emotions?”

He sits down on the edge of the bed. “About four years ago, I was tired of being wretched. Sick of trying to find a path for myself, sick of pursuing my father’s approval, sick of caring. I cared so much that I was paralyzed from within. I felt as if every day I was slogging through a great, interminable darkness, heading nowhere. I was this close to ending my life.” He holds up his thumb and forefinger, nearly touching. “So instead of killing myself, I designed a glyph set to change my own mentality.”

I step away from the wall, sit beside him on the edge of the bed, and fold my hands, waiting quietly for as much as he’s willing to share.

Vawn stretches out his legs. He has two rings on his toes—one on the second toe of his right foot, and another on the central toe of his left. Both are glyph-graven with symbols I don’t recognize.

“Every glyph was inward-facing, affecting me.” He points to each toe in turn, starting with the small one of his left foot. “Levity, lassitude, euphoria, neutrality, nonchalance, apathy, equanimity, calmness, humor, resilience. Variations on the same theme. The three symbols on my fingers, the ones you didn’t recognize, were also perpetual glyphs for cleverness, charm, and intuition.”

“And they remained active all the time?”

“Unless I temporarily deactivated them, yes.”

“That’s not possible. Your feet and your fingers look perfectly fine. How could your body withstand the drain on your energy? There’s always a cost, so how did you pay it?”

A faint, humorless laugh escapes his lips. “Oh, there’s a cost. One I’m more than willing to pay, considering the alternative. But it’s a price I have not revealed to a living soul. I’ve already confessed more to you than anyone else, so forgive me if I retain that secret for myself.”

“That’s fair.” I frown, still staring at his feet. “And you’re afraid that without your glyphs, you’re going to feel everything and sink back into that dark place again.”

“Precisely.” He gives me a half-smile. “I was on the edge of destruction back then, when I had everything. Now it’s all gone. You’ve vowed to keep me alive, sweetheart. Can you protect me from myself?”

The prince’s question hangs unanswered between us, long after we’ve taken our leave of the inn, retrieved the carpet, and pointed it north. Severin smells strongly of manure and refuses to speak to either of us, although he seems to relax a bit once the fresh air has flowed over his fibers for a while.

The terrain over which we’re sailing is mostly open farmland, which makes me nervous. My gaze keeps darting to each point of the compass. We’ve been in the air for less than an hour when I spot the thing I feared—another carpet. No, two of them, off to the east, and another flying object in the west, too far away for me to discern what it is.

“We need to get out of the sky,” I tell the carpet.

“We are nearly to the Farrow Foothills,” Severin says. “I can stay in the shadows of the copses and windbreaks until then.”

It’s risky, especially since, without magic or ranged weapons, we’ll be at the mercy of anyone who spots us. But if we roll up the carpet and travel on foot, our progress will be painfully slow, and that pace poses a risk of its own.

If it were a cloudy day, I’d suggest rising as high as the carpet can manage and staying within the cover of the clouds. But the day is clear and bright, with only a few flecks of white fluff in the sky.

“Keep to the trees when you can,” I say. “Once we get to the foothills, stay in the valleys and we’ll weave our way through. I still think Zeletas is our best bet for finding work, clothes, and supplies. If the people behind this coup know the prince well, as I suspect they do, they might guess that he’s headed for Anyssir Castle, and possibly to the northern border. Zeletas is not on the main road to Crowfang Pass, nor is it directly on the way to Anyssir Castle, so they might not expect us to stop there.”

“It’s a day’s journey out of the way if you’re heading to Crowfang Pass,” comments the carpet. “Zeletas is a destination you visit for trade or tourism, not a city you travel through on the way to somewhere else.”

“Exactly. And with fashion so highly prized there, we might be able to pawn a couple of your less notable pieces of jewelry, your Highness. Glyph paint and varnish will also be plentiful since the Rauveron Guild headquarters is located there. It will still be expensive, though. Maybe I can do a touch pod at the Blue Feline to pay for it… although taking a couple clients to bed would be far more lucrative—”

“No.” The word is a dangerous snarl, straight from the prince’s throat.

I had no real intention of letting any strangers inside me, but his swift command stirs my rebellion. “It’s my choice, not yours.”

“I’m your prince, soon to be your king, and I will not allow it.”

I clench my jaws to hold in my sharp retort. So far, Vawn has given me ample liberty in the way I speak to him, but when he reminds me of his rank in that tone, my training compels me to submit.

We’re skimming the edge of a strawberry field, gliding along a fence line, winking in and out of the shadows of the occasional trees. Something shivers in the air near us, a sparkling crackle of energy that lifts the hair on my arms.

It’s the aura of attack magic that barely missed its target.

Without bothering to look behind, I wrap my hands around the carpet’s grips and scream, “Go!”

Vawn grabs my waist just in time as the carpet shoots forward, leaping from his traveling pace into the same breath-stealing speed he used when we fled from the Lyre & Vice. He won’t be able to maintain this pace forever without a rest and a recharge, but I have no idea how long he can keep it up. I should have listened more closely during his lecture on carpet manufacture and mechanics.