Page 60 of Heartbreak Prince

“Why, Syth?” he whispers.

I step forward, out of his compelling presence. “We should go soon. Steros will have betrayed us immediately to the Redemptive Authority, or whatever they called themselves.”

“Anyone who tries to follow us through the tunnel will find the way impassable,” Vawn says. “They’ll have to leave Zeletas by the bridge or by gondola and work their way around the mountain, through the Crowfang Pass, to this side. And then they will have to figure out where we emerged. We have time to let our things dry, to sleep, and to eat something. You should definitely eat something.”

The moment he says it, I’m conscious of hunger in the pit of my stomach. Slowly I turn toward him, steeling myself against his beauty like a prisoner preparing to suffer torture.

His hair is still pulled halfway back, but pink strands have escaped, brushing against his high cheekbones. He’s holding out his left hand, one finger stained by the cost of the luck he used to save us.

The swell of emotion in my heart is as violent as it is unwelcome. I am not prepared to give my heart to yet another person who cannot love me back the way that I need to be loved. I gave my heart to my mother, and she took a piece of it with her. Another piece of my heart died when my father became someone I don’t recognize, someone who conflates his daughter with his wife. I will not open myself to the possibility of more pain without the promise of equal joy in return.

This journey with Vawn has an end. One or both of us could die. Or we could reach the Grey Province, get across the border to Tularesk, and seek help from the rulers there, the Twin Lieges. Once we reach their palace, Vawn will undergo the natural shift from my traveling companion to the rightful king of Belavrin. If I retain a place at his side, it will be solely as his dutiful bodyguard.

Lines are being crossed, boundaries are crumbling, and while I might not be able to stop it all, I can choose not to yield in moments like this, when it means something. When it’s more than just saucy taunts or playful seduction.

I avoid Vawn’s hand and step around him, fetching a couple tins of potted meat and a jar of fruit from one of the satchels. I toss him one of the tins, and he catches it.

With Severin hovering behind me, I settle down beside the fire. I open the jar and pull out a glistening slice of peach with my fingers, pretending not to notice how Vawn remains still and quiet, gazing down at the object in his hands as if something valuable has been taken from him, with a shitty substitute left in its place.

13

“I think I see another one.” I place a hand against Vawn’s chest, holding him back.

He groans. “Why are there so many?”

“Because it’s the fucking Red Mountains.” I scan our surroundings, trying to pierce the veil of purple and scarlet leaves that overlay most of the trees in this area. Blood ivy is a plague, a parasitic plant that creeps up living things and spreads itself over them, using their trunks and branches as a trellis so it can soak up all the available sun.

With the blood ivy comes a particularly nasty predator, the spidermaw. It burrows into the thickest part of a dying tree, either in the trunk or among the roots. From there, it extends long tendrils, similar to the parasitic vines, but sticky as a spider’s web. Each tendril bears scaly red or purple flakes in mimicry of the blood ivy.

Throughout the forest, blood ivy cloaks the trees and bushes and fills the spaces between them. It’s often difficult to tell whether a particular tangle of vines and leaves is just ivy, or if there’s a spidermaw enmeshed with it.

If a traveler makes a single mistake, they’ll find themselves stuck to the spidermaw’s tendrils, being wrapped ever tighter and drawn ever nearer to the creature’s mouth. Inside that mouth are thousands of tiny razor teeth, which begin grinding and sawing the second prey is caught. The teeth can reduce a full-grown human to red mist within a minute. The spatter feeds the ivy, which will absorb blood as readily as water.

My glyph set has saved our lives multiple times already, and it’s only our first full day traveling through the Red Mountains. We’ve used the carpet a few times to gain some ground and let my glyphs recharge, but the carpet is still erratic, and any flight longer than several minutes makes Vawn and me sick to our stomachs.

The carpet is suffering from the severance of his corner. While my stitch job worked temporarily, the wound is disrupting Severin’s energy. He’s having trouble speaking coherently, which distresses him. Repairing him isn’t just convenient for travel—it’s a matter of mercy.

According to Severin, we’re not far from Weaver’s Canyon, a village known for the manufacture of high-quality carpets. The place is difficult to reach on foot, accessible only by a narrow path along the side of the canyon for which it’s named. If we keep moving at our current pace and keep our nights short, we should reach it by sunset tomorrow. In Weaver’s Canyon, we can barter the vial of glyph paint for the services of a carpet weaver.

Once Severin is repaired, we won’t have to spend as much time trudging through the mountains on foot. We’ll be able to fly hours at a time, covering larger sections of the forested slopes and deep valleys. And we won’t have to pause every few minutes to either destroy or avoid one of the spidermaws.

I pinch the small cut on the back of my wrist with my teeth to refresh the flow of blood, and I use it to activate the attack glyph on the tip of my left index finger. A targeted shockwave bursts from my hand, causing the blood ivy leaves to shiver. Two dozen sticky tendrils shudder, detach from their weblike arrangement, and recoil, while high-pitched squeals erupt from two separate trees.

“A pair of them,” Vawn says. “I hate these woods.”

I swallow the bile and panic that threatens to climb my throat. Those tendrils extended much farther than I suspected. I saw the central tangle, but more outrunners extended to the left and right, far into the undergrowth on either side of the host trees. If we’d tried to circumvent the main web, we’d have been caught in the fringes of the spidermaws’ traps.

If my perception glyphs had been active, I would have noticed how far the pair of spidermaws extended. But I keep having to deactivate them to let my energy accumulate in my fingertips again, which makes our progress painfully slow. I have the same problem with three of my shockwave glyphs. Thankfully, Vawn’s two vibration glyphs have been unexpectedly helpful in disturbing the spidermaws and making them withdraw from our path.

The deeper we venture into the mountains, the colder it gets. Both of us are wearing cloaks, our breath issuing faintly white in the crisp air. Overhead, through the riot of scarlet and purple leaves, the sky is bright blue. If it weren’t so deadly, this place would be beautiful.

We move through the newly cleared opening, swishing aside the curtains of blood ivy.

“I can’t activate my perception glyphs again, not yet,” I tell Vawn. “Use yours and help me watch for more of them.”

Carefully we pick our way through the undergrowth. A dozen steps farther I have to clear another knot of spidermaws, using up the last of my available shockwave glyphs, until they recharge. We move slightly uphill, onto a rocky slope where trees are sparse and the ivy isn’t as pervasive. But the more open ground comes with its own risks.

“Walk as softly as you can,” I murmur to Vawn. “See the holes?”