Chapter 5

“What is your name?”

The low, melodic voice was impossibly gentle.

The clumsy bouquet Kosha had picked himself looked even more pitiful in his enormous, soot-stained hands. Humiliating heat rushed into his face, and like a complete, stammering fool, he found himself unable to answer such a simple question.

“K-Kosha,” he finally managed to force out.

It must have sounded utterly pathetic to a prince. Yet, to Kosha’s surprise, the beautiful man did not sneer or recoil in disgust.

“Ah, Kosha,” Lucien repeated softly.

Kosha remained frozen, unable to summon another syllable.

Lucien accepted the flowers with a smile. “Thank you.”

Instead of dismissing him, the prince had repeated Kosha’s name with careful, deliberate precision. He had not lazily settled for the standard Izelandic pronunciation, but had used the particular Allohen inflection Kosha himself had spoken since childhood.

The distinction was so subtle that anyone unfamiliar with the regional language would have missed it entirely. To Kosha’s ears, however, it was unmistakable and achingly beautiful.

In that breathtaking moment, Kosha could no longer tell whether the glittering white brilliance behind Lucien was merely afternoon sunlight or the divine halo said to appear above the heads of the noblest souls.

The custom of presenting fresh flowers to knights who had distinguished themselves in bloody battles or grand hunting festivals had only become widespread after Lucien’s rapid rise to fame.

Most of those offering bouquets were blushing young women or starry-eyed little boys, but after following Lucien’s exploits obsessively for an entire year, Kosha had begun to yearn for the chance to give him something as well. Whether a knight accepted the flowers remained entirely his own choice, although Lucien and the loyal knights who followed him generally received such gifts with grace.

Armed with that knowledge, Kosha had finally gathered what little courage he possessed.

He had assembled the wild bouquet himself with painstaking, almost agonizing care.

For the chance to place those fragile flowers in Lucien’s hands, he had stood shivering outside the city gates since the first light of dawn. He had fought to secure the best possible place along the crowded procession route, enduring every harsh shove and painful jostle from the mob without a word of complaint. Yet when the long-awaited moment finally came, his fraying nerves shook him so badly that he could not even bring himself to look Lucien properly in the face.

Still, Lucien had not rejected the flowers merely because they came from a hulking, soot-blackened peasant like Kosha. He had accepted them willingly and then asked for his name.

Lucien made a polite habit of asking the name of everyone who brought him flowers, so there had been nothing objectively remarkable about their brief exchange. Experiencing it for himself, however, had made Kosha feel as though he were somehow extraordinary.

I gave him flowers. I gave them to that radiant, beautiful man.

Lucien had looked directly at his filthy face, listened closely to his name, and remembered it. More than that, he had pronounced it perfectly.

How long had it been since anyone said my name that way?

Not since my beloved nurse died all those years ago.

His lonely heart had swelled until the joy became almost painful. The memory was so sweet and warm that it carried him through the brutal winter that followed. By now, he no longer knew how many bitter winters, scorching summers, gentle springs, and fading autumns he had endured simply by clinging to that single encounter.

Does someone only count as a savior if they drag you back from the brink of death?

Before he could answer his own question, a sharp, violent sound ripped through the tense air of the bedchamber.

Clatter!

An ornate golden cup, perfectly balanced and exquisitely crafted, struck the cold stone floor with a deafening ring.

Kneeling nearby, Kosha recoiled instinctively, his head snapping back like a frightened snail prodded with a sharp twig.

Rattle, rattle.

The empty metal cup rolled to a pitiful stop beside him.

It had contained the precious antidote Kosha had guarded throughout the night. He had brewed the rare ingredients with painstaking care, waiting for the first sliver of pale dawn moonlight so he could extract only their purest essence. At Kosha’s desperate insistence, the supposed antidote had been divided into three separate doses.

In truth, he had begged rather than insisted.

Lucien and his heavily armed retainers had been deeply reluctant to approve such a risky, multistage treatment, but what other choice did they have when no one understood the source of the magical affliction?

Kosha had no option but to treat the symptoms blindly, while the royal guard had no other competent mage willing to take his place. The first dose had produced no effect whatsoever, proving an unequivocal and humiliating failure.

The cup on the floor had held the second attempt.

Lucien had accepted the delicate, glowing green liquid Kosha offered him in a silver cup and swallowed it in a single, smooth draught without the slightest hesitation. Perhaps the powerful medicine had begun to work through his system and brought on a sudden wave of dizziness, because he immediately pressed one elegant hand to his brow.

A silence so complete and oppressive that even the faintest breath seemed to vanish settled over the suffocating room.

Through the narrow gaps between Lucien’s long, slender fingers, Kosha found himself staring directly into those sharp, predatory bluish-gray eyes.

Without warning, Lucien hurled the empty cup across the room. The heavy gold narrowly missed Kosha’s skull. Judging by its lethal trajectory, the prince had restrained himself at the final instant and diverted the throw away from the mage’s face.

A long breath of intense irritation escaped Lucien’s lips.

“No effect,” he spat. “It wastes my precious time, and it tastes like absolute shit.”

Terrified, Kosha remained utterly silent, his knees pressed hard against the floor.

“You damned, useless idiot.”

Lucien dragged a hand through his immaculate blond hair, the motion rough with mounting frustration as he glared down at the kneeling mage.

No one else in the heavily guarded room dared breathe too freely, yet Kosha continued stealing furtive, mesmerized glances at the furious prince. Strands of hair like splintered sunlight slipped between Lucien’s long, immaculate fingers before falling in disarray across his pale, straight brow.

It was shameless, especially under the circumstances, but lately, Kosha had found himself staring at Lucien whenever he thought no one would notice. At first, because he still possessed some faint instinct for self-preservation and sanity, he had fought desperately to control his wandering gaze.

That had quickly proven impossible.

Under the dark potion’s twisted influence, Lucien had become almost unrecognizable. He carried himself with a brutal coarseness that would once have seemed unimaginable in the kingdom’s beloved hero. At times, the vile obscenities spilling so casually from his perfect mouth were vulgar enough to make even hardened veteran soldiers flinch.

During the first few days, Kosha had simply been astonished that the noble Lucien knew such filthy words existed.

The prince’s expressions had changed just as drastically. His brow seemed permanently furrowed, his irritation emerged in open and aggressive glares, and his lips frequently curled into cruel, scornful smiles. None of those dark expressions belonged to the gentle Lucien whom everyone in the kingdom knew and loved.

Kosha had never cared for abrasive or violent people, yet when such harsh mannerisms appeared on someone so impossibly radiant, the result was still breathtaking. Besides, he reminded himself, this monster was not the real Lucien. It was only a temporary counterfeit personality created by the botched potion, one that would disappear entirely once the final antidote succeeded.

If that is true, would it really be so strange to want to remember this dangerous side of him?

No one else in the world had ever seen Lucien behave this way, and once the antidote worked, no one ever would again. At his darkest moments, Kosha even found himself thinking that being granted such a rare and exclusive glimpse of Lucien’s impossible hidden self made the beatings and suffering almost bearable.

“Y-Your Highness.” Kosha raised his head by barely an inch. “May I examine you for a moment?”

Lucien said nothing. His gaze remained cold and flat.

“This particular medicine was not meant to take effect immediately,” Kosha hurried on, desperate to fill the silence. “It should, well… liquefy the magical influence already circulating through your veins, in a sense, and then…”

Although he trembled so violently that he looked as though a bolt of lightning might strike him dead at any moment, Kosha forced himself to continue explaining the theory.

Lucien merely stared down at him, his piercing gaze seeming to dissect every secret thought concealed inside the mage’s head. At last, the prince lifted one hand in a gesture of weary, arrogant impatience.