The broken prince

A DARK FAE FANTASY ROMANCE He was cursed to lose everyone he loved. She was the first woman who made him want to risk everything. Prologue A Heart Made for Mourning The first time Vaelorin Auvareth watched someone die because of him, he was twenty-three years old. He remembered the rain. Not the priest's trembling hands, nor the blood staining the white marble, nor even the terrible silence that followed the final breath. The rain was what remained. It tapped against the palace windows while Vaelorin knelt beside the woman he loved, holding her cold fingers between his own and begging her to wake. She never did. And somewhere beneath the ancient foundations of Auvaryn, something that had been sleeping for a thousand years opened its eyes. Six years later, the prince had become very good at surviving. He survived assassination attempts, political betrayals, three wars along the northern border and a succession of royal dinners so tedious that even death seemed a reasonable alternative. He survived the whispers, too. The Hollow Prince. The King's Beautiful Mistake. The Immortal Who Brings Death to His Bed. That last one had earned a courtier a broken nose. Vaelorin hadn't killed him. He was trying to be better about such things. At twenty-nine, Vaelorin looked much as he had at twenty-three. Immortality preserved the faces of the royal fae, though it did nothing to preserve their happiness. His black hair fell carelessly over his forehead, his eyes were the pale grey of winter skies, and a thin scar crossed his left palm—a mark left by a curse no royal physician had managed to explain. He wore black to court. He had worn black to court for six years. Nobody had been brave enough to suggest another colour. Nobody except Perrin. "Have you considered blue?" his oldest friend asked one morning. Vaelorin didn't look up from the documents spread across his desk. "Have you considered silence?" "Frequently. I've found it doesn't suit me." "Neither does breathing, but here we are." Perrin grinned and dropped into a chair. Unlike the prince, Perrin had the good sense to look his age. His dark curls were perpetually untidy, his smile was entirely too pleased with itself, and his loyalty to Vaelorin had survived every terrible decision the prince had ever made. Which was unfortunate, because Vaelorin made terrible decisions with remarkable consistency. Perrin glanced at the stack of unopened invitations. "The spring masquerade is in four days." "Condolences to everyone involved." "You have to attend." "I am the crown prince. I have to do many things. Attending a room full of people who dislike me is not one of them." "Technically, they fear you." "That is not better." "Well, no. But it is considerably more flattering." Vaelorin signed a document. Perrin watched him for a moment, his expression softening. "You cannot spend the rest of eternity hiding in this room." "I can certainly try." "And what happens when you find someone you want to spend it with?" The quill stopped. For a heartbeat, the room seemed colder. Vaelorin set the quill down. "That," he said quietly, "is precisely what I intend to avoid." Perrin's smile disappeared. Neither of them spoke of the woman who had died in his arms. Neither of them spoke of the prophecy that had followed her death, written in a language older than the kingdom itself. But both remembered its final line. Love him, and death shall learn your name. On the fourth night, the bells of Auvaryn rang for the masquerade. And far below the royal palace, a young woman was stealing something that had been buried for a thousand years. Her name was Nimara. She was twenty-six, an excellent liar, a tolerable thief and, by her own estimation, an outstanding judge of character. Her current employer had described the task as simple. Enter the palace archives. Retrieve a small silver key. Leave without being noticed. Her employer had neglected to mention the armed guards, the enchanted doors or the enormous black wolf sleeping in front of the archive entrance. Nimara stared at the wolf. The wolf opened one golden eye. "Oh, don't look at me like that," she whispered. "I didn't design the security arrangements." The wolf yawned. Nimara took a piece of sugared meat from her pocket. The wolf's ears rose. "Good. We understand each other." She tossed it. The wolf caught it, swallowed, and went back to sleep. Nimara smiled triumphantly. Then the wolf's tail knocked over a bronze vase. The crash echoed through the corridor. Somewhere above her, a guard shouted. Nimara closed her eyes. "Excellent," she whispered. "Absolutely flawless." She ran. The silver key was not where her employer had said it would be. Instead, it lay inside a glass case beneath an inscription in the old fae tongue. The case was surrounded by a faint blue shimmer that made the hairs on Nimara's arms rise. She knew a little about magic. Enough to recognise a warning. Not enough to know whether ignoring it would kill her. She studied the inscription. What is taken by love shall be returned by blood. "Cheerful people, your ancestors," she muttered. She reached for the key. The glass shattered. Every candle in the archive went out. And a voice behind her said, "I would strongly advise you not to move." Nimara froze. Slowly, she turned. A man stood in the doorway, dressed entirely in black. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and so unnervingly still that for one absurd moment she wondered whether he was a statue someone had forgotten to finish. Then he stepped into the moonlight. Oh. Oh, that was unfortunate. He was beautiful. Not in the harmless, pretty way of paintings and court poets, but in the sort of way that suggested the gods had created him out of vanity and then regretted giving him a personality. Black hair. Pale eyes. A mouth that looked as though it had forgotten how to smile. And a sword. Nimara looked at the sword. Then at him. "Before you say anything," she began, "I can explain." "Can you?" "Certainly." "Wonderful. Explain." She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. His eyebrows lifted. "An impressive beginning." Nimara straightened. "I was looking for the lavatory." "In the sealed royal archives?" "I have a complicated relationship with directions." He stared at her. She stared back. Then, to her horror, his gaze dropped to the silver key clenched in her fist. The temperature in the room fell. "Put it down," he said. Something in his voice had changed. The dry amusement was gone. What remained was cold enough to freeze the blood in her veins. Nimara tightened her fingers around the key. "May I ask why?" "Because I am asking you politely." "Ah." She glanced at the sword again. "I see we have different definitions of politely." He took one step forward. The shadows followed him. Nimara's heart began to pound. She had stolen from merchants, smugglers and one particularly unpleasant baron. She had once escaped a prison wagon by convincing its driver that he had accidentally kidn*pped his own aunt. But this man— This man looked as though he had personally invented consequences. "Your name," he demanded. "Nimara." "Your full name." "That depends on who's asking." His expression became positively glacial. "Vaelorin Auvareth." The name struck her harder than the cold. The crown prince. Of course. Of course the one night she decided to steal from a palace, she managed to rob the most dangerous man in the kingdom. Nimara considered her options. Apologise? Unwise. Run? Probably impossible. Throw the key at him and hope he appreciated the gesture? Unlikely. She chose honesty. Mostly. "I think," she said carefully, "we have both had a rather disappointing evening." For one second, Vaelorin simply looked at her. Then he laughed. It was brief, startled and so entirely unexpected that Nimara forgot to be frightened. His face changed when he laughed. The severity eased, revealing something younger beneath it. Something almost warm. Then the expression vanished. And the prince was cold again. "Give me the key." Nimara held it out. He reached for it. Their fingers touched. The effect was immediate. A sharp pulse of silver light burst between their hands. The key burned hot in Nimara's palm, and a strange warmth travelled up her wrist. Vaelorin recoiled as though he had been struck. For the first time since she had entered the room, he looked genuinely afraid. The mark on his palm—the scar he had carried for six years—began to glow. Nimara stared at it. Then at her own hand. A delicate silver line had appeared across her skin. "What," she whispered, "was that?" Vaelorin didn't answer. He was staring at her as though she had risen from a grave. "No," he said. It wasn't an order. It was a prayer. Nimara swallowed. "No what?" He seized her wrist, then immediately loosened his grip when she flinched. His eyes flicked to her face. "Does it hurt?" She shook her head. "Are you certain?" "Your Highness, I assure you that if I were dying, I would be considerably more dramatic about it." He didn't smile. Instead, he turned her hand towards the light, examining the silver mark with an expression she couldn't read. Then he whispered a word in the old language. The mark brightened. Somewhere in the palace, a bell rang. P Once. Twice. Seven times. Vaelorin went utterly still. Nimara had never seen a living person look so frightened. "What does that mean?" she asked. He released her hand. For a moment, she thought he might answer. Instead, he stepped back, his face closing behind an invisible wall. "It means," he said, "that you are coming with me." Nimara lifted her chin. "And if I refuse?" His gaze met hers. There was no threat in it now. Only a terrible, exhausted certainty. "Then I will have to spend the rest of the evening persuading you." She should have been terrified. She was terrified. But beneath the fear, beneath the confusion and the absurd urge to comment on his very distracting face, something else stirred. Curiosity. Because the crown prince of Auvaryn had looked at her as though she were the answer to a question he had spent six years praying nobody would ask. And Nimara had the uncomfortable feeling that her life had just become much more complicated. End of Chapter One