Page 33 of These Vile Hearts

Suddenly, a hand grabs my wrist, twisting until a sizzle of pain shoots up my arm. The blade clatters to the floor. My lips sever from the king’s as I’m yanked to my feet by someone unseen, someone who twists my arm behind my back and presses a curved blade much larger than mine to my throat. Then this delicate dance fractures around me.

The king stares from me to the dagger on the floor. When his eyes meet mine again, I watch as the drawbridge rises. And just like that, he’s locked himself back up.

He retrieves his half mask, securing it over his face once again. Then he approaches me and whoever has a knife to my throat—a guard, I think. The one dressed all in black.

Frenzied panic frolics with fury in my gut as the king swipes my dagger off the floor, tossing it into the air and catching it by the hilt.

“Well, well.” He holds the blade to my temple. “Looks like it’s time to takeyourmasks off, darling.”

With a flick of his wrist, my golden shield falls away, skidding across the floor and leaving my face bare.

10

Castor

Retreating a step back from the red-haired viper locked in Tamarind’s hold, I slide the length of her blade through my fingers, avoiding the razor edge.

Looks like my instincts were right after all. For a moment there, I wasn’t so sure.

The mortal girl is all wildfire and bloodlust. Only seconds ago, her low, melodic voice lulled me into a false sense of security. But she hid behind that golden mask, like the one she’d so carefully removed from my face. Now her gilded shield is gone, and she stands before me barefaced and vulnerable. Except she’s the opposite of fragility.

Face the shape of a venom-filled heart. Hair the color of a flame in the middle of dry wood. Spots dotting her face like dried blood after a massacre. Silver eyes glinting at me, a pair of daggers sharper than the one she meant to drive through my heart.

And every last inch of her is dripping with gold.

“So. You thought you’d crash the Crown Masquerade and murder the Redwood King? Do you know the punishment for such a crime?”

Tamarind’s brows meet, and I shoot him the briefest of warning glances. If this mortal is going to fall in love with me, believing I’m the king rather thanthe cursed princewill make that task far easier. But first I’ll need to be sure she doesn’t gut me in my sleep.

The almost-murderess regards me with utter disdain, as she did before by the piles of confections. Though her mask is on the ground, it seems she’s managed to craft one all on her own. Invisible, yet just as effective. I sort of hate her for it. How easy she makes it look to appear indifferent.

“I can guess,” she says. “Luckily, I’ve committed no such crime.”

“Your intent was the same. The punishment is no less for those who don’t succeed.”

She lifts her chin in defiance. “Killing you was not my intent. I was just taking precautions. I’ve heard how you…how youarewith mortals.”

“From whom have you heard this?”

She goes still, showing no visible clue to the direction of her thoughts. “People talk rather loudly at parties.”

“Ah. So it was just happenstance that you ran into me while carrying a dagger, and that you overheard someone at this party say that I mistreat mortals. Is that right?”

“This is not my first dryad party, Your Majesty. Rumors spread like weeds through the two kingdoms, you know.”

Thetwokingdoms. If she is used to Myrtlewood dryads, then I can’t blame her too much for carrying a dagger. But I keep up the indignant king act. “Yes, well. You should not believe everything you hear.”

“I see that now.”

Sylveris forests are filled with the most eccentric of beings. Creatures who can morph into different animals, fae who sleep within flowers and ride on bumblebees, dryads that can camouflagethemselves perfectly among the trees to hide from a passing enemy. But an entirely lucid mortal who willingly attends a treetop masquerade as if it is commonplace? Nowthatis an oddity.

“Who did you come here with?”

She doesn’t move an inch. Though I imagine Tamarind’s scythe kissing her carotid has something to do with that. “I came alone.”

“And yet you can see us?”

“I’ve always been able to see dryads.” The almost resentful way in which she speaks makes me feel as though this is the only true statement she has uttered tonight.