I glance up through bleary eyes. Littering the ground like fallen puppets are cloaked figures are on the ground. Fairies plop from orbs, fluttering to the ground, their wide eyes darting around, their multi-hued and colorful dresses and hair in tatters and their cheeks sunken. But they are free.

Some gather their more anemic brothers and sisters in their arms and flutter for the exits.

I connect to each thread, showing them Silver and connecting him with hope and a way to be out of this terrible place.

This is what you do. You set others free, as The King has set you free.

The fairies flutter near, some landing on Silver’s shoulders and making him look like some sort of fairy tree or a Naming Tree with different bulbs of waterlights attached. A smile almost tips my lips as he glances at them, both eyebrows raised as more and more stream to him.

You are where it all begins, sis. You have set hundreds of little sprites free with one small act. It may not change the world, but for those hundreds, you’ve changed their world.

I’m just so tired, sis.

She whimpers, feeling my indifference and broken spirit as her own. But that is mostly the Curse talking, my Gift retreating beneath placid waters to rest. But not before she trails a gentle hand down my spirit tree, and it pulses with a gentle glow I feel to the tips of my fingers. I send her the last warmth within me for thanks of helping me, for thanks of standing with me instead of against me.

We are stronger together. Oh so much stronger.

Silver glances at me one last time, eyes showing panic and fear as the sprites cling to his shirt and some even crawl up his black pants. His chest heaves and the knives he holds is coated in black blood from those laying at his feet.

He stands frozen, unable to move as the tiny beings cling to the little hope I’ve given them. I connect with his thread and send one word ringing through his soul with all the desperation I hold for him and the sprites. Go, I whisper to his soul, clinging to my emotions as cold numbness tries to change all I feel to apathy, but for a moment in time I stop the numbness to send him one emotion that sends him thrumming with surprise I both feel and see.

I love him. His assassin, princely self with the hidden depths he shadows from even those closest to him so they can’t see the overwhelming responsibilities he holds. So they don’t burden themselves with worry over him. But I see it. I see him, because in him, I see some of myself. But he also has a quality to him, something like serene confidence and pride but that holds his soul in a way that makes it impossible for him to stand aside when he sees injustice. It makes him, him. And I love him for it and it’s why he will be an amazing king when the time comes.

His eyes show his turmoil, his face stricken with his pain, for once the full depth of his emotions covering his face, and oh, how I wish I could actually enjoy the love there without the pain etching every crease in his beautiful face.

He walks over with stiffness in every part of his body, his regal, languid grace leaving him in that moment. He cradles the back of my head, touching his lips to my forehead as the clank of swords and pounding of footsteps echoes down a passageway behind the witch, who stares at me, trying to reach me through my thread, but Ran reaches through and strangles her for a moment as something desperate sinks it’s fangs into my soul.

Before Silver pulls back, I grab his shirt inches from one of the sprites and making her squeak and flutter blue wings, and draw him down.

I hit my nose on his chin and only his cat-like reflexes and strong muscles save me and the fairies from being Silver-smash.

When I glance up, embarrassed, the planes of his eyes soften and his eyes twinkle with life despite the sorrow furrowing his brow. I tug on his shirt and he leans over, tilting his head so his lips connect with mine in a desperate yearning I’ve longed for but didn’t allow myself to feel… but also with a soft tenderness that makes the numbness recede for a small, blissful moment in time as my entire being is lit from the inside out and tingles race from where his thumb rubs circles on my cheek and his palm cradles my face, holding me as if I were precious glass.

I melt in his arms, sparks of light dancing in my soul and Ran howling something in her language. Something I surely don’t care to make out. Shivers of delight race up and down my spine.

Mouth to mouth isn’t so bad, after all.

Ran groans in my head. Of course my rider had to declare her love in a life and death situation.

I smile against Silver’s soft lips, and he pulls back, his eyes soft and glimmering with blue instead of his usual silver and somehow the planes of his face seem… different. Softer, the creases of his brow absent but the sorrow in his eyes a bittersweet reminder of where we are.

My eyes flick to his lips, which turn in a gentle smile as his thumb continues to make me melt.

“I won’t leave you,” he whispers, touching his forehead to mine as my lips tingle and his breath mingles with my own. His smell of knife oil and leather and pine surrounds me and gives me peace for a moment in time that seems to defy all odds and suspends us there, clinging to each other body and soul in a way I never would’ve allowed before, but now wonder why the heck I waited so long.

He gathers me in his arms, the fairies squeaking in surprise and moving quickly to keep from being smushed.

“Silver, one of us must make it out,” I whisper.

He snorts, and this time I’m the one rained with snot as he carries me bridal style out the door. “You won’t be a martyr while I’m around, little idiota.”

I give him a small smile, my heart warming in my chest and something strangely jumping in my stomach as I can’t figure out where to put my hands and end up squeezing them together over my stomach. My face warms. “I can walk, ya know.”

“Of course you can walk. You’d run back to the fight if I let you.”

I hold in the eye roll. Barely. “Of course. What do you think I am, an ignoramous?”

He snorts a laugh, breaking into a jog, when I feel the presence behind us. She’s reaching for us, trying to keep us here, and then I feel them in front of us.

“We need to split up,” I whisper.

His eyes flick down, something flashing in the depths of that silver. “Do you genuinely think I am so thick?”

My lips twitch at his droll words and the way his arms tighten around me.

“Listen, they are both behind and in front. The fairies cannot help us, they are too spent. If they capture me, I’ll live for a little while, but you must remember your kingdom. Much as I love your younger brother, he’s in no way, shape, nor form fit for the crown.”

Silver glances down at me, his eyebrows bunching. “How do you know my younger brother?”

I don’t say I helped kick him out of a brothel when I was patrolling one time. “Let’s just say it’s in everyone’s best interest you continue to live, even if you are a haughty, prideful, arrogant—”

“Those are the same things, you realize.”

“Interrupting, vagrant of a prince.”

His lips twitch. He ducks into a room, sitting me down on a barrel to look in my eyes and cup my cheek so I cannot avoid his eyes. “You’re going to give yourself up so they won’t find me?”

I blink, hissing out a breath and bemoaning how easily he reads me. “Heck.”

His chuckle rumbles from his chest. “I can’t let you do that, Mau Tigress,” he whispers, kissing my forehead and spreading distracting tingles up my spine.

“Be serious, Silver. We’re surrounded with no—” I cut off as something passes the door, and then I lower my voice into a barely there whisper. My Gift strains to cover us, keeping us hidden. “There’s no one else who knows to come for us this soon. They want something from me, and so I won’t be killed on the spot. But Silver, if they knew who you are—” my breath chokes off, and he wraps me in his arms, gently offering his quiet support.

“I know,” he whispers, and I feel something wet and warm drop into my hair. “For once it would be my wish we were merely a couple with no kingdom to save, no enemies to fight, and no responsibilities which tear us with two soul-splintering choices.”

I give a tiny nod. “We’ll do that someday, k? Just run away, leave all this behind, and live free of it all.”

He squeezes me tighter. “Is that before or after Ran eats me for leaving you?”

That surprises a chuckle from me. “Likely after,” I mumble into his shirt before pulling back.

“Please. Don’t make me do this,” he whispers, eyes screwed shut, leaning his forehead against mine..

“You must. You must bring back help. Should you die--" My voice chokes off. I cannot let him die here. Not when he is the hope for… everything. Not when I love him.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, but we both know this must happen. It’s logical. But he is a protector… and I am forcing him to run like a coward.

He forces himself to pull back and he shoots me one last look, his eyes telling me to hold on, to live, because he will be back, and nothing short of a dragon could stop him.

We both emerge from the door, and I connect with my Gift, and Silver squeezes my fingers. “Get out if you can. But I will be back for you and nothing will stop me.”

I give him a smile that I hope shows none of my worry. “I’ll hold you to that, big boy.” I pat his shirt, and he looks down at me, his eyes at once soft and broken, the black slitting. I blink quickly, trying to determine if I saw what I think I saw.

He leans down, breath mingling with my own, and whispers, "Fight for me, Guardian of Risia and Protector of her prince. We need you."

When I blink, he's gone.

I smile, kissing my fingers and holding them out to the last place I saw him.

Then I turn, dipping my entire being into the pool of my Gift and determination spreading through my core.

And with that, I drop the shield hiding me from the monsters of this labrynth, praying I can buy Silver enough time.