Enslaved (Prince of the Doomed City #4)

by Sylvia Mercedes

The sketch was a hit . . . and the power of Fonroy’s written words spawned magic in the minds of his audience.

I'm intrigued by the concept of words and ideas spawning magic. Which, of course, they do.

can explain.” The words burst from my lips in a frightened bleat. “I should hope so.” The Prince blinks, his expression so like the cat’s it makes my blood run cold. “Though how you will manage it, I am agog to learn.”

Love his sardonic wit. "Agog" is such a brilliant word. But then, I've spent my whole life agog.

“You have a dangerous habit of assuming responsibilities no one else would put upon you.”

“Sometimes, Darling, your courage looks rather too much like lunacy to the rest of us.”

“Are you threatening me?” “I am merely stating the sorry fact. Along with my remorse.” “Your remorse means nothing to me.” “But it means something to me. And I hope I might put that feeling to good use. To spur myself on to right actions going forward.

Why do we sometimes dismiss people who say they are sorry? Why concentrate on the mistake they made and not on the person they are? Their heartfelt remorse shows what their spirit truly is and that they care for us. I think one can be angry or hurt (and maybe suspicious), and still be forgiving (and maybe loving) at the same time. I think the author sees this and shows that if a person realizes their failings they can be a better person in the future. Some people project their failings onto others to excuse their behavior or do not have the strength of character to admit their faults. Yay Prince!

Even stone may dream, umog. And anything that dreams can be drawn into the darkness of the Nightmare Realm.”

This is what makes noswraiths so scary to me.

I meet his gaze hard. “I’m not abandoning you.” At this, his mouth breaks in a devastating smile. “That might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Hahahaha ha

I never expected a storm like her to blow into my life, stirring up all which I had so neatly ordered. Seeing things I’d overlooked. Challenging me, testing me. Driving me stark raving mad. Ultimately forcing me to be better. Wiser. Truer.

This openess to being challenged and hurt makes Castien one of my favorite characters of all time.

I could never fully hide from the truth. The truth that, from the first moment I set eyes on her pale, terrified face, my soul was set ablaze. Not with hatred. No, this is a greater, far more terrible and destructive flame.

But of course he and all the sad ghosts haunting that gloomy fen were nothing more than a story. Figments born from the imagination of some writer who lived and breathed in my own world. It is the author himself who truly lives on in the spirit of his creation. Who was he, I wonder? What pain could have driven him to write this tale?

Isn't this what makes reading addictive? The multidimensional aspect of story, theme, and the writer's personal history and life experience?

You said my father could never have created a Noswraith, because a Noswraith can only be born from love. Bent, broken, battered, twisted into something dark and terrible. But love, nonetheless.” I lift my lashes. “We are not heartless. We spell-makers. Perhaps we are not even beyond redemption. So is it not possible for our creations to be redeemed as well?”

Hmm, some foreshadowing? One can only hope.

I want to argue that I’m strong enough, smart enough, clever enough, powerful enough . . . but even in my head, the words sound like pure hubris.

Gone is the child’s timidity of this morning. She’s back to her usual, vivacious, exhausting little self, eager to tell me all she’s learned. I don’t understand half of what she says, but this doesn’t stop her.

Too cute for words

Gods spare me, how long have I stood here, gaping at him in dumbstruck silence? Clearing my throat, I harden my brow and cross my arms. “Why aren’t you ready?” He raises an eyebrow. “I suppose that depends on what you expect me to be ready for.” His full lips quirk in a dangerous smile. “One might argue I’m ready for any number of things.”

What marvelous romantic banter. I can imagine the blush in Clara's cheeks. Castien, you da man.

The lies fall so easily from my lips. Or not lies exactly. Half-truths. But close enough I taste their bitterness.

You can always judge a man by his dancing. If he moves with grace and confidence upon the dance floor, it speaks to his character. If he’s a clodhopping lumpkin, you know he’s got a black heart to match.” “Or perhaps it simply means he’s devoted his energies to more important things.” “And what, pray tell, is more important than dancing?”

I think Castien is my favorite MMC of the few author’s series I have read. This dialogue is quite what one would expect from a Georgette Heyer romance. Such fun banter.

“Ivor has taken nothing from me I care about.” He draws closer still, until the hall, the arches, the windows, the walls around me are lost, and my world is made up of nothing but those eyes of his. Dark fire sparks in their depths. “Not yet at least.”

It will happen eventually of course. He’ll tire of me, tire of trying to talk sense into me. Tire of trying to make me see things his way. Then he’ll drop me at last. And it will be such a relief when it finally happens. The suspense of waiting for the inevitable is much worse than the reality will be. Sure, it will hurt like the nine hells when he finally gives up.

Projecting is the doom of a relationship. Or at least, it prevents one from being happy in a relationship.

Perhaps you want us to die.” I smile then. Because I know. This plan of mine will work. I don’t know how I know, but . . . it will. It will. “Do you trust me?” I say. “Trust you?” The Prince snorts. “To be mad and reckless, absolutely.”

“Because that’s what you do for the people you love. You fight for them. Even when they haven’t the strength to fight for themselves. Especially then. Because they’re your family. Because, in the end, they’re all you have.”

“I speak only truth, O Great One.” She snorts, emitting a spurt of red fire and a coil of inky smoke. “Oh, I’m sure you think so. But as you must have learned by now, a perceived truth is often not the same as truth itself. In fact, it may be the very worst of lies. And no matter how firmly believed,”—she leans in closer, her lip curling to reveal a flash of teeth—“you cannot slip such lies under a dragon’s nose. I’ll sniff out the falsehood every time.

I love a wise dragon.

“To really love someone is to be willing to give them up. To know they are free to make their own choices, for better or for worse. To allow them that freedom. To let go . . . even if it means watching them fall.”

Suddenly, I cannot resist. Not one moment more. I lean forward, catch him by the face, and press my lips against his cheek.

Finally! I'm so, so, slow-burned out. Book 4…really?

The pain, the longing, everything I thought I was reading in his face vanishes. “Don’t go all soft and soppy on me, Darling,” he says, smiling one of his awful, beautiful, heartbreaking, devastating smiles. “You’re the one with the mighty quest to complete, remember?” With that he rises. As he does so, that gulf rips open between us once more.

You have got to be kidding me. This Is too unbelievable. He's been practically throwing himself at her feet and then to do this to her when she shows some caring and vulnerability...

I want to kiss her. I burn to feel her lips on mine. To draw her to me, press her to my breast, to take everything I’ve been hungering for all these long, sorry months, all these damnable years, since the first moment I set eyes on her terrified face. But I can’t. I won’t.

There had better be a good explanation for all this chicanery; this book's worth depends on the motivations for Castien behaving like a clueless crumpet.

But if I dare take it to mean more than it was, if I dare wrest from her more than she intended to give . . . Gods! I couldn’t live with myself.

Okay, okay, i can see this. I used the same trope in my book, but they were teens without experience in love or communicating with the opposite sex (or love interest).

She will ignore me with that same frosty frigidity I’ve come to know and loathe so well. Or she will train that agonizingly meaningless smile of hers my way. Never once knowing how I live for it. How my very existence depends on each look, each glance she offers. How I crave such graces as I crave food, light, air, and water.

If only I could comfort her; if only I were the kind of man she would turn to for comfort. Then I would make her tremble indeed. Tremble and quake and cry out in ecstasy, all her hopes and sorrows, all her fears and losses forgotten in a moment of pure bliss.

Sounds like a lot of conceit and braggadocio. Never a turn-on. Sorry, just feeling a little jaded by the turn of events. Is there a guy that doesn’t think he is an expert lover?

But if she knew who I really am—if she knew what I’ve done and what I’ve kept from her all this time—her hatred would be unending.

Okay. This is good. This sounds better. A nice mystery.

There behind closed doors are shelf upon shelf of records. They’re old and dusty, and the air is heavy with the weight of bygone days.

This tickles my reading sense. Air:heavy/bygone days:weight.

My voice is cold, imperious. I meet and hold his gaze, harder than I’ve managed since that terrible moment when I stared into his eyes, waiting for him to respond to my impulsive kiss. Waiting, waiting . . . only to be rejected. Only to have everything I thought had been building between us for days, weeks—even months—thrown back in my face and made to seem utter foolishness.

Has it only been months? It seems like years.

I find one tucked between two silver-trunked saplings. Standing before it, I turn this way and that. I hardly recognize myself. Certainly the figure in the glass is a far cry from the salt-and-sand-caked gremlin who’d staggered through the door.

He didn’t even run away. I almost wish he had . . . anything would have been better than that expression of sardonic dismissal. Like I was nothing more than an amusement, a comical little curiosity. A diversion.

“Danny, life isn’t like storybooks! You don’t get to be the dashing savior while I play the swooning damsel. I learned a long time ago that no amount of swooning is going to do me or anyone I love any good.”

Hmm...never underestimate the power of a properly timed swoon.

Never anger the fae. Never trust the fae. And never, ever, as you value your life, love the fae.

It doesn’t matter anymore what he thinks. I’m here. All of me: heart, body, and soul. He may not take, but he cannot stop me from giving, from throwing myself into that yawning gulf between us in desperate hope that he will catch me. This is our last chance. There will be no tomorrow. There’s just here and now and us.

Then he pulls me to him, crushes me in his arms, and kisses me. Kisses me like it’s the last moment of our lives, and all the fires of endless hells are ready to consume us.

Fires of endless….hells? This one doesn’t do it for me. But then there is the old expression that love is Hell...or is it love is Heaven? Love gets so confusing.

“I love you, Castien,” I whisper, breathing the words against his open, hungry lips. Then I smile; the relief of finally speaking those words out loud makes me light up inside.

Yet when he looks at me like that, I could believe I am a goddess. His goddess, the worthy recipient of his most ardent worship.

Such a difficult truth, that one will never know love until they realize they are worthy of being loved.

“While it may have been the gods who forced my hand, it was you who showed me who you really are. That heart of yours, which cannot help defending the defenseless. Your courage and cleverness. The way you see the world so differently from anyone I’ve ever met. I plucked you from all the comforts of Aurelis and threw you into a veritable pit of darkness, only for you rise to meet the challenge head-on. Not

I draw back. “Don’t touch me!” He looks horrified. “Darling—” “And don’t call me that. I cannot bear it. I cannot bear you, the sight of you.

And here we go again *sigh*. On to book 5