Read The Black Prince: Part II for Free Online Page A

becoming more something else, but simply becoming less and less.
    “I couldn’t feel anything through the bond.” At dinner. That was what had upset her the most.
    “I know,” was all he said. He didn’t continue for a long time, only smoked his pipe and stared into a distance she couldn’t see. “What that did to me…seeing how sad you were. Feeling it. I couldn’t bear knowing that that was how you felt and, even worse, knowing that I was the cause. I thought—if I unleashed even the smallest part of the blackness that created, onto you, that I’d kill you.”
    “Oh.”
    “I would never hurt you, Isla.”
    “I…didn’t mean to upset you.” The words sounded lame in her own ears. Pointless.
    “I want you to be honest with me. I know there is…an imbalance of power. But Isla, I never intended this to be a relationship where I only learn things by picking them from your mind, because you’re too afraid to share them with me.” He stroked her hair. “I don’t want to steal from you.”
    “Sometimes I’m scared.”
    “I know.” He was still stroking her hair. “Tell me. Trust me enough to let me decide for myself how to respond.” Instead of holding them inside, came the unspoken addendum. Like she’d been doing. This night, and others before it.
    “I don’t….” She trailed off. She didn’t know how to begin. “I don’t want you to think that I’m…to be offended that….” She chewed her lip. It was hopeless. She simply couldn’t bring herself to say what she needed to say. What he wanted her to say. How could she give voice to the concerns in her heart, without making it seem as though her heart were changeable? As changeable as the winds, blowing first in one direction and then another—equally strongly and with no warning beforehand? Without suggesting, whether she intended to or no, that he wasn’t enough? He might know of her concerns, as she did, but as long as they remained unvoiced she at least could pretend that they weren’t real.
    She’d pledged herself to this man. She didn’t want to lose him. But neither did she know how to move forward.
    “Then tell me.”
    “What?”
    “Ask for my help.” Tristan’s expression was serious. “I am your husband. Whatever trials we might either of us face, together or separately, we can—and should—face them together.”
    Isla didn’t respond.
    “I know that I’m not human. Drawing attention to this fact is, therefore, hardy offensive.” There was just the slightest trace of—something—in his voice. Humor? Yes. Humor. “I know, too, that we aren’t the first couple in all of Morven to face…barriers to conception.”
    When reduced to those simple terms, it all sounded so…fixable. So minor. Just one problem of many. Other couples
did
struggle to conceive and bear children. Just as they faced other challenges. Some had children they couldn’t feed. Others couldn’t keep a roof over their heads, whether from lack of work or from the war.
    “I own you like I own my heart, Isla. You’re part of me. I can’t imagine myself functioning without you.”
    He was right. She needed to trust him, not turn from him. There was a darkness in him, yes; but there was a darkness in her, too.
    A darkness that hidden, small and silent, for years before they’d met. That he might have awakened, but only because he’d awakened her to her true self. She wanted him, and she wanted this life with him. What held her back was, truly, fear: of what she was becoming, of what she’d already become. Of what she’d gained and, yes, of what she’d given up. That the warnings she’d lived with her whole life might turn out to contain some kernel of truth. That his seemingly irrational hatred of her had been prophetic somehow. From her earliest memories onward, her conversations with her father had focused on what she lacked. On how she was thoughtless. Uncaring. Unwilling to lift so much as a finger for others. On how she’d failed him,