After getting herself and Soren down from the tower, and a short scuffle with the guard from the ruins team in between, they’d had an uneventful trip down to the river area in the south. They’d both agreed that the patch of unattended, freshly turned soil was a sure sign of a trap and headed back to the decoy tree for the rendezvous. There, the team converged, shared intel, and divided again.

Now, Myra headed back to the river trap with Owain trailing his usual distance behind her. She’d sent Soren with Fawx to the caves and hoped she wouldn’t regret that pairing with the way those two tended to argue. She sighed to herself. It couldn’t be helped. Fawx was still way too antsy for guard duty, and she was determined to get some answers about Owain’s odd distance with her. And subjecting Ronan to another round of Fawx’s antics seemed unfair, especially to the only man who was here as a favor to her and not as a part of her parents’ plotting.

Owain yanked her arm, pulling her back under cover. He let go so fast that he overbalanced and fell on his hind end. She offered her hand, but he waved it off as had become customary. He stepped an extra three paces away from her and jutted his chin forward.

“I thought you said this was a river? That looks more like a stream.”

In answer, she raised an eyebrow at him.

He scuffed his feet and cleared his throat. “What is our plan?”

She glanced out at the water and the patch of freshly turned soil on the other side, crossed her arms, and stared back at him.

“I can’t go into battle with someone that doesn’t trust me.”

His arms hung loose at his sides and his jaw slackened. He avoided her fierce blue gaze.

“I do not understand.”

“There must be a reason you maintain such a strict and noticeable distance from me.”

The angel prince roughly scratched the back of his head, ruffling his blond hair.

“It’s a curse,” he mumbled.

“I’m sorry, what?”

He growled. “The clumsiness —my clumsiness— is a curse.”

When he finally met her gaze, the underlying bitterness in his sky-blue eyes burned twisting tunnels of acid through her middle. She clutched her stomach and staggered back half a step.

“What kind of curse?”

“Every time I get close to a woman, I lose every ounce of agility and grace I possess and become a complete and utter klutz.”

She pursed her lips. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

He glowered. “Do you know how absolutely impossible it is to avoid women when you are a handsome prince?!? Or how humiliating it is to go from being the most graceful man alive to earning the nickname ‘His Gracelessness’?” He flung his hands up. “When I am alone or with a group of men, I’m the same as I have always been, but put a woman near me, and I trip on air. It is an impossible way to live.”

Myra rubbed her chin, trying to decide which pressing question to ask first. “Have you tried to break the curse?”

“Have I tried to break the curse?” he muttered. “Have I tried to break the curse!? It has been five years! I’ve lost count of how many times I have ‘tried to break the curse’,” he snapped.

She glared and stalked deliberately toward him. He backed away, step for step, until his back hit a tree. The familiar panic passed through his eyes as she closed the gap between them.

She shook her finger in his face. “Don’t you yell at me. I need to understand so I can help.” She backed a few paces away and Owain slid to the ground. “How do you break it?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face and mumbled the answer into his palms. “True love.”

After a few deep breaths, she said, “Expound.”

“I must prove I have learned the true meaning of love.”

“You broke someone’s heart, didn’t you?”

A small, sad smile flitted across his handsome face. “The wrong someone.”

She squatted down and caught his eye. “If you choose to live your life with no regrets, the key is to like the person you are today and the one you are becoming tomorrow. In that case, there are no ‘wrong people’ in your past, for they have each had an influence on who you are right now.”

He tried to look away, so she moved in close and grabbed his chin. “You have to decide every day if you like yourself, but from what I’ve seen, you’re a good person. You’re thoughtful and considerate. Sure, maybe you’re a bit flashy and arrogant, but everyone has faults, or things they want to improve.” She patted her chest. “I tend to speak my mind without thinking it through fully.”

She backed away again and sat cross-legged on the ground, turning to keep one eye on him and the other on the buried flag across the narrow river. The silence stretched on between them and bled into their surroundings. Ever so slowly, Owain inched his way next to her.

In a whisper, he said, “It is most definitely a trap. It’s too quiet here.”

Her head bobbed in agreement. “We’ve been still long enough that there should have been some movement from the wildlife if we were the only ones in the area.”

“What should we do?”

She grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Moments later, after a hasty explanation, she bolted into the open, sprinting top speed at the river. Myra leapt. She cleared the water, landed in a roll, and was up on her feet running to the turned-up soil all before Owain could voice his objections to her plan. Before she started digging, she waved him over with a glare. He blinked and took his first few steps. She smiled and turned her back, trusting that he would do his part and watch it while she unburied the flag.

Metal rang out against metal as she dug, scooping coarse dirt beside her like a dog. What she wouldn’t give for her foldable shovel! She blew a breath out her nose and dug harder and faster. Her fingers met cloth. She gripped hard and ripped it out with a triumphant shout, whirling around to find Owain. Her heart took off on a race of its own as her widened eyes focused solely on the glint of the sword slicing toward her. No time to pull out her scythes. No time to duck or dodge. No time for anything. No time at all. Time ceased, the silence deafening.

A second heart thumped near hers. A strong arm wrapped around her and blocked the blade with a shield. That clang restored her stolen senses, and she watched the angel prince flawlessly wield his sword and shield mere inches away from her, swiftly dispatching their opponents.

He panted beside her. “Why did they disappear?”

“It’s part of the protection spells and makes the game more challenging. If you receive a killing blow, you return to the beginning after a ten-minute penalty.” She wandered over to the stream to wash the dirt from her hands. “Thank you.”

He sheathed his sword and put his shield away. “I think the curse is broken, Myra.” He grabbed her hands. “Did you see me fighting? I neither tripped nor stumbled nor dropped my sword.”

The hopefulness in his eyes and voice was too much. She pulled away and headed back to the decoy tree. He walked by her side.

She flashed him a smile. “I just have one question for you. How did you sleep last night?”

“How did I sleep? That first night was horrible. You should have that lumpy mattress burned. But last night?” Owain twirled and grinned when he didn’t trip or bump into anything. “Last night was marvelous! It felt like sleeping on a cloud.”

*****

“We’ve narrowed it down to one of those three caves near the top.” Fawx pointed and winked.

“You’ve searched all of the other caves?” Myra blinked.

He waggled his eyebrows and twitched his nose. “Of course. But” —he interlaced his fingers and stretched— “no matter how I persuaded him, the Fruitless Frost refused to accompany me to those last three caves.”

They stood at the bottom of the hill, gazing at the towering slope riddled with dark holes. The light of the early afternoon sun barely reached them. She shivered and scowled at her new friend.

“You mean Soren?”

He nodded.

“He has a fear of heights.”

He clutched his belly and doubled over with laughter. She whacked him on the shoulder. He straightened immediately, silent and serious.

“I never thought he’d be afraid of anything.” Fawx motioned to the hill. “Shall we?”

She nodded and started walking. The incline wasn’t steep enough to need a rope or other climbing gear, but there were a few places where she was glad to have a helping hand.

“How long have you known Soren?”

“Since childhood. His Gracelessness, too. In fact, apart from the Honorable Taran Ronan, I’ve known most of your guests for years.”

“Why do you do that? Call them names, I mean.”

“They started it, back when we were kids.” His usual smile held an undercurrent of bitterness. “They weren’t very imaginative, though, were they? I was even scrawnier as a kid. Looked more like a fox.” He wagged his hand at his face. “Fawx. Fox. It’s all the same.”

“But I thought—”

“That I’d opted to go by my family name because it suited me better?” He tsked. “No, I took what they teased and bullied me with and made it my own. But I never wanted to be someone who was stuck being known only by his family. I’m not ashamed of them, but I do want to be seen as an individual.” His voice softened. “As Noah.”

She stopped to catch her breath and take a sip of water. They’d made it halfway and the view of the forest was breathtaking. A bird flew out of the trees, its screeching cry echoing through the air. He ducked behind her, trembling fingers digging into her shoulders.

“Is that a ha-ha-ha-hawk?” he stammered.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of hawks?”

He chuckled. “Terrified.”

She peeled his fingers off one shoulder and rubbed her collarbone. “You know they don’t hunt people, right?”

He wrapped his arms around her middle and buried his face against her back. “No, but sometimes they hunt foxes.”

She rotated just enough to be able to pat him on the back. “You may act a lot like a fox, Noah, but you’re still a human.”

He snorted. Then giggled. Then threw his head back and laughed until tears streamed down his freckled cheeks.

Still clinging to her, he said, “Thank you, Myra. I do know I’m a person, but it’s nice to know someone else sees it, too.”

She looked away from the earnestness in his golden-brown eyes, butterflies churning her insides from cream to butter. She peeked back at him and those butterflies fluttered up by her heart, trying to escape her chest. She took off up the hill. A few moments later, his hand slid into hers. She glanced his way. He flashed his usual wink.

“One of my pranks backfired when I was thirteen,” he said. “I ended up getting stuck as a fox for three weeks before they found me. Hawks are common where I grew up.” He bit his lower lip and smiled. “Been terrified of them ever since.”

“That’s understandable.” She squeezed his hand. “Who were you trying to play pranks on?”

He shuddered as the distant hawk screed again. “They’re a couple years older than me, you know. The Dark Nephew and the Bright Princeling.”

“Soren and Owain?”

An affirmative grunt. “I was angry and helpless and hurt. And so alone.” He stopped walking and stared, unseeing, out over the forest. “My parents had just died, and my cousin had brought me to her court. There they were, my childhood tormentors —the ones who’d stripped my individual identity from me— being treated as angels.” His voice became scratchy. “I wanted them to know what it felt like to lose their humanity.”

She rubbed his back. He turned to her, sorrow and regret brimming in his eyes. He closed them for a moment, and when he opened them again, the mischievous sparkle had returned. Except for the single tear that carved a silent trail down his freckled cheek.

“Instead, I decided to embrace the fox life, be friends with everyone, and have fun. It suits me, don’t you think?”

He tucked his hands under his chin and tilted his head with a cheeky grin.

She smiled back, nodded, and tugged him uphill. He slipped his hand back into hers and she had to admit, it was comfortable —and comforting— to hold his calloused hand.

He sighed.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I know being ‘Fawx’ fits, and I’m happy being who I am, but sometimes I miss being ‘Noah’.”

They stopped outside the first of the top three caves.

“Are you certain no one’s in there?” she asked.

He nodded. “Ronan and I saw them leave when we first scouted out the place, and every cave has been completely empty with no signs of human interference. It does make me wonder what they and the other teams have been doing all day, though. It’s odd that we haven’t run into anyone else at all. Something feels off.”

“I’ve been thinking that myself. Let’s hurry here and get back to the others.”

Fawx held her back. “Before we do, I have to ask, how am I doing?”

“What?”

“It is a competition, Myra.” He winked. “Compared to your other choices, how am I doing?”

She pursed her lips. “Let me answer your question with one of my own: how did you sleep last night?”

He grinned. “Barely a wink. Are all the mattresses in your home unbearably lumpy or just the ones for guests? I ended up sleeping on the floor, instead. It was more comfortable.”