Free The Cruel Prince by Holly Black Page A

our ragwort stalks when a guy about our age touches my arm, warm fingers closing just above my wrist.
    â€œHey, sweetheart.” I have an impression of a too-big black shirt, jeans, a chain wallet, spiky hair. The glint of a cheap knife in his boot. “I saw you before, and I was just wondering—”
    I am turning before I can think, my fist cracking into his jaw. My booted foot hits his gut as he falls, rolling him over the pavement. I blink and find myself standing there, staring down at a kid who is gasping for air and starting to cry. My boot is raised to kick him in the throat, to crush his windpipe. The mortals standing around him are staring at me in horror. My nerves are jangling, but it’s an eager jangle. I am ready for more.
    I think he was flirting with me.
    I don’t even remember deciding to hit him.
    â€œCome on!” Taryn jerks my arm, and all three of us run. Someone shouts.
    I look over my shoulder. One of the boy’s friends has given chase. “Bitch!” he shouts. “Crazy bitch! Milo is bleeding!”
    Vivi whispers a few words and makes a motion behind us. As she does, the crabgrass begins to grow, pushing gaps in the asphalt wider. The boy comes to a halt as something rushes by him, a look of confusion on his face. Pixie-led, they call it. He wanders through a row of cars as though he has no idea where he’s going. Unless he turns his clothes inside out, which I am fairly confident he doesn’t know to do, he’ll never find us.
    We stop near the edge of the lot, and Vivi immediately begins to giggle. “Madoc would be so proud—his little girl, remembering all her training,” she says. “Staving off the terrifying possibility of romance.”
    I am too stunned to say anything. Hitting him was the most honest thing I’ve done in a long time. I feel better than great. I feel
nothing
, a glorious emptiness.
    â€œSee,” I tell Vivi. “I can’t go back to the world. Look what I would do to it.”
    To that, she has no response.

    I think about what I did all the way home and then, again, at school. A lecturer from a Court near the coast explains how things wither and die. Cardan gives me a significant look as she explains decomposition, rot. But what I am thinking about is the stillness I felt when I hit that boy. That and the Summer Tournament tomorrow.
    I dreamed of my triumph there. None of Cardan’s threats would have kept me from wearing the gold braid and fighting as hard as I could. Now, though, his threats are the only reason I have to fight—the sheer perverse glory of not backing down.
    When we break to eat, Taryn and I climb up a tree to eat cheese and oatcakes slathered with chokecherry jelly. Fand calls up to me, wanting to know why I didn’t attend the rehearsal for the mock war.
    â€œI forgot,” I call back to her, which is not particularly believable, but I don’t care.
    â€œBut you’re going to fight tomorrow?” she asks. If I pull out, Fand will have to rearrange teams.
    Taryn gives me a hopeful look, as though I may come to my senses.
    â€œI’ll be there,” I say. My pride compels me.
    Lessons are almost over when I notice Taryn, standing beside Cardan, near a circle of thorn trees, weeping. I must not have been paying attention, must have gotten too involved in packing up our books and things. I didn’t even see Cardan take my sister aside. I know she would have gone, though, no matter the excuse. She still believes that if we do what they want, they’ll get bored and leave us alone. Maybe she’s right, but I don’t care.
    Tears spill over her cheeks.
    There is such a deep well of rage inside me.
    You’re no killer.
    I leave my books and cross the grass toward them. Cardan half-turns, and I shove him so hard that his back hits one of the trees. His eyes go wide.
    â€œI don’t know what you said to her, but don’t you ever go near my