Cinder: An MM Romance Fairytale Retelling by D. N. Bryn

Author:D. N. Bryn [Bryn, D. N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bryn Books
Published: 2025-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

The day of the next ball came, and the watch had not come for Cin. That should have made him feel better—his safety intact, his identity a secret. His role as the Plumed Menace could continue, just as it always had, and he with it. Yet the more certain that future became, the more pointless it all felt to Cin.

He had been meant to lose Prince Lorenz someday. Cin reminded himself of that as the afternoon pressed on and the rest of his family piled into their carriage. Still, Cin lingered in the kitchen, scrubbing the same pot he’d been working on throughout the day—a tricky burnt spot of beans caked to the bottom after Manfred had failed to let Cin know when their dinner last night had come to a boil. Every shove of the brush against the caked burn spot left Cin more restless.

He had denied that loss’s premature arrival before. He’d ascended the castle wall the night he’d been left off the prince’s list, and asked to go away with him when the party seemed bent on cutting their time together short. He’d had the courage, the fire, to go after what he’d wanted then. For once in his life, it had seemed so easy, so right.

Had seemed like it wouldn’t end this way: angry, and empty.

Cin dropped the half-cleaned pot with more force than necessary, sweeping out the back door without a thought to where he was going, only that he had to move.

He had to know whether the prince would live the rest of his life despising Cin.

He had to—

But he couldn’t look Prince Lorenz in the face and see the same haunted, disgusted expression he had the week before. Cin knew, without a doubt, that he wouldn’t survive that again. If nothing changed, though, he didn’t think he could survive this either.

His legs ached to carry him back down the road, through town—to the well woman’s husband, or any other bastard. He needed to see the red drip down his hands again, and know that he deserved this. That the sin was worth the justice, his pain worth their healing.

Cin understood, though, deep within himself, that to rush through another killing was the wrong choice too, and instead he turned and turned, his feet on a track as chaotic as his thoughts as he paced back and forth, marking a trail through the garden. With a cry of desperation, he collapsed to his knees on his mother’s grave, dropping his head to the wet grass.

“I saw your towers,” he hissed at the dirt, wishing he could feel his voice resonate inside her bones. “I danced with the prince—I climbed over those goddamn walls for him. I brought him home with me. What more do I need?” Hot, wet tears slid down his nose.

He’d done so much, let himself want so very much, and yet just like that, their relationship had meant nothing.

Cin could sense one of his pigeons at his side, feel the gust of a wing and hear the soft shifting of the grass.

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