“The stew is good,” Anna said, testing the food once it was cool enough. While Neve and I had been in the coinary, Caelo had not only found the inn, but decided it would be for the best to glamour Anna to appear fae. That way, she could put down her hood and no one would ask questions about us traveling with a human. She now bore pointed ears and a glow to her skin that humans did not possess. It was the basest of glamours, but so far, no one noticed, or if they did, they did not care. I suspected most were staring at me or Neve, wondering why their royals were here and not at court.
“It’s goat, I think?” Anna added after taking another bite.
“Could be ice spider stew, and I’d still eat it,” Caelo replied. “I’m happy to have another warm meal.”
Despite having been lavished in Dergia, not one of us would soon forget the days and nights of travel and the dwindling food.
“Pardon me?” A high-pitched male voice came from the side.
I turned to find a faerie bard with skin as pale as the moon and eyes so dark brown they almost appeared black—an unsettling combination. In his slender hands, the bard held a stringed instrument. Thantrel would know the name, might know how to play it too, but I didn’t recognize the instrument, though the gleam of the wood told me it was well taken care of. Prized even.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Welcome to our fair village, Prince Vale. Princess Neve.” The bard bowed when he addressed us, revealing that he had only one wing pressed down his back. The other, a dark navy stub, remained stunted at the base.
My stomach tightened at the sight, hating the blight and all it had done to so many in this land. I hoped that, if we found the Ice Scepter and it healed the magic of Winter’s Realm, the blight might also end. That they were, somehow, as many thought, linked—although the blight had endured longer than the Ice Scepter was lost, the effects had become far more dire in the last twenty turns.
As the storyteller didn’t recognize Caelo or Anna, he nodded at them before turning back to Neve and me. “I’mItham of Eygin. I recently returned home from Vitvik with new songs in my heart. I was about to take over the stage and wondered if you might have a request?”
Truly, I did not care what he played, but Neve nudged me.Sighing, I pulled a silver stag from my pouch. “Whatever the princess wants.”
The bard beamed and turned to Neve. “Your wish?”
“Do you have a song about the Unification? A happy one?”
Itham’s eyebrows rose. “Aye, I do. A rare choice, Princess Neve.”
“I like rare things.”
Fitting as my mate was a rare thing herself. Singular, in my eyes. More than seeking novelty, however, I suspected Neve wished to know what the common folk thought of her family. It would be too hasty to request a song about House Falk or House Skau, but the Unification was thousands of turns past and during that time, Queen Sassa Falk had been instrumental in crafting the realm as it now stood. No one would blink an eye over such a ballad.
Itham took to the stage where a small band waited behind him. He waved the others to quiet, intent on taking the stage for himself. The others leaned back, and the bard wasted no time in beginning to strum. Chatter eased, and many turned to watch the showman as he sang.
In song, his high pitch rang like a bell through the tavern. Chills ran along my arms, raising the flesh there into small bumps.
I’d never heard the song he sang before, but it began with Queen Sassa demanding that the old kings and queensof Winter’s Realm bend the knee. At first, the old royals of the land did not comply. For that, Queen Sassa put a lord of House Qiren to flame, and a lady of House Ithamai lost her head. Of the most powerful eight families only House Lisika knelt without argument and that was down to the king consort of the time being a Lisika himself.
But as the Shadow Fae invaded our land and ravaged Winter’s Realm, one by one, the once-great scions of this kingdom saw that only the Falk and Lisika lands were being spared. Protected effectively. Some said mysteriously. One by one, those kings and queens hit their knees before the unifier Sassa Falk and prayed to the stars that the House of the White Hawk might turn the hands of fate.
And she did. Queen Sassa’s forces swept into all corners of the realm and beat back the Shadow Fae. She fought with the common soldiers, with those who grew the realm’s food and tended livestock and built homes and sailed ships to bring back uncommon goods. She stood alongside anyone who could wield a weapon well enough, brandishing her own to save their lives as much as hers. For all that, the commonfae loved her, flocked to her, and where the Unifier Queen fought, shadows vanished. Light prevailed again. No one knew how, but the Shadow King and Queen and their armies fell against Sassa.
The day the shadows disappeared from Isila was the first day of peace our kingdom had known in many turns. A war of utter destruction, followed by the dawn of a new peace.
The enemies were gone. Blood no longer stained the snow. And each house had kept true to their word to serve House Falk.
That was, until King Magnus’s Rebellion.
Itham, however, did not go that far into the timeline. His song ended with Queen Sassa dying in her bed. At peace, her family beside her, the realm still united.
Silence rang through the tavern, so incongruent in a place that had been raucous before the tune began. The moment my wife clapped, others followed suit in a slow and gentle way. It seemed as though they weren’t sure if they should be applauding at all with us present.
“That one was for the lovely Princess Neve.” The bard gestured to our table, a relieved smile spreading across his face. “Now, how about a song for the working fae? Those of sweet Eygin? Something lively to get the blood pumping?”
Cheers rang up, and the bard snapped his fingers, to which the band leaned forward. Flutes and tambourines and the bard’s stringed instrument filled the air a heartbeat later. It took no longer than that for the fae to stand and run to the small space in front of the stage.
Young and old alike danced, some more spryly than others. Many more than the bard bore signs that the blight of Winter had left a mark on their bodies and their lives, the most common of which were fae with deformed wings. And though remembering the blight almost always put me in a sour mood, the sight before me warmed my heart.
No doubt, many of these people lived a hard life. In much of Winter’s Realm, there was little other way to live. But they seized happiness as often as they could, where they could, and their joy was infectious.
