“What season is this?” I asked as he pulled me closer, our bodies moving in perfect synchronization.
“Winter into spring. Death into rebirth. Ending into beginning.”
“Subtle.”
His lips quirked in what might have been a smile. “The realm isn’t known for its subtlety.”
The music shifted, became something lighter, and suddenly we were laughing as he lifted me, spun me through air. For a moment, we weren’t the anomaly and the corrupted prince. We were just two people dancingbadly and enjoying it.
“Your flower crown is crooked,” he said when he set me down.
“I have a flower crown?” I reached up and felt petals that hadn’t been there before. “When did—”
“You’ve been growing them all evening. Every time you laugh.” He adjusted it gently, fingers barely grazing my hair. “The children have been following you, collecting the fallen petals.”
I turned and saw them—a small group of young beings, some with wings, some with bark for skin, all clutching handfuls of petals like treasure.
“Oh,” I said softly.
“You’re already changing things here,” Kaelren said. “The Hollow hasn’t seen flowers like these in decades.”
The music ended, and I expected him to pull away. Instead, he kept my hand in his.
“Let me show you something,” he said.
“Now?”
“Now.”
He led me away from the dancing, through the winding paths of the Thornwood Throne. Peeble followed, occasionally making sarcastic comments about “romantic midnight tours” that we both ignored.
“This is the Healer’s Grove,” he said, guiding me through an archway of living wood. Inside, glowing moss covered everything, and the air smelled of mint and medicine. “Eltrien grows his remedies here.”
A few healers looked up from their work, nodding respectfully to Kaelren. One, a young woman with leaves for hair, approached me shyly.
“You’re the one who saved Nimor,” she said. “Who turned the Hunt riders into trees.”
“That was more accident than intention,” I admitted.
“The best magic usually is,” she replied with a smile, pressing a small vial into my hand. “Essence of moonbell. For when the marks burn.”
Before I could thank her, Kaelren was guiding me onward.
“The Archives,” he said, showing me a hollow tree so massive its interior held multiple levels of books and scrolls. “Every piece of knowledge we’vesaved from Auradelle’s purges.”
An elderly scholar looked up from his work. “Ah, the prophet arrives at last.”
“I’m not a prophet,” I said automatically.
“Aren’t you?” He winked. “Time will tell. It always does.”
We continued through the Thornwood Throne—the training grounds where rebels sparred with weapons made of steel, the nurseries where seedling-children grew in pods of soft light, the kitchens where the feast was being prepared by beings who cooked with magic as much as heat.
Everywhere we went, the inhabitants watched us with expressions ranging from hope to curiosity to fear. But they all nodded to Kaelren with genuine respect, and many smiled at me with something that looked like welcome.
“They’re not afraid of you,” I observed as we climbed a spiraling staircase carved from a single massive vine.
“They’re terrified of me,” he corrected. “But they trust me anyway. Fear and faith aren’t mutually exclusive.”
