I braced myself for something awful.
“Your Highness, we don’t know what the sound was but,” he said breathlessly, “we’re seeing snowmelt and flowers. Sir, there are flowers!”
Chapter 14
Everyone was caught between fear over what that sound had been and elation that it seemed like winter was finally giving way to spring. Those people who had been outside said there had been a huge gust of wind that came through and created a few snow drifts. And where the snow had been cleared wasn’t frozen dirt but bright spring grasses and the first buds of tiny flowers. The tree branches were dotted with the green of new leaves just beginning to grow.
I took a deep breath and thought it smelled like spring had arrived. The air wasn’t so crisp and cold and there was a definite greenness to the breeze. And then I realized that the fake frost that had clung to my clothes since I got here was gone.
“Look!” I hollered to everyone close enough to hear me. “I’m not frosted anymore.”
I rushed back inside, curious to see if the interior of the palace was different. It was! I hadn’t noticed as we’d run from Flurry’s chambers and out the front door. Orelse it hadn’t done it yet? I couldn’t be sure, but the weird frost wasn’t covering the furniture, framing paintings, or climbing the walls anymore. What was white was now just naturally so, with the wood and fabric and stone being totally normal.
I went back out to find Flurry crouched down in the snow peering at a little patch of grass where tiny white blooms were growing. I found I couldn’t step off the snow and onto the grass as I made my way to him, not wanting to crush the brand new blades. When he smiled up at me, I swore it felt like my heart skipped a beat.
That great and horrible cracking sound happened again. I stumbled back from the palace, half expecting to see a whole section of it collapsing. But when I looked at Flurry again, he was staring off toward… Toward the barrier with Spring.
Could it be?
A second later, and Flurry was flying away like a rocket.
“A horse!” I stumbled after him and corrected myself because there was no way I’d survive galloping on horseback. “No, I need a carriage. Somebody get me a carriage!”
“This way, sir,” a guard said and started running.
It took way too long to get the carriage hitched and on the road, and I couldn’t help leaning out the window as the driver pushed the horses as fast as they could go. There were actually four carriages zooming toward the barrier, all of them packed with advisors and the magic wielders in their graduation outfits.Every face I saw looked like they desperately wanted to be hopeful, which was how I felt, too.
“The snow’s gone!” our driver yelled, before doing a maneuver that nearly sent me right out the carriage door. I looked out the window to find that we were on an unpaved road with fields of grass on either side. Behind us, the other carriages were veering onto the road as if they’d only had a vague idea of where it had been until now.
Giselle was in the carriage with me, and she’d said that the seasons had always changed like a breeze pushing them from one court to the next. It made sense that it would be more spring-like the closer we got to Spring.
And then I saw the barrier.
A massive crack stretched for what seemed like miles in the clear glass-like wall. Shards had fallen from various places, spearing into the ground, and opening up the barrier to Spring. The air that blew through was warmer, the sunlight just a little brighter.
That goddamned lake was gone!
A minute after I’d stepped from the carriage, Flurry came barreling into me and nearly knocked me on my ass. As it was, I think I stayed upright only because I grabbed onto him and his wings were still buzzing fast enough to hold me up.
“It’s breaking! The whole barrier is breaking!” He laughed a little hysterically, tears on his face.
I laughed with him only to sober as I wondered if I should try going through again.
“No,” he said and flew so that he waspushing me backward. “What if it collapses? What if it manifests a raging river this time?No.”
I nodded because, yeah, no.
Giselle and her husband came over. “Why does it look like there’s only one crack?” she asked. “We heard two.”
“Summer?” Flurry said as he landed in front of me.
I looked between them. “Would that mean they’re going to get spring weather, too?”
“We’re usually all in the same season,” Flurry said.
Giselle cocked her head at him with her mouth quirked.
Flurry rolled his eyes. “We’resupposedto be all in the same season, but it wasn’t always the case.”
