The mirth left his face and he looked down at his plate. “No,” he said before he asked a question of the man on his other side.
I’d been dismissed, but I felt okay about that. At some point, we’d visit the barrier and see if I could get through. And spiky little Flurry didn’t hate me, which was also good.
I looked to my right and found Giselle grinning at me. I huffed a laugh, and she giggled, bumping my shoulder with hers. Clearly, she thought not wanting me dead was a sign of the prince’s growing affection for me. I decided to try and distract her.
“I have to ask, is this the curse or is it normal here?” I touched my shoulder.
“Pardon?”
“This.” I brushed at the snow on my shoulder.
“Oh. That’s the curse,” she said with a nod.
“So the Winter Court isn’t normally covered in ice and snow.”
“Well, the prince can make it so if he wishes, but this is a poor imitation of his skills.”
Interesting. “So it’s been done by someone who can’t make snow and ice at will,” I suggested.
“I suppose. Yes.” By her raised eyebrows, I took it to mean she thought that was interesting, too. Giselle lowered her voice to say, “Some think the king might’ve played a part in the curse beyond being sacrificed to it.”
Remembering Lars’ comments, I whispered back, “Like maybe he cursed the courts himself?”
She shushed me and looked around like maybe we could get in trouble for our conspiracy theories. But then she nodded ever so slightly before going back to her meal.
Honestly, I didn’t know everything, but it made sense to me that the king might do something drastic to stop his sons from fighting. It hadn’t been wrestling in the backyard—they’d gone to war with each other. And from the sound of it, more than once. It hadn’t been the princes getting hurt, either, but their citizens actually dying. What father wouldn’t want to smack some sense into his kids?
Was the curse a harsh punishment? Hell yes. More people had died. I had to wonder, though, whether they’d be at war right now without the curse preventing that. Two, three wars a year? Rinse and repeat year afteryear? Thousands of lives might’ve been saved in three years of isolation.
I had to think the princes understood now, though. Flurry seemed to, at least. The others might not be suffering in the same ways, but it could be bad in each of their courts, too. Had they all learned their lessons enough that, if the barriers came down today, they wouldn’t go to war again?
Was there more to the curse, like Giselle implied? Maybe not learning to love, but there could be other life lessons tucked into the curse. If their father was the curse-maker, that made sense. Get them to do better and be better all at once. Heavy-handed and brutal, sure, but that made me think the king might’ve been desperate.
“Everyone,” the prince said as he stood, “we’ll be traveling to the Spring barrier. If you wish to join us, be properly attired and outside the stables within the hour.”
He left the room with less urgency this time and no wings propelling him.
The conversation picked up as everyone speculated on what might happen, shared their thoughts on the poor horse’s demise, and offered their suggestions on how I might be more successful. None of them could remember the horse’s name. That felt like a bad sign to me.
Chapter 5
Ihad never ridden a horse, but now I was sitting on a fat old boy named Hopper—who probably couldn’t hop to save his own life—and trailing after a fae prince. A fae prince who rode an elegant, white unicorn that looked iridescent in the pale winter sunlight. The two of them looked like a fairytale come to life.
My horse had just stopped to take a shit.
What was I doing here? Not just with this horse, but with all of it. Why had I been the one to fall through a fairy ring? Me? Seriously? I was—had been—a word slinger for an advertising firm, not a knight in shining armor. I was on a quest for fuck’s sake! I was following a prince, surrounded by advisors, and had a wagonload of servants ready and willing to serve us tea later on.
I was a damn Hobbit.
And as intriguing as the prince was on his elegant stead, I was still waffling over whether he’d throw me in a volcano if there was somethingin it for him.
He looked really good on his unicorn, though. He still wore his fur-trimmed coat and it was spread out behind him, the whole thing silver and glittering. His back was ramrod straight but his hips swished with every step the unicorn took. And he kept glancing back at me. Checking to make sure I was still there? Just wanting another look at me?
No, that was what I kept doing.
I tried to focus on our surroundings, especially when Badru came up beside me and pointed out the greenhouses. “We’ve gotten very good at things this year,” he said, “and even had a harvest from the apple trees.”
“I had one of the apples earlier. It was good.”
