“I would much rather spend some nights sleeping on the ground than have the Dark Fae sneak up on us again. They’re obviously here for a reason, and it’s one we need to find out. But until then, we need to keep as low a profile aspossible.”
It was impossible for them to argue against that. Not even Kael could find a reason to turn our party back onto the road. I knew we wouldn’t be able to hide forever. The time would come soon enough when the Dark Fae would no longer stand idly by on thehillside.
I didn’t know why they were waiting, but I knew they wouldcome.
* * *
It tookthree more days for us to reach the border between the free territory and the winter lands. We’d had no more run-ins with the Dark Fae, and the Wilde ones had been nowhere to be seen. After the fire at the inn, the trip had been pretty uneventful, though I was beginning to tire of berries andporridge.
And I wanted nothing more than to go back to those moments before everything had gone wrong. I’d been so happy. My body had felt so light. At the time, it felt as if the world was finally on my side. Everything was falling intoplace.
Too bad that feeling had only beentemporary.
There was nothing to mark the border between the lands. From where we stood in the dense autumn forest, I could see nothing beyond us but another carpet of orange, red, and yellow. A golden sun beamed through the thick, curling branches, and the rustle of wild animals echoed all aroundus.
Kael’s face had brightened the closer and closer we’d gotten to the border. He was practically beaming now, an alien expression for his usually stoic face. He gestured through a small break in the trees and smiled as I gingerly stepped towardit.
When I ducked under the limb, I blinked at what rose up before me. Gone were the fallen leaves and the bright golden sun. In its place, everything was a bright sparkling white, and buckets of snow drifted down through the thick branches and vines. I gasped and dropped back my head, enjoying the cold kiss of the snow on myface.
“This is a sight for sore eyes,” Kael said with a smile as he stepped up beside me. “And it looks like you don’tdisagree.”
“I love the cold and the snow,” I said. “There’s something so vibrant about it. It makes me feelalive.”
Kael glanced over to me then, his eyes shining. “The cold is making your cheeks pink. It suits you, mylove.”
Warmth spread through my body, even though the temperature was far colder than anything I’d ever experienced in the human realm. Kael and I had bickered about not taking the main road, but I knew he was only trying to keep me safe. He was scared of losing me, just as much as I was scared of losingthem.
Behind us, Finn, Rourke, and Liam popped through the border and began to hand out the warmer cloaks for us to don now that we were in the colder lands. The five of us fell silent as we began the final trek to the castle. We’d have to wind our way up the side of the nearest mountain, and then we’d be to the prior home of the Winter Court. The former home of the Royals. My heart hurt just thinking about it. Queen Viola, even though she’d been defeated in the end, had left behind a horrible mess and a pile of bodies far larger than I liked to imagine. The realm was beginning to heal now, but it would never fully recover until the Royals had been replaced. And I knew no one wanted to truly think about that justyet.
“How are you feeling, Norah?” Kael asked as we crunched through the deep snow. He cast a sideways glance my way with a curious expression on his face. “It’s almost been a week since theattack.”
It had been a week, but it felt much longer. In fact, it felt like months had passed since I’d faced off against the changeling whose place I had taken in the human realm. “Honestly? I feel fine. I keep expecting to have weird cravings for violence or for some kind of fleshly hunger to take over my mind, or for my hands to suddenly feel like they’re going to morph into claws. But none of that hashappened.”
“Truth be told, you should have experienced some side effects by now,” Kael said. “It makes me wonderif…”
“If what?” I asked, eyebrowsraised.
“Perhaps you’re immune.” He held my hand as we crunched through a deeper patch of snow. “You’re a Greater Fae. Your magic is different than ours. Remember that I accidentally bit you all those months ago. Nothing happened then either. At the time I thought it was because the bite was fleeting. Not enough venom got into your bloodstream. But now, Iwonder…”
That bite. I’d almost forgotten about that. If I thought the attack felt like months ago, then the bite on that cliff felt likeyears.
“That’s good news then, isn’tit?”
A ghost of a smile flashed across Kael’s face. “Yes, though I’m certain you would have been able to handle the beast, if that was what it cameto.”
A long pause stretched out between us. I hoped that our mission to find the Starlight wouldn’t fall to the wayside now, just because I’d somehow escaped the repercussions of the venom. I still needed the cure to help theothers.
“I’d still like to go and find the Winter Starlight while we’re here,” I said. “Just in case. It doesn’t hurt to take it,right?”
Kael gave a nod and fell silent again as we made our way through the falling snow. It took several more hours for us to reach the castle. The collection of intricate buildings sat clustered behind a large stone wall topped with battlements, the entire castle erected on the side of a steep mountain. It loomed over the snowy canyon below, casting jagged shadows across theground.
When we strode up the winding path, several Hunters whispered out from the shadows. They were unarmed, but they stood just in front of our path, blocking our way to the castle’s frontgates.
“Princess Norah,” one of the Hunters said as he bowed hishead.
Princess?Shock flittered through me at the word. That had certainly been the first time anyone had called me that, and I wasn’t particularly certain how I felt about it. Technically, that was who I was, but still. It wasn’t as if I’d grown up inside the courts. And it wasn’t as if Marin had even ruled in recentyears.
Princess.I weight it in my mind. I supposed I could get used toit.
