With a smile, she nodded and followed him out the tavern door. Instantly, cool wind blasted her face. She closed her eyes and pulled the air into her lungs, sighing with contentment as it soothed away the heat. Eislyn had never thought much about the chill of the north. It had always been a part of her. She had not expected to miss it, but it was almost as if she could feel the ice calling to her from far away.
Which was, of course, ridiculous.
“Come. Let’s go down to the docks.”
Thane led the way. They strode along a dock that jutted out over a canal, filled with barges transporting goods to and from the capital.
Eislyn sighed and dropped back her head to look at the sky. The clouds had cleared this night, and the stars were out. They were not as bright here as they were back home, but she could recognize their formations just as easily. The Dagda was the brightest and most luminous constellation. Their father, their maker. The one who took their magic away.
On a night like this, she had almost forgotten it was gone.
“An airgead for your thoughts,” Thane spoke up from his quiet stroll beside her.
“I’m thinking of home,” she said wistfully.
“Do you miss it?”
She considered his question. “Yes and no. The Ice Court is all I’ve ever known, and there is nothing like the mountains there. The snow, the ice, the frozen world. I know you get snowfall here, but it isn’t the same. Even though magic is gone, there is a power in the snow and ice. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s there.”
Thane nodded. “I often feel that way about the winds.”
She glanced at him, surprised. “You do?”
“Not often.” He pointed up at the towering castle in the distance, golden spires looming high. “But when I am out on the Observatory, and the evening winds whip around me, it feels unlike anything else in the world. It is why I don’t believe the Dagda has truly forsaken us.”
She stopped suddenly, turning to face him. “Reyna isn’t convinced the Dagda is even real. Although...” She widened her eyes. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.”
Thane smiled, his eyes kind. “Whatever is said and done at a revel stays at the revel, remember? I won’t tell a single soul what we speak of this night.”
“We’re not technically at the revel anymore...” Still, she smiled back. As much as she had disliked Thane in the beginning, he was regrettably beginning to grow on her a bit. Nothing was as it seemed, not when it came to him. The cruelty wasn’t there. The anger and rebelliousness wasn’t either.
“The revel isn’t over until we step foot back inside the castle.” He began to walk down the dock again, their footsteps thudding against the wooden planks. A light wind whipped through Eislyn’s silver hair, a welcoming embrace.
“May I ask you a question then?” Eislyn asked, tucking her hands into the pockets of her dark trousers.
“Anything.”
“You fought in the war,” she said quickly before she could lose her courage. “In the Battle for the Shard, the fight that cut down half of both our armies.”
Thane was quiet for a long moment. She wondered if she’d asked too much. The walls between them had begun to fall away, but that did not mean they were gone. War was a different subject entirely.
“I did,” he finally said, voice hard. “It was the worst day of my life.”
Eislyn’s heart thumped. “You were in the front lines, were you not?”
“I was right there in the thick of it, Eislyn.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his long golden hair. “And I know why you are asking. Are those rumors true since the others are not? Did I kill hundreds of fae in the fury of battle? I cannot lie. I will not speak in riddles. The truth is I gladly fought against the ice fae. I tore them down, just as they tore down the folk of the air. Our two armies destroyed each other. I wish it weren’t so, but it is.”
Eislyn did not quite know what to say. She twisted her hands together, gazing at the rippling water of the canal. “It was the magic.”
“The magic?”
She nodded. “The Fall. That’s what started all of this, isn’t it? Without the magic, fae got scared. Like cornered animals. We did the only thing we knew to do and that was to fight. But instead of fighting against whatever took our magic away, we turned on each other. That will be what is the end of us. Not the lack of our power.”
“You might be right.” Thane smiled. “You really do know a lot about our war.”
“And what do you think it is I am reading in those books of mine?” She gave him a sly look. “Do you imagine me tucked away, reading about warriors saving princesses from towers?”
He shook his head and laughed. “I certainly don’t now.”
