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“But, my sweet little bird,” Alisdair called.
I darted around the watching, still guards—jumping over the rising roots and frozen dirt that made the beginnings of a forest path.
Up ahead, the trees grew closer together, their branches reaching to embrace each other for warmth. They cut any chance for the carriages to get through, or pursue me.
“Olene, Meliora, Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia,” I shouted. I shot through the trees, opening cuts on my face, neck, and hands forcing my way through. “I’m com— Ahhh!”
I pitched forward, teetering on the edge of a sudden cliff. Bugged, wide eyes beheld the long, long... long drop.
My foot slipped, and I fell. “Ahhh!”
Claws snagged my collar and bits of my skin. My dress stopped dead while the rest of me kept falling, pulling my bodice sharply against my throat. I choked—cutting off my scream.
Alisdair pulled me up and to him, crushing me against his chest. Instinctively I threw my arms around him—holding on to the only sure, steady thing as my sudden brush with death crashed over me.
“We’re here.” I shook with his laugh. “Welcome to Lumenfell. Your new home.”
“No,” I whispered, taking in the sight before me.It can’t be. This simply can’t be real.
Falling to my knees, I slid out of his grasp. Vomit rose up my throat again, ejected from my heaving stomach. “Oh, Meya... What have I gotten in to?”
Chapter Five
The carriage traversed the treacherous cliffside road, carrying us down, down, down into the kingdom I only knew of in stories and nightmares. Proximity only confirmed what distance revealed.
It was beautiful.
My eyes were as wide as they could go pressed to the glass, and it still wasn’t wide enough to take it all in.
Snow fell in a light angel’s dusting, sprinkling on the sleepy village like sugar on a pastry. Perilous dark clouds held back the sun, but that didn’t stop them. Brilliant, softly glowing orblights shone on the frozen streets, reflecting through the ice and making the entire town seem as though it fell into a star.
Traditional Lyrican homes were tall, tightly packed, and bursting with activity. The complete opposite of the simple stone and wooden retreats spread out before me. The space between the hut-style homes afforded wide roads for little, skating faeriken—the children’s giggling bounced up the cliff-face. Behind every home were see-through dome structures.
“Greenhouses,” I whispered.
Once, back when he fancied himself in love with Mama and wanted to pretend to be a gentleman, Gisela and Jaclan’s father invited us to his home to see his greenhouse. I remembered walking through the sea of colors, breathing in the scent of fresh dirt, and thinking one day I would have this.
I’d learn to grow every kind of fruit, vegetable, berry, and tuber that Lyrican soil would produce. Most of it I’d sell in my produce shop, but a significant portion would always be free andavailable to the poor and struggling in Lyrica. No one in Gutter Galley would go hungry again.
Impossibly, it seemed that dream had already been achieved in the kingdom of Wind and Wild. No one we passed looked like they’d been hungry a day in their lives.
Laughing men and women strolled, skated, and weaved through the streets, wearing a simple but sturdy style of fur-lined tunics, long woolen gowns, and thick boots. The complete opposite of the dazzling finery and shining, prominent coudarian crystals I passed on the main streets of Lyrica.
We passed by the crown jewel of the town—a square just beginning to wake up as people filled it, visiting the merchants, food carts, and a frozen fountain. A massive, intimidating statue of Shadowsoul glared down at mothers and fathers while they placed their little children in the fountain to skate upon the frozen water.
Those mothers, fathers, merchants, and couples all stopped their business to watch our carriage go by, gifting me a view of cockscombs where hair would be, beaks for noses, leopard fur, and—
I frowned, narrowing on a young fae manning an apple cart. He had neither beak nor fur nor wings. Every bit of him poking out from under his wool cap was normal fae. In fact—
I know him!I tried to speak the words, but they wouldn’t come out. All the same, the recognition was undeniable, even though I couldn’t recall his name. That guy was from the Galley. His family signed him up for the war college and he left years before, but I remembered playing marbles with him on the steps of my home the day before he left.
I remembered because he came over specifically to play with me, saying it was his last chance to do so before he was gone.
Mama teased me after—saying he had a crush on me, and maybe one day when we were older, fate would bring us back together again.
“Looks like it has,” I whispered, feeling small before the uncomplicated beauty before me.
No dirty, long-faced children chasing after the carriage, begging for the smallest scrap to be tossed out the window. No noses high in the air. No sneers or avoided eye contact between passersby. Everything before me was the opposite of Lyrica—apart from one.
