Page 45 of His Summer Prince

“Go,” Elior snarled at the remaining knight. “Your sisters-in-arms will succumb to their wounds. You don’t have to die. Return to my mother, and tell her what you have seen. Tell her the summer faerie fruit is gone and that I am bonded. Tell her that I will kill any knight she sends after me. Pursuing us is pointless. I will not return, and I cannot be married off. Go!”

The knight looked at him with wide eyes, then nodded once, bowed, and retreated out the open window, the short drop onto street level no hindrance for her.

Chapter Fifteen

Wren

They fled the inn in the middle of the night. Elior had stoically ended the knights’ suffering, cold determination permeating the bond. If Wren had any doubts as to how far Elior would go to protect them, he now knew. When Elior had said he’d burn down the world for him, he’d meant it.

They packed their belongings in a hurry, Wren feeding Toby a couple of treats as he readied to leave. Toby had saved his life.

Sneaking into the stables, they collected their horses and rode off along the road to Neronaca. Wren would’ve preferred to leave the path and ride across the fields, but he was worried about the horses misstepping and breaking a leg in the dark. The animals were exhausted from a long day of travel, having not had a full night’s rest. But Wren couldn’t risk staying at the inn, not when more knights could show up to try and seize them.

They crossed into Neronaca in the small hours but didn’t rest until the sun was approaching its zenith.

For weeks, they were on high alert, taking turns keeping watch at night. They saw no more fae knights. The Summer Queen had given up. Even if she hadn’t, her knights couldn’t pursue them endlessly. Summer would end in Vale, and her knights would have to go back to the Summer Court before it got too cold for a safe return. Most fae didn’t possess the keen interest in the human world that Elior did, and they wouldn’t know about the maps he had found hidden in the palace’s library. They didn’t know about the continent curving south,leading to a place where winters were mild and safe.

He and Wren continued southwest, crossing from Neronaca into the kingdom of Maressia and further into lands neither of them had heard of. The weather stayed warm and pleasant past the autumn equinox.

When they ran out of gold, Elior played the lute in taverns, earning more coins than a human could’ve hoped for. He was a fae, after all, and music and dance came easy to him. Interestingly, his supernatural nature faded into obscurity as they traversed the continent. The further they traveled, the less people knew of fae until everyone around them just assumed Elior had unusual ears.

Finally, on a sunny afternoon, they stumbled upon the coast. Neither of them had seen the ocean before, and Wren sucked the briny air into his lungs as they stood side by side on the cliffs, watching the play of waves in the sunlight beneath them. A narrow beach ran along the foot of the cliffs, leading to a place in the distance where the sheer drop-off gave way to a gentle rise lined with bushes and short trees. Precariously perched on the side of the hill sat a terraced village of white houses and long rows of retaining walls.

Wren looked to Elior, who caught his gaze. “It’s nice here,” Wren said, and Elior nodded. They’d been on the road for months. They were tired, and so were the animals. It was time to stop, at least for a while. Winter was encroaching on Vale, but here, the weather was still warm. If it stayed like this until the winter solstice, they were safe.

Under the bright blue sky, they trekked across the rocky terrain toward the village, going slowly to give Toby and the horses time to pick their way.

A white wall circled the settlement, and Wren waved at the guards posted at the gate. He was glad to see a defensive structure and greeted the guards, who let them through aftersome questioning.

They found an inn on the lower end of the village where they stabled the animals before going inside. A woman in her thirties stood behind the counter, polishing a long line of heavy-looking glasses. Like most people of the region, her skin was a dark olive, and she’d slung her thick, black hair across one shoulder in a ponytail, golden rings dividing it into sections. Her amber eyes sparked as Wren and Elior walked in, and she dropped her dishcloth and waved them over.

It was past lunchtime, dinner still hours away, and the tavern was empty save for a table of four elderly men playing cards in the corner. They, too, glanced over and gave them friendly waves.

“What can I get you?” the innkeeper asked as Wren and Elior approached the counter. “Drinks? Food? We have grilled sea bass with lemon and thyme on beans or our mixed seafood platter. All fresh from today’s catch, of course.”

“Uhm… one of each?” Wren said. He’d never had either, so why not try both? “And some water and whatever ale you have, please.”

The innkeeper disappeared in the kitchen. From the back of the tavern, one of the men called out, “Come sit with us, lads.”

He waved them over with both hands and a big smile, and when Wren found no apprehension in the bond, he took Elior’s hand and strolled over. The men moved closer together, making space for them.

“Welcome to Tolanaki!” the man said and introduced himself as Vandos. His suntanned face was a weathered landscape of deep furrows, his hair as white as his mustache. “You’re not from here, are you?”

“How could you tell?” Elior asked with a laugh. “Was it our Valian accents or the red hair?”

Vandos chuckled. “A bit of both. Your Viridian is very good.”

Wren and Elior exchanged looks and silently decided, as so often, not to explain that their mother tongue was a dialect of the Viridian spoken all across the continent. Instead, they took the compliment for what it was. They introduced themselves to the men and explained that they hailed from a faraway kingdom and wanted to start a new life.

“Ah,” Vandos said, “in Tolanaki, we’re always looking for people willing to work. What do you do?”

“I’m a shepherd,” Wren said.

“Well, we don’t have pastures fit for sheep, but if you want to try your hand at goat herding, my niece is hiring help. And how about you?” Vandos gestured at Elior.

“I play the lute.”

Elior was a capable shepherd after spending every summer with Wren, but Wren doubted the small village of Tolanaki needed two new goatherds.

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