Page 39 of Court of Winter

He nodded toward the unbound atmosphere. “Their job is simply to protect me when I can’t protect myself, but up here, nothing can hurt me.”

He sounded so confident, so sure of that fact, and given the immense capability of his power that I’d seen so far, I had a feeling he was right.

CHAPTER10

Despite the prince’s magic shooting us across the land toward the capital, it still took hours of flying. Beneath us, the angry clouds of the gale pummeling the Gielis Mountains fell behind us after we finally crossed the mountain range and descended into Prinavee Territory.

The clouds thinned and shifted from indigo and navy to light pink, soft yellow, snowy white, and translucent summer green. And as we flew farther, the clouds thinned even more until there was nothing but clear seafoam sky above us and bare land below.

When the weather truly calmed—something I knew would rarely happen come winter—the prince dispersed the magical bubble we were encapsulated in and drifted lower, allowing me to decipher more details of the land beneath us.

“Are those villages, my prince?” I asked, pointing.

The prince’s silvery hair was pulled back with another leather band, but today it was in a low ponytail. A few strands had pulled loose and twisted around his face, highlighting the planes and angles and his deep-seated eyes. “They are. As we get nearer to the capital, the city sizes grow, but we’re still a hundred millees away, so out here, they’re farming villages.”

“Like where I come from.”

“Correct. The land in my territory isn’t blessed as richly withoremas in your territory, but we still grow crops.”

The small village I’d spotted grew nearer. Within minutes, we were directly above it, and even sharper details were present.

Tiny houses and narrow streets ran in a gridwork pattern. The roads had been cleared of snow, but when I beheld the land around it and searched for the fields, I struggled to find any.

In my territory, theoremmade the fields warm, and even if they were filled with snow, the crops still grew and flourished, often growing through the snow if theoremwasn’t able to completely melt it. But the signature bright colors of blue, burnt orange, green, marigold, dazzling red, and fuchsia—the rainbow of colors I would expect from fields of wheat, vegetables, and fruits—were absent. All I saw was a sea of white.

I frowned. “I don’t understand. Where are the crops?”

The prince’s arms tightened around me. When I glanced up, searching his face for answers, he simply nodded ahead. “Do you see Solisarium?”

I shifted my attention forward, searching for the capital but not really knowing what to expect. All I knew of the great city was that it resided within Prinavee Territory, which was our continent’s only landlocked territory, and that over a million fae called it home.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Look closer.”

I squinted, then caught the flash of something bright shining above the snow, then another twinkle, and another. Glistening droplets of frosted glass, bricks of snow, and twisted white metal grew larger the more the prince’s wings carried us.

The castle.

It stood highest in Solisarium, and I was able to see more fragments of its architecture with every millee that passed.

My heart beat harder as more and more details of the sprawling city emerged. The outer edges were mostly homes and small shops, barely discernible from the ground, but inward, the buildings grew taller and the architecture more extravagant. I’d never dreamed that I’d actually see any of this, had never even thought to imagine it since where I came from, the most a fairy could hope for was to work in Firlim if one managed to avoid laboring in the fields. But nobody in my village ever went to university, not even the closest one in Elsberda, which was only a two hours’ flight away, let alone the prestigious Academy of Solisarium in the capital. It just wasn’t done. Nobody could afford that.

And knowing that my dreams for the life I would one day lead were vastly limited, I’d never considered the possibilities outside of Mervalee. It’d been too painful, too final to know that any dreams larger than my village would be squashed before they’d begun.

Yet now I was seeing Solisarium, even though it wasn’t under any circumstances I’d ever hoped for.

“Why do you look sad?”

The prince’s question startled me so much that my grip slipped from around his neck. Of course, it didn’t matter. He simply tightened his hold on me.

“I’m not sad. I’m fine.”

He rolled his eyes, the movement so unlike him that some of the lingering pain from a life I’d never be able to lead faded away.

“Anyone with eyes can see that you’re sad.”

Not liking that he’d caught me in a moment of weakness, I scowled. “Don’t you mean anybody with the ability to empathize is able to see that I’m sad?” His forehead scrunched together, so I added, “Fae without empathy don’t sense emotions in others. They’re not able to pick up on subtle body language.”

---