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As the shadows deepen into the afternoon, a palace attendant brings an armful of finery for me and Neev to choose from for the feast. In Lazul, a handmaid would be here to dress us, but things are done more independently here, and I’m glad it means I won’t be primped and fussed over the way I was at my death ceremony ball. I select a gray brocade tunic and silk leggings. Neev wears a white, draped gown that flows all around her in shimmery folds. I put out a hesitant finger to touch it as the sylph attendant helps her pin the sleeve over her shoulder.
“That fabric feels like a whisper.”
“It’s woven of gossamer by moonlight,” says the sylph.
I let my hair down and comb out the tangles, placing the circlet of stones on my head, and Neev glamours her hair to an emerald green as I suggested. It makes the carved comb of pale wood more visible.
I try not to stare at her as we walk to the feast hall, but it’s hard not to. Her beauty is exquisite, like a necklace of finely wrought silver only made lovelier by its simplicity. I hang back a few steps, letting her enter the room ahead of me. Even in a hall full of sylphs, who are known for their noble features and showy plumage, many eyes linger on her. A sylph lord bows to her with an elegant sweep of feathers, and she pauses for a moment, looking taken aback before recovering and dipping into a slight curtsy.
A servant with a tray pauses at her elbow and offers her a goblet of pale mead. “Refreshment, my lady?”
She takes the goblet with less hesitation than she returned the bow, tilting it to her lips.
When I catch up to her, she’s standing with an air of quiet elegance, but her eyes spark with repressed delight. “Do they think I’m a noblewoman?”
This reminds me she’s never been here as an equal, never been shown into the throne room dressed in finery or offered refreshments.
“You look more noble than I do,” I say.
The hall is an open room, with soaring arches and a balustrade overlooking the glen below. I turn away from the breathtaking view, not wanting to see the darkness on the edges.
Gate is already here, dressed in his soldier’s uniform. He looks dashing, even though the uniform is a bit worse for wear. He’s talking to a long-legged sylph with downy wings of brilliant blue, and abalone shells in their hair. They wear a wooden breastplate over a velvet doublet, and the straps of a bow and quiver crisscross over their chest.
King Cygnus is seated on a low throne at the back of the room. The sylphs don’t put themselves on pedestals above one another the way humans do. The throne is wide, with arches carved into the back for his wings, which spread behind him like a feathery gray fan. His snow-white hair is long and soft, and his eyes are solid black from sclera to pupil.
I approach and he nods at me.
“Welcome to Cliff Sedge, Princess Thedra. You’re better, I trust.”
“I am. Thank you for your hospitality.” My hand goes to my bandaged arm. “Your healers saved my life. The forest...”
His welcoming look turns to a frown. “We don’t speak of the forest on feast days. Not anymore.”
“But I must speak to you. We don’t have time to waste.”
He waves this away. “Tonight, we make merry.”
“But in the forest, I saw—"
“We don’t speak of the forest today. Whatever you have to say can wait. My first duty is to my people and our traditions. And you’re not fully healed.” He gestures to my bandaged arm.
I chafe at the thought of waiting to tell him what I saw in the forest. Lazul is responsible for Rothbart and the evil he wrought on Thornewood. Whether they meant to or not, my parents gave him a place to thrive, let him hide away in the lair my mother had built for him so he could tinker with his transfiguration experiments. I’m sickened by the thought, but maybe my mother knew some of his plans. She was closer to him than anyone. How could she not have known what he was? But if I learned anything from my father, it’s that respecting the customs of other realms is tantamount to diplomacy, so I turn away, hiding my anger.
A sylph boy mounts a stool in the center of the room and begins to sing, signaling the start of the feast. The opening notes of his song sound familiar, and a chill goes down my spine.
Come and eat
Berries and apples
Compote and trifle
Crumbling and savory
Warm and sweet
Diplomacy be damned.
“I’ve heard this song before,” I say, turning back to the king. Cygnus has been listening with his head tilted to one side, and he scowls at me for talking over the bard’s lilting voice. “I met one of your people in Thornewood, and she was singing it. She was sick. The forest had gotten into her, and her wings, and...”
He stands up before I can finish and pulls me aside. His talons hurt my arm as he clutches it. “Be quiet before someone hears you. Come with me.”
He ushers me down a corridor where we are alone, and I launch into an explanation. “The girl was small and dark-eyed. Her skin was gold-green, and she had lichen for hair. A tree sylph. And she...she died. I tried to save her, but...” I swallow hard, unable to bring myself to explain the manner of her death. “She was dressed in finery. Has one of the children of your lords been taken?”
“One?” His eyes are hollow. “Many children were taken by the Gaunt Man. Both common and noble. From the trees and the rivers and the heights. She could have been any of them. I’ve tried to keep it as quiet as I can. If I don’t, it will mean war. My people will revolt against him and more will die. Maybe all of them.”
A weight like a stone settles in my belly. King Cygnus thinks Rothbart is this powerful? “You know of him?”
He nods. “There have been sightings. Whispers that he’s the one who enchanted the forest. He is often seen before a blight.”
“I think he’s the one who took Dette.”
“How can you know that?” he asks severely, as if there will be consequences if I’m wrong.
“Because I know who he is. His name is Rothbart, and he was my mother’s chief sorcerer. He murdered her and took her power. She was a shapeshifter.”
I see his chest heave with suppressed emotion. “Two weeks ago,” he says raggedly, “a patrol was attacked on the pass to Frostmead by a giant owl. Was that your mother’s form?”
I nod. “Can I speak to someone who saw it?”
“They’re all dead, save one. He was stricken mute, but he drew us a map. I’ll send you to the pass with a guide when you’ve healed.”
“We don’t have time to wait for that. We’ll stay for tonight’s festivities, but tomorrow we leave.”
We return to the feast. There’s no long central table as there would be at a Lazulian banquet. Instead, benches are laid out along the balustrade and chairs are tucked into the little alcoves clustered around the room. There are cozy cushions by the two hearths at opposite ends of the room for those seeking warmth away from autumn’s chill. I decide to sit by one, as my bones still seem to recall the cold of Thornewood even if my body has recovered from it, but Neev moves to the balustrade to let the wind billow her filmy gown.
We’re served a salad of purslane, seeds, and cattail shoots, with clear spring water to drink. After that come platters of oysters in the shell, roasted hazelnuts, and tiny eggs. We crack the shells of the hazelnuts and eggs to pick out the meat and slurp the oysters from their shells.
For dessert, there are berry preserves and candied figs, and more of the pale mead sipped from bowls with white blossoms floating on the liquid’s surface. I place one on my tongue. It tastes like spun sugar.
“Honeysuckle mead.”
A young sylph man seated on a cushion nearby puts his plate aside and holds his hands to the fire. He has a beaked nose like a bird of prey, and powerful shoulders. There’s a simple pale gold band around his muscled upper arm, and it glints, contrasting with the white and brown feathers that grow in a fan-shaped pattern across his chest and shoulders. “Don’t eat too many,” he says. “They’re like candy, and give the room color, but they’ll run away with you.”
“The food feels magical here,” I say. “We have magic in Lazul, but our food is quite ordinary.”
“Like what?”
“Spitted lizards and goat cheese.” I wrinkle my nose.
He smiles at me again. “This is nothing. Imagine a trifle taller than you are, a fountain of punch, and little cakes dripping with icing so sweet...” He trails off and licks his lips in recollection. “But we don’t venture to trade in Lazul for the sugar anymore. Once, we would have had a great rainbow carp for everyone to share, but we don’t eat fish from the Black Stream anymore either.”
I don’t need him to explain, but he tells me, his voice low, “The fish and mollusks from the river cause some to have an illness of the mind. It leads to dissension and quarrelling.”
I nod. “I’m not surprised. I journeyed through Thornewood on my way here. My companion and I drank the water.”
His dark eyes swoop down on mine with alarmed distrust when I name the forest.
“Don’t worry,” I say quickly. “We’re getting better.”
He relaxes fractionally, but seems wary of me now. We only talk a bit more before he moves away. I can’t blame him. He has no reason to believe I’m telling the truth.
Now that the main courses have been served, musicians begin playing lilting music on flutes and lyres, and several sylphs take to the dance floor. Dancing in Shoreana is much more complex than in the human realms. The average sylph’s build of lightweight bones and strong wings lends them a buoyancy and grace most humans don’t possess.
Neev is standing near the dancing sylphs and she clasps her hands in front of her, losing the air of cautious confidence she had earlier. Several of the sylphs have spoken to her with admiring glances, both male and female, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them asks her to dance. She seems to have the same thought because she starts to back away.
Maybe it’s the honeysuckle mead, or maybe it’s the way she looks in the draped, filmy gown that moves like whispering moonlight, but I stand with sudden resolve and skirt the dance floor until I reach her. “Would you like to dance with me before someone else asks? Someone over there is eyeing you.”
Neev glances nervously in the direction of a towering sylph with massive wings of blue, green, and gold. The sylph’s feathers grow over its forehead all the way to its broad nose, making it appear less humanoid than some of the others. “Are they male or female?”
I smile. “Does it matter? They’re gorgeous and at least six and a half feet tall.”
“I’ll have to say no and risk offense. I don’t know how to dance. Not like this, anyway.”
I hold my hand out to her. “It’s okay. I know the lead parts. I used to help Dette practice. And no one can dance like a sylph except another sylph.”
Dette could, very nearly, but I don’t say that. She was always delighted when her wings aided her in the midair twists and pirouettes popular in her father’s court. She used to practice them when we were together on Lebed while my tutor taught me traditional Lazulian contra dances.
Neev slips her hand into mine and I lead her onto the floor. I put my hands on her waist and lift her several inches off the floor in unison with the sylph couples, turning slowly. Even though she has no wings to help me, she must weigh less than a hundred pounds, so it’s not much of a challenge. The sylphs finish the move by arching their backs and bending one leg until their heads nearly touch their heel, but Neev doesn’t have the core strength for it.
I lower her carefully and we attempt to keep time with the difficult steps, hiding our laughter.
“Put your left arm out straight and point your toe. That’s right.”
I spin her around and she holds the pose this time. She’s laughing when she faces me again, her features lit by pearly moonlight and candleflame. I want to kiss her. Lately, it seems I always want to kiss her.
When the dance ends and we return to the alcove where I was sitting, she says, “I saw you talking to that sylph lord.”
“How do you know he was a lord?”
She hangs back from the fire as I stretch my hands toward it. “His armband. Only their royalty wear jewelry that’s not made of wood or bone.”
I nod, still bothered by the sylph lord’s aversion. “You should’ve seen his face when I told him I drank from the Black Stream. It was like he thought I was contagion itself.”
She takes my hand. “Don’t talk like that. You’re out of the forest, Thedra. Don’t think those dark thoughts anymore.”
I meet her gaze and wait for her to look away, but she doesn’t. She’s so kind, and so soft, and so—
“Sorry to interrupt.”
Neev and I both jump as if we’ve been caught in an act of thievery and I let go of her hand. It’s Gate. The sylph with fluffy wings he was talking to earlier is with him
“This is Plover, one of the guards who will be leading us to the pass where Princess Odette was taken.”
Plover has a sharp jaw, pointed nose, and soulful, long-lashed eyes of blue-gray.
I extend a hand. “I’m Thedra, and this is Neev, my...um, traveling companion.” Plover’s name does nothing to enlighten me on their gender, and I know some clans can change theirs at will for reproductive purposes or personal preference, so I ask, “What are your pronouns?”
“He and him, for always.” He smiles at me but doesn’t shake my hand. “Lovely to meet you.” It’s strange not being addressed as Your Highness, but I like it. Plover blinks, looking dazed. “Do you see the shifting colors? The fire is green as a katydid.”
His voice is dreamy, and the fire doesn’t appear green at all when I glance at it.
Seeing my frown, Gate says, “He had three cups of mead and ate most of the flowers.”
Plover sags a bit and leans a feathered cheek against Gate’s shoulder. Gate clears his throat uncomfortably. “He’s off duty tonight, and I think I should take him home...while he can still stand. He lives in a hollow tree outside the palace.”
“Gentlemanly of you,” says Neev. There’s no hidden meaning in her tone, but Gate turns his back to us stiffly.
I think how silly I was to be jealous of his friendship with Neev. She might tease him, but she hardly ever teases me. A part of me wishes she would, but I’m not the sort of person people mock to their face. Unless they’re interminably stupid. I don’t suppose I’d tease someone who knows the word to wake the dead and has a vial of lightning on their belt, either. But I hate feeling cut off, remote from everyone else. Maybe that’s why I fell in love with Dette so easily. Aside from the fact that everyone loves Dette. She never behaved as if I were strange or different, or deferred to me, because she was a princess too, and not just that, but the future High Empress.
The dancers leave the floor and the bard returns to his seat near the king’s throne and begins to sing again in a high voice. This time his song’s not one of merriment, or drink and food. It’s about a sylph whose lover’s wings were frozen by a killing frost on an early spring night turned unexpectedly cold. The sylph laments that the two of them will never fly together again, and that the lover’s wound sent them to an early grave.
I drink a bit more of the mead, careful not to swallow too many of the white blossoms.
The bard is singing, “Once my heart rose with yours like an evening star, but now it falls like snow.”
His voice is pure as clear water, and so beautiful it makes my throat ache, but the song is long even for a lament and after a while the sadness of it seems to be filling me up, replacing the lightheartedness of my dance with Neev.
I’m gulping back unwelcome tears when her silky, gloved fingers slip into mine. “Come with me. You rescued me, and now I’m rescuing you. I know of a room here you’ll like.”
“We can’t wander the palace alone,” I say, feigning horror. “How rude.”
“It’s what Dette would do.”
With that, I follow her out of the feast hall and down one tiled corridor after another, our footsteps echoing on the flags as her shimmery gown swishes around her ankles. We pass sitting rooms with cushioned lounges and gurgling fountains, and a room with a towering ceiling and a tree growing at its center. There are seats in the branches, too high for us to reach.
We go up a winding staircase and climb a ladder made of sturdy, polished branches. The ladder leads to a trapdoor with an open room at the top. There’s a domed ceiling with panels of clear mica for star and moon-gazing. Sharp, crystal-cut stars glitter overhead in the inky black sky of a new moon.
I clamber through the opening in the floor and stand up, tilting my head back to look at the stars. It’s the first time I’ve seen them since we entered Thornewood. They’re clear here, as they should be, and I can see the early autumn constellations.
Neev touches my arm. “Look.”
I survey my surroundings. The room’s walls are lined with books bound in hemp and cornhusk instead of leather, and there are cloches containing forests in miniature, and puzzles and baubles and tiny worlds carved into seed husks and chestnuts. There are hanging tapestries too, but they don’t show scenes like ours—they’re woven of dried plant fibers, dandelion tufts, and feathers in a thousand hues.
“Sylphs use their own fallen feathers to weave art for their lovers,” says Neev, stroking her gloved hand along the silken down of a tapestry. “It’s like giving a lock of hair.”
A glass cloche hanging from the ceiling catches her attention and she wanders over to it. It’s full of fluttering white moths. She touches it and the moths cluster against the glass, flocking to the heat of her fingertips.
I pick up a sphere from a nearby shelf and turn it over, inspecting it carefully. It’s made of thousands of tiny, interlocking twigs, and it springs apart in my hands, expanding to five times its size to reveal a tiny nest. Nestled within are two eggs of pale blue stone and a bird with sapphire eyes that shrieks at me before the sphere closes back on itself.
Neev laughs at my startled face. “Nothing in here will hurt you. They’re just tomes and trinkets to be touched and marveled over.”
I laugh too, feeling ridiculous for being threatened by a bauble.
A pair of heavy drapes hang on the opposite wall. Chill air drifts from beneath them, and I loosen the sash and push them aside, expecting a window. Instead, I’m met by an arch that looks out on open air and darkness. The polished floor stretches to a small stone balcony without a railing, and the drop-off is only a few steps away.
“Careful.” Neev clutches my tunic with one hand, gripping my forearm with the other. “There’s no banister since sylphs have wings.”
Even though it’s not our first touch tonight, my heart hammers like it’s trying to get out of my chest. I’m terrified to turn around, but finally, I do. She’s right behind me, so close the gauzy hem of her gown floats across the tops of my feet. She tilts her chin a bit so she can look into my eyes.
The wind hits my back and I shiver. Her arms are bare.
“Aren’t you cold?”
She shakes her head. Of course not.
Even though I’ve wanted to kiss her all day, I begin to lose my nerve. Suddenly, I’m terrified. I’m afraid she didn’t bring me up here for this at all. That she can see on my face exactly how attracted I am to her and how much I care for her, and that she doesn’t feel the same way. I’m afraid she won’t kiss me back. I’m afraid she will.
When she puts her hands on my waist, I say, “Yes,” and she stretches up on her toes until our lips touch.
I cup her face with my hand, and she kisses me with gentle little kisses that turn meltingly slow and deep. Her lips are mead-flavored: sweet, soft, and fiery. I pull her closer, clasping her narrow shoulders with my hands, and her arms tighten around my waist.
When we part, I say her name like it’s a prayer, terrified and exultant at the same time. “If you let me go now, I’ll fall.”
She whispers, “I’ve got you,” and I kiss her again. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of kissing her.
This time when we stop to catch our breath, her eyes move over my features in frantic repetition, from my mouth to my eyes and forehead, as if she’s memorizing a complex map or a long equation.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she whispers. “Just now, nothing at all. But I wish we could stay tucked away here. That everything else would disappear.”
I wish this too, but there are still so many things left to do. I promise myself that one day Neev will be safe. After the things she’s told me of her childhood, she strikes me as someone who craves safety, and I’ll find some way to give it to her.
I can imagine Father’s snide indignation at my bringing home a commoner as my first official lover. But I’ll only need to mention his own curly-headed paramour to put an end to it. If I give him what he wants, let him abdicate the throne. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t let me have real affection. I’m to be queen, after all. And for the first time, it’s not an unwelcome thought. With her by my side, maybe it could even be wonderful. My people will love her because she’s gentle, kind, and lovely. Having magic has never gone to her head because it was never used to advance her social status, and her perspective on poverty can only help end Lazul’s cycle of greed and ignorance.
We meet Agate back in the feast hall, just returned from walking Plover home. He looks like someone poured a bucketful of starlight over his head and it nettles me, even though I probably looked the same way less than half an hour ago.
“What happened to you?” asks Neev casually.
“Nothing, and don’t imply anything did. You know he was drunk.”
“And?” I ask. “You look punch drunk yourself.”
Gate clears his throat. “He tried to kiss me, but I put him to bed. Doubt he’ll even remember it in the morning. Oh, look! They’re bringing out more seed cakes and mead.”
“No more for you,” I say. “We three are going to bed.”
“Why do you have to be such a killjoy, Your Highness?”
“Because, Gate. We have a task that’s more important than you getting drunk and eating too much. We barely escaped the forest three days ago and we leave soon. We need to rest.”
He sighs. “Fine. I’ll go to bed. But I hope sylphs like boar bacon for breakfast. I’m tired of nuts and berries.”
We see him to his door and head to our adjoining rooms. Neev takes a step toward her door and I reach for her hand. “Go into yours,” I whisper, even though there’s no one around to hear. “But you can meet me in mine. If you want.”
I go into my room, take off the circlet of river stones, and strip down to the simple muslin underclothes provided by the sylphs before climbing into bed. I’m beginning to think Neev isn’t coming when she enters the room. She has exchanged the shimmery gown she wore to the feast for a plain white robe.
I pull back the woven quilt and she climbs in beside me.
“This is familiar,” I say.
“Sharing a bed?” Her smile is shy and playful at once. “But it’s already plenty warm in here.”
“I don’t want you to feel pressured,” I say. “Because I’m...”
“Royal?”
“Yes.”
She takes my hand and kisses my fingertips, one by one. “Never. I want this. With you.”
I let my hand find the gentle curve of her waist beneath the coverlet and then her hip. Her mouth is on mine, warm and insistent. Tonight, I don’t think of our differences, of noble and commoner, or servant and princess. I only think of her burning hands on my body, and her soft skin beneath my lips. I don’t think of the invisible barrier I used to imagine between us, and when she wakes me in the morning with soft kisses and a sylph brings us breakfast in bed without batting an eye, I hope we’ve finally torn it down. I don’t realize my hope is so bright that it’s blinding me.
