“You weren’tcertain?” the captain snaps, fury flashing across his weathered face. “You can’t recognize the crown prince’s bite of power?”
The younger officer visibly wilts.
I rub the red imprints on my wrists, feeling faint. It was one thing to suspect E was a prince of Faerie. It’s an entirely different feeling to hear it confirmed.
Sir Davos exhales through his nose, visibly forcing himself back under control, then gestures toward the open path behind him
“Welcome home, my prince. His Majesty should return before sundown.” Sir Davos says. “I’ll alert the staff of your arrival.”
The guards remain in the room as we exit, my stomach fluttering.
“Where are we going?” E whispers.
I elbow his side but keep my face serene. “Act like you know.”
We cross an elevated bridge, and urgency ripples through the posted guards below as word of E’s return begins to spread.
E laces our fingers. “Now what?”
I squeeze his hand and guide him along. “Now, we go and meet your father.”
He pauses, tugging on my arm. “I’m still not sure they’re right about me. It’s so strange.”
“You heard them. Youlivehere.”
I hurry him along, weary of what could happen if they changed their minds.
“Yet I spent decades in the new world, alone and discarded… It doesn’t add up.”
“Their leader wouldn’t have bent the knee if you were just good at bluffing. It’s simple enough to understand,” I say, a little too defensive, trying to mask how freaked out I feel, and failing miserably.
His jaw ticks. “You think this” —his free hand grazes my shoulder, then drops— “feels simple?”
I swallow hard.
No, it doesn’t. Not when every new revelation digs a bigger trench between us.
Out on the terrace, slender white columns support long trellised walkways draped in climbing vines, their leaves dark and lush against the white stone. It’s not a single balcony but a network of bridges, terraces, and elevated gardens leading toward the center.
There are no riotous flower beds, no bursts of color softening the austerity. Ancient bonsai trees sit in carved stone planters, their trunks twisted into deliberate forms, their canopies clipped into graceful silhouettes.
I've always loved how plants claim space without apology. Roots invade stones and soil alike. Vines climb whatever stands in their way. Leaves reach for every scrap of light they can find.
Give them soil, water, and a little care, and plants thrive.
Here, everything feels smothered. Nothing is allowed to dig too deep or spread too far. There’s no wild roots, no chaos, and no decay. Every branch is trimmed just so, and every fallen leaf has been meticulously removed. So much perfection makes my core itch. I crave the mess of my gardens, the stubbornness, the quiet rebellion of green things that refuse to stay where they’re told.
This garden is holding its breath.
A gigantic hawthorn tree stands in the middle of the uppermost terrace, unquestioned, while everything else is kept small and secondary. It’s not beautiful in the way I’d imagined. Pristine and intimidating, yes, but not welcoming.
At the base of the hawthorn tree, a perfect ring of water circles the white trunk in a forceful, gushing current. The churning water streams in a straight line beyond it before plummeting down the sheer cliff in a powerful waterfall.
At this height, the cliffs should howl. The drop is endless, the kind of void that should pull the air into motion and send it tearing through the gardens, but nothing moves.
Not my hair. Not even the golden leaves of the Sun Court’s sacred tree.
The waterfall should be thunderous too, given the way it spills over the edge of the cliffs, vanishing into a sea of mist below. And yet, its roar feels…contained, as though sound itself has been tamed to suit this place.
