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Whatever the fuck the prince was doing, I had no clue until stealing a glance. The man barely concealed his distaste beneath that veneer. Autumn invested itself in scholarship and factual texts as much as Winter did, but Jeryn’s kingdom had no appetite for fiction or verse beyond research. That was the only reason the avians I’d dispatched had eventually located the final book in Briar’s favorite series; the installment had been gathering dust in one of Winter’s universities.
The prince lounged in his chair with one elbow propped on the armrest. The ankle of his boot rested on the opposite knee, and yet my gaze seized on a few notable details. Winter rubbed his fingers against his mouth, then scraped those digits into the hairline above his ear before emitting a heavy breath. Huh. Scarcely a display but it was there. For such a static disposition, some unknown preoccupation made him restless. I tapered my eyes, surveying his body language but failing to detect the source.
With Jeryn’s mind drawn elsewhere and Avalea focused on the readings, agitation crawled up my limbs. I should have known my patience would wane. Like an addict, I paced myself until the right moment.
Courtiers applauded, then burst into a flurry of whispers as Eliot materialized, extracting himself from the cluster of narrators on the sidelines. Naturally, he’d generated his own fans across the continent. People had heard of him even before he came here, his voice and ballads renowned.
Now the court was able to put a face to the celebrity, further sweetening that dish. With his stubbled features, athletic physique, golden hair snared into a bun at his nape, and the lute tattoo blazing beneath the neckline of his knit pullover, the man could charm a cement wall. Indeed, Eliot’s charisma walked the line between boyish and virile, cherubic and strapping, his good looks less intimidating or cautionary than Yours Truly. And like a good trickster, he’d learned in the past few months how to wield those attributes.
The roaring fire darkened Eliot’s silhouette, yet I caught him wink conspiratorially at Briar. Hooking the lute to his chest, the minstrel’s fingers swept over the strings. A current of music lifted from the instrument, the melody sailing through the library. Eliot’s digits dove, swayed, and plucked, sending a ripple effect through the audience.
All of this before he’d even opened his mouth. But when he did, I swore every figure leaned forward, lapping up the honey of his tenor. That, and the words. Eliot and I had picked a verse for him to recite, then discerned the notes he needed to hit. And being of Spring, he sang the passages instead of simply reading them.
For once, I was fine not being the center of attention. As the minstrel’s lute and voice drew everyone’s gaze, I got sneaky. Easing from my chair, I skulked toward the fringes and passed the bookcases, taking the long way around to Briar’s side of the room.
She beamed at Eliot, her lovely features engrossed in his tenor and the story. Because the princess sat alone, out of eyeshot from her mother and the prince, I cleared the distance without detection. Snatching a stool from a random corner, I ascended the platform, then set the stool beside her wing chair, making sure to install myself a few inches behind it.
Briar inhaled sharply. The flesh across her shoulders pebbled.
My lips twisted. I didn’t need to speak. She knew me well enough.
Quickly, her frame relaxed into the chair. She kept her head averted, yet her voice came out faint and reverent. “You chose my book.”
I had. However controversial to these people, the final book in her series included contents that proved necessary to share with the court. Eliot and I had compiled the main passages, then the minstrel did the rest.
Briar’s fragrance drugged my senses, and although mischief and desire had glamoured me here, now I just wanted to be near her. Look at her. Soak in her essence. For a moment, I wanted to pretend we had nothing else to contemplate but the music, the tale, and its meaning.
When I didn’t speak,couldn’tspeak, Briar whispered, “And you know the language.”
Aye. That was another facet we’d added to the performance. For Eliot sang in the ancient tongue of our continent—as lilting as the wind, as fluid as water, as deep as the earth, and as encompassing as fire. Though a dying art, Autumn and Winter were the only Seasons that still embraced the language, the former for its traditional value, the latter for academic purposes.
Few in Spring spoke the archaic tongue. And whilst Briar wasn’t surprised about Eliot’s linguistic fluency, she hadn’t known about my aptitude.
I lingered behind her, distant enough to avoid detection but close enough to rasp against the shell of her ear. As Eliot sang, I translated the words.“Hear, my love, the tale of how we began.”
A gentle smile graced her lips.“Long ago,”she translated back,“thousands of sunsets and sunrises before.”
The book started with our continent’s history. Centuries ago, four seeds sprouted into being, from vast distances apart and containing the souls of four deities. One blossomed into a land of wild flora, another into islands and oceans, another into forests bursting with color, and another into a frosted landscape of alpine mountains. So these almighty souls named themselves Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.
The Seasons.
From these stems, shorelines, roots, and flurries sprang new life, from humans to faeries, giants, satyrs, nymphs, merfolk, and countless other beings. The Seasons united them until a hostile age approached, when every culture—apart from humans—waged a battle for dominance. It showed the darkness and lightness of our very nature. Lightness was our creation, but darkness was our lesson.
And so we became The Dark Seasons.
As the one group who remained neutral, humans survived the carnage after the rest had faded or killed themselves off. Our population grew, establishing courts and kingdoms. Traditions, cultures, and societies expanded. Spring became a nation of artistry and sexuality, Summer of ambition and shrewdness, Autumn of introspection and craftsmanship, and Winter of ingenuity and intelligence. These became our cornerstones, placing value on the mind above all else. A lack of control and sound judgment had destroyed our former neighbors, and we vowed not to make the same mistake.
Back then, no one was excluded or condemned. According to history, that changed when an unknown figure began to promote vitriol toward those who didn’t hold up to this arbitrary standard. Alas, this person coined the phrase “born fool.” And here was the fucking ignorant lapse. The so-called born—the alleged “mad” and “simpleton”—were deemed abominations, errors of nature whose souls didn’t comply with the Seasons’ cultural canon.
Burdens. Misfits. Dangers.
The uncontrollable and incomprehensible. Those who disrupted the presumed order of things.
The Almighty Seasons brought us nature, with all its beauty and horror, its growth and destruction. Yet our world believed natural disasters such as floods and avalanches were a necessary balance created by the Seasons. Humans couldn’t control that.
But a supposed “abomination” in the form of an innocent person? Our ancestors had presumed it was essential to either correct this—without musing whether it even needed correcting—or find a way to benefit. The ancients felt it was their duty and right, just as they preserved the earth, all on nature’s behalf.
Ridicule. Enslavement. Suffering.
