Silver Princess (Bonds of Wings and Fury #3)

1. Idrilia

IDRILIA

"The unclimbed spire promises fame and glory to those who accept its challenge. Many set out. Few return."

—Tarinian Mountain Proverb

"Idon't like this, Idrilia," Gavon said from behind me when the trail narrowed to a goat path. "We should turn around."

I didn't dignify his comment with a response and kept going.

He wasn't even breathing hard despite the altitude, his years on the university rowing team having given him lungs like bellows and shoulders broad enough to block the wind.

Usually, he used the first one to impress the ladies with his singing and the second to impress them with his good looks, but as it turned out, it also benefited him in the mountains.

He was the last one who should complain, even though he was right.

We'd just passed the first marker of the outer boundary, and the steep incline was becoming truly dangerous, but this was where the elusive Silver Princess had been seen, and I had no intention of stopping before I found her.

"Perhaps the goat herder was wrong about the location," Gavon continued his commentary. "Not that I'm surprised. I told you not to trust someone who couldn't even articulate directions and distance properly."

Gavon was such an elitist snob.

He was only a minor aristocrat, but his ego was big enough for a prince.

Not that my brother, who was a real prince and second in line to the throne, suffered from such an inflated sense of self-worth. But then unlike Gavon, my brother had nothing to prove.

"He was perfectly clear about the location of the Silver Princess," I said without turning back to look at my grumpy paramour.

"The fact that the herder was dirty and smelly after spending weeks in the mountains with his goats doesn't mean that he didn't know what he was talking about or that he lacked intelligence. "

"Then you must have miscalculated." Gavon caught up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up because of that. It happens. Let's just head back down. I'm tired of freezing my butt off on this damn mountain."

I adjusted the straps of my pack and squinted up the slope. The rock face above us was streaked with mineral deposits that glittered faintly in the auroral light, mostly iron and copper.

"I didn't miscalculate," I said. "The magnetic concentration readings from Professor Haldren's study indicated optimal conditions for the bloom between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred meters on north-facing slopes with adequate drainage.

We're at thirteen hundred, which means that we are only at the start of the area with the perfect conditions. "

"Perfect for goats," Gavon grumbled.

I didn't respond.

Behind us, the rest of the party spread out along the trail in a ragged line. Thirteen of us had made the push from base camp this morning, leaving six crew members below to tend the tents and the pack animals that couldn't manage the steeper terrain.

My lead guide had been against this last push past what he considered a safe zone, and his silence had grown increasingly louder the higher we climbed.

The prudent thing would have been to listen to the guy who had spent half a century in the Tarinian highlands, but prudence had never brought anyone glory.

Some risks were worth taking.

"Your Highness," Jeffson called from behind Gavon.

I turned around to see my lead guide hurriedly overtaking Gavon to catch up with me. "We've just crossed the upper boundary," he said. "We shouldn't venture further."

The boundary.

As if the mountains had drawn a line and posted a sign.

In a sense, they had. The Tarinian side of the border range rose to middling peaks, relatively accessible and safe as mountain travel went, but the Elucian side soared into jagged, impossible heights.

No one who valued their lives went past the boundary. The Elucians didn't even bother with border guards on this side because the mountains themselves did the job for them.

"I'm aware of our position, Jeffson."

"You will not find the Silver Princess higher than this," he said. "The mountains become inhospitable for such a delicate flower."

Was Jeffson arguing with me about botany?

I wanted to point out that I knew precisely where Silver Princess could and couldn't grow, and I didn't need his advice, but that would have been rude.

"There have been reports of it growing much higher than this elevation," I said instead. "I'm not ready to give up."

The silence from behind me was deafening.

I stopped and turned to face the group. Twelve faces looked back at me, ranging from Gavon's amused half-smile to Jeffson's stone-carved disapproval.

Between them stood my two research assistants, who couldn't have worn more different expressions if they'd tried.

Denna, whose mousy exterior hid a mountain cat's heart, was nodding her approval, and Palel, who hated field trips, especially when they involved trekking up the mountains, was glaring at me but trying not to.

If anyone was going to start a mutiny, it would be him.

The remaining eight were seven experienced porters and one field medic, whose name I kept forgetting because he never took part in any of our conversations. He wore a perpetually worried expression, which had deepened considerably since we'd passed the first marker.

"I know that we've been climbing since dawn, and the Silver Princess isn't where it was supposed to be." I smiled encouragingly. "I also know that you are all tired and want to get down to where it is warmer."

Hope sparked in Palel's eyes, and he nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

Denna looked disappointed.

Gavon leaned against a boulder and struck a pose, his blond hair still perfectly slicked back and glossy-looking despite hours of hiking.

Whatever product he used on his hair could probably anchor a ship in a storm.

"How much higher do you intend to go?" he asked.

"Another two hundred meters. Maybe two-fifty." I held up a hand to forestall the objections I could see forming on multiple faces. "The magnetic concentration increases sharply above fifteen hundred meters. The higher it is, the better our chances of finding the Silver Princess."

"It might be extinct," Jeffson said. "Forgive my bluntness, Your Highness, but you are basing this expedition on the word of a goat herder who might have suffered from altitude sickness and hallucinated the Silver Princess. We might be risking our necks for a plant that no longer exists."

"The last documented specimen was collected less than forty years ago, which means that someone found it growing within living memory."

"The bloom is a myth," Palel murmured so quietly that I almost missed it.

I ignored his comment the same way I ignored all the other cautious voices and the well-meaning advice of people who thought a princess should cultivate roses in her private garden, or even better, stay indoors to avoid exposure to the sun.

I did cultivate a garden, but the varieties I bred were experimental hybrids intended to explore the potential of plants as medicine rather than to produce the most beautiful flowers.

My mother didn't approve of the tan I got from gardening, but she considered my so-called hobby an acceptable eccentricity. That being said, she was strongly opposed to the expeditions, but she had given up on trying to dissuade me from embarking on them.

"Two hundred meters," I repeated. "If I don't find evidence of Silver Princess growth within two hours, we turn around and go back to camp. We will still make it well before dark."

Jeffson looked like he wanted to argue further, but he'd been working for me long enough to know when I had made up my mind and wouldn't budge.

"Two hours," he said. "Not a minute more."

"You've got yourself a deal." I smiled at him as if he had actually managed to negotiate successfully with me.

There was no reason to undermine his authority in front of his people, even if he was just capitulating to the demands of an eccentric princess.

As the group re-formed and resumed climbing, Gavon fell into step beside me. "I'm starting to think this expedition wasn't such a great idea," he said.

"You've been complaining nonstop since this morning. You wanted to come, so you don't get to complain."

"I thought that it would be a great opportunity to get first-hand experience for my script." He smoothed his hand over his slicked-back hair. "They say to write what you know, right?"

His ears were red from the cold, and he should have been wearing a hat, but he was too vain to cover his perfect hair.

Should I suggest it?

"How is it going for you so far?" I asked instead. "Are you getting what you thought you would?"

"Mainly, I came so I could be with you." He wrapped his arm around my middle.

"But as far as the script goes, it occurred to me that a botanical expedition that finds what it's looking for makes for a boring story.

On the other hand, a botanical expedition that encounters big-time trouble is interesting.

" He gestured grandly at the increasingly hostile terrain.

"People love tension, drama, and impossible stakes. That's what I need to give them."

I lifted two fingers to my forehead. "Don't jinx it."

He chuckled. "When did you become superstitious?"

"Since everyone around me has been trying to convince me to turn back before I find what I came for."

He waved a dismissive hand. "Ignore them. They are just lazy. They want to call it a day before the day actually ends and still get paid as if they had worked for it."

"I thought you wanted to turn back."

"I did, but then it occurred to me that I didn't get anything interesting for my screenplay yet. I'm waiting for something exciting to happen."

"Please don't. Talking about trouble is like courting it."

"I'm just brainstorming my screenplay with you. It has nothing to do with the actual events of this expedition."

I shot him a sideways look. "I just hope that if something goes wrong, you'll care more about saving your life than taking notes."

He pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense. "I'm not reckless. I would retreat strategically while committing every detail to memory."

Smiling, I shook my head. "You really do have a way with words. You're wasting your talents on screenplays. You'd do splendidly in politics."

Gavon sighed dramatically. "Regrettably, I don't have the required pedigree."

He was right about that. As a distant relative of the Duke of Jermosa, he was considered minor nobility, which made him suitable for a position in court, to start with as a clerk and later as a courtier, or in the Elurian Defense Forces.

He could also choose a career in the arts, research, or teaching.

Commerce and industry were off the table for nobles, but even if they weren't, Gavon wouldn't have been interested in either.

Officially, Gavon had chosen the arts, and unofficially, he'd chosen the court as my paramour.

He didn't take himself too seriously, which was his greatest charm and, if I were being honest with myself, his greatest limitation.

Marriage between us was impossible, and neither of us pretended otherwise.

In Tarina, as in most of the Federation's provinces, a princess taking a paramour was perfectly acceptable, even expected.

My mother had maintained one before her marriage to my father, and the only reason she hadn't kept the paramour was that Father had won her heart in addition to her hand in marriage.

Gavon would probably remain in my life regardless of whom I eventually had to marry, and he was fine with having to share me one day. He got access to a world of privilege and connections that advanced his screenwriting career, while I got companionship.

Were we in love, though?

I loved him, but not with the all-consuming passion portrayed in literature and movies.

He was beautiful, tall, and broad-shouldered, with blue eyes that photographed magnificently and a jaw that looked like it had been designed by a talented and opinionated sculptor.

He also dressed the part, dedicating time and effort to presenting himself in the best possible light.

I, on the other hand, couldn't care less about my somewhat plain looks.

If I weren't a princess, he probably wouldn't have glanced twice my way.

The women Gavon noticed at parties were the luminous ones, who floated through rooms like silk scarves on a breeze.

I didn't float. I strode.

To me, beauty was a tool, like money or influence, and I could wield it when necessary.

My mother's stylist could transform my long brown hair into a work of art, and the makeup artist could coax my features into harmony they didn't naturally possess.

The high cheekbones became dramatic rather than sharp.

The dark eyes that people thought were too intense became striking.

Even the slightly hooked nose became aristocratic with the right contouring.

But sitting still for two hours while someone pinned and painted me was a form of torture I reserved for state functions, and even then, I fidgeted so much that the stylist threatened to quit at least once during every session.

After the events were over, I couldn't run fast enough to my room to take all the pins out of my hair and wash all the gunk off my face.

Up here, with my hair gathered in its usual braid and my face bare to the wind, I was exactly who I wanted to be and where I wanted to be.

So what if being outdoors meant that I was tanned beyond my mother's approval, or that my hands were callused from garden work and climbing ropes?

I was finally closer to answering a question that had consumed me since I'd first read about the Silver Princess in an obscure text in the university's library three years ago.

If it existed, I would find it.

"The path splits ahead," Jeffson called from the front of the line. He'd moved past me while I'd been talking to Gavon, which was his way of reasserting authority without confronting me. "Left follows the ridge line. Right descends into a gully. The ridge is more exposed but more stable."

"The ridge it is," I concurred.

We climbed.