Chapter Three
Piris
Gem sighed loudly and asked Piris, “Dull, isn’t it?” as the warrior woman let the carriage curtain fall down again. Piris eyed her travel companion—one of four, then five, then who knew how many once they hit a specific point in their journey. Gem Aurora was her immediate companion, the one forced to ride in the carriage with her. To keep up appearances.
They’d left the palace hours ago, exchanged a few pleasantries, but neither woman seemed inclined to talk for the sake of talking, so each had retreated to their separate corners. Gem napped. Piris had closed her eyes but didn’t sleep, instead thinking about her good-byes with Strella, which made a lump stick in her throat, and what she’d have to say to her parents in a few short days’ time, which made sweat break out across her forehead. It was a jumbled mess of emotions, so sleep was not easy for her. Especially not in the rocking interior of the lush carriage.
It was comfortable, she’d give it that. More comfortable than being on horseback as the lord and prince were, or outside the carriage as their coachman was. Also warmer. The insides stayed toasty thanks to heat spells from the Fae who’d built the contraptions. Still, like a corset, it confined. Hemmed in. Sometimes, she preferred the fresh air of horseback. It might be far more entertaining, which brought Piris back to what Gem had grumbled to her, a familiar thing she’d said herself when crossing the slog of the Ice Plains in a different carriage, on a different sort of mission to protect her friend.
“It is indeed,” Piris finally replied, leaning up slightly out of her previously slouched position. She’d relaxed somewhat, partially because she saw Gem relax, and if an Aurora warrior could take a break, so could she.
Gem looked at her from tip to toe, evaluating her. Not in a harsh, overly critical way, like she’d already made up her mind about the woman. That was the way of the other Fae noblewomen she’d encountered who knew she was supposedly a null. Not exactly in the way Queen Alene or Prince Ghel first looked her over either, with a fighter’s calculation. Definitely not the way Prince Jarok raked her with his eyes, scraping her skin in his wake. No. More like a curious and jovial stranger, wondering what they might do or whether they could find mischief together.
Piris openly studied the woman as well, since her companion was going to be rude about it. Gem Aurora was a sturdy woman, but not unattractive as people often implied when a woman was called sturdy. It was what she knew others meant when they talked of her own height and muscle and broad features. Gem’s limbs were strong, thick. Her shiny dark-brown hair was pulled back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Dark-brown eyes, the echo of her hair, sparked on her face, full of something Piris couldn’t quiet place, but she thought might be amusement or mischief. Either way they bounced with light, deep rings in stark white. Her face, pale from lack of sun but with an olive undertone, was full and rounded, with a small, fluffy white scar at the corner of her left cheek.
“This?” Gem said, apparently noticing Piris’s fixed gaze on her cheek. “White bear.”
“You were attacked by a white bear?” Piris asked, leaning forward, excitement and amazement coloring her voice.
“Aye. A few times. Well, chased by a white bear a few times in my life. This, however, wasn’t exactly an attack. More like a dying gasp after my brother felled the thing.”
“Your brother Stone?”
“Aye. Stone Aurora, my twin. My bane.”
Piris heard love there, but a twinge of something else, something she knew. An envy of sorts for someone allowed to be all they could be. She didn’t answer, but nodded.
“What about you?” Gem said, gesturing toward Piris and the white, papery slash of a scar along the back of her right hand. She sometimes covered it with longer sleeves, but not often. It was small, barely noticeable, so she forgot about it more often than not.
A smile stretched across her wide mouth. “My father accidentally knocked me with his sword.”
Gem snorted. “You sound happy about it. In my experience, sword wounds aren’t happy things.”
“No, they wouldn’t be, I’m sure. But my father… He taught me a lot when he didn’t have to, especially about swords.”
Gem’s eyes shifted slightly, a new look of understanding creeping over her face until her own smile matched Piris’s.
“Do I have to call you lady?” she asked.
Piris laughed. “Gods, no.”
“Good. Would’ve forgotten eventually anyway, but don’t want to be rude and all that.”
Piris waved a hand in dismissal and, after a beat, said, “Strella told me she thought we’d be good friends or hate each other by the end of this.”
“A toss-up,” Gem quipped.
“I guess.”
“I think friends might work,” Gem said, her smile going small but not any duller. “You know the bite of the sword and also find traveling in a carriage boring. Common ground.”
Piris chuckled, leaning back in her seat as Gem rearranged herself. From a satchel at her side, Gem pulled a small wool blanket over her chest. It was a thing of beauty, a picture of the night sky with streaks of vivid color nestled among mountains in an intricate, tight weave. A picture much like Strella had described to her when she had told her of the fasting ceremony.
“Beautiful blanket,” she said.
“Home” was Gem’s reply before she closed her eyes again, leaning her head against the lush, upholstered side of her bench. Piris could respect Gem’s abrupt end to their conversation. She needed her rest too, though rest wouldn’t come easily. Hadn’t come easily in so long she forgot what it felt like. She closed her eyes again, willing herself to sleep, except her will, a formidable thing, couldn’t help her out in this one task.
Their first overnight stop was not at a tavern or inn but rather at a small traveling house. In the less populated regions of Winterlands, such houses stood close to the roads at certain mile markers. Sometimes they were a cluster of one-room cabins, sometimes multi-room dwellings. The structures were maintained and stocked by a caretaker during daylight hours, and kept open for travelers to use at night. It was an honor system, with travelers agreeing to not trample the place and leave compensation for use when they could. In the harsh weather of the Winterlands, it took a great deal to survive, and people tended to help one another.
Piris had never actually stayed at a traveling house before then. She and her father had camped in the vast forest around their estate often when she’d been training. If the whole Volesion family traveled, they stayed at inns along the way, her father meticulously mapping a route where her mother would be most comfortable. Not that her mother herself had ever said she preferred inns or wouldn’t stay at a traveling house, but his concern for his wife’s comfort was always paramount.
Piris was struck then by how odd it was he didn’t show the same concern for her, a lady by birth as well. She was a fighter by training, but part of her fight came from her mother, who could cut a noble Fae down with a few choice words or a slice of her eye as cleanly as her father could cut with a blade. As she mused about why her father felt the need to treat her so differently, which inevitably came back to the fact of her magical difference and the importance of secrecy for him when it came to her abilities, three of her companions chatted with the coachman about something.
She caught snippets before hearing Prince Jarok exclaim, “You’re mad, man!”
“No, Your Highness. I cannot. Will not.”
The carriage had pulled into a semicircle of gravel and compacted snow where a single, small cabin stood. Piris had wandered behind the carriage, as Prince Jarok was tying up his horse at a post toward the front of the vehicle and she wanted to avoid him as much as she could. She’d not had much time to look, but she had seen a massive pile of firewood stacked high along the edge of the cabin, the small outhouse beside it, and a cramped structure a few yards down which looked like a shed with a tiny iron chimney snaking up the side.
With the raised voices, she turned from her inspection of their surroundings and decided to walk into the fray.
“What’s the issue here?” she asked, looking right at Jarok because she knew, somehow, he would be the center of it.
Gem snorted and threw a hand out at the man beside the carriage, “The daft coachman refuses to stay in the cabin with us.”
Lady Piris turned toward him, a groom sent from the palace to care for their horses and steer the carriage.
“Aye, miss. Lady. I cannot. My mother would hang me for such disrespect to the prince. And a lord and lady.”
“It’s no disrespect, Nore. You are welcome, as I keep saying.” Jarok sounded exasperated, but his dark eyes held not shrewd disregard, but a different, softer thing she didn’t want to name. Not from him, who she’d already pegged as too cocky and uppity.
“Will you not budge in this, sir?” Piris asked, trying to give him space to make his case or think through the issue. Gem, Jarok, and Cylian urged him to reconsider, as they should. It’d be a cold night in the carriage, as the heating spells took hours to recharge on their own.
He shook his head, barely looking at her, and she huffed out her own sigh.
“Very well. Go check the structure beyond the cabin, just past the outhouse. I think it might be an additional sleeping area, though far smaller. Good enough for one Fae, if it’s what I think it is.”
Nore, the coachman, perked up at the idea and excused himself to check out the situation.
“You could have given this information earlier,” Jarok groused.
“Oh, really? When, exactly? When I was not within earshot of your ridiculous argument or when you, a prince of the Winterlands, was browbeating the poor man?”
Said prince had enough sense to look shamed by her retort and didn’t respond. The coachman returned, assured the quartet the structure behind them was a smaller traveling house and said he was more than happy to stay there.
“Good. Good. Take plenty of firewood with you. It will be covered for the night,” Jarok said, command in his voice. Enough command to scrape across Piris’s nerves.
“Please, coachman, do make sure you keep yourself warm and well supplied,” she said a touch gentler, her mother and her kindness again on her mind, before craning her head to the prince to give him a withering stare.
He snorted and walked away to finish tying his horse, Cylian smiling and shaking his head as he trailed behind to take care of his own mount.
“Stubborn men, the lot of them,” Gem muttered as she shook her head.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Piris said. “Let’s get inside. They can freeze out here if they want.” She’d put on furs when she’d exited the carriage, and her wool traveling dress helped cut the evening chill down, but she knew her leathers would be more comfortable for her. At least, in her mind they were warmer, more comfortable. More secure.
Gem stopped her with a touch on the shoulder before she took two steps from her companion. She’d started to head right into the cabin, but the warrior moved in front, taking point position. Of course she would; she was supposed to be companion and guard. It was her purpose on this trip. Still, it rankled Piris a little, as if her new friend didn’t trust her abilities.
“None of that now,” Gem muttered, as if she noted the momentary flash of annoyance on Piris’s face. “I have to do what I have to do. Might as well get used to it.”
Schooling her face, Piris let her lead, staying a few steps behind as Gem opened the cabin door and peered inside. She moved to check corners, look through the small closet that stood behind the only door in the space, and even looked up into the small stone chimney to ensure nothing was there. It wasn’t a huge undertaking, checking the security of the cabin. The space sat empty, a near perfect fifteen-by-fifteen-foot square except for the small rectangular cutout of the closet by the door and the hearth, which jutted out a few feet along the far back wall. Not much to take in or inspect, but more than enough to keep the four of them warm for the long Winterlands night.
“Looks fine,” Gem finally said to Piris, who stood at the threshold. She opened her mouth to reply but froze when she felt a sear against her left side, landing right at the waist of her dress. Looking down, she saw a hand, with powerful, long fingers and pronounced veins popping in relief against the prince’s tawny hand.
“Excuse us, lady,” a familiar, infuriating voice huffed at her right ear. Close enough for her to feel the puff of his breath, just as she felt the hand at her waist, both equally hot as they skated across her nerves. She didn’t reply, but spun away quickly, stepping deep in the room as she did, putting as much distance between her and Prince Jarok as she could in a matter of seconds.
“Finished fighting with the groom, I see,” she finally said, jabbing him with words to cover her own shaky reaction.
He stepped toward her, a hard, almost menacing step as if in chase, before he pulled himself short, visibly reining in whatever pushed him toward her. “You may not care if your people freeze, but I do,” he said, heat rising in his voice as color smeared across his impossibly high and sharp cheeks.
Cylian and Gem ignored the two standing off in the middle of the room, instead deciding to light a fire in the hearth, which was the smart thing to do.
Piris ached to say more, to jab and hurt, but she stopped herself. She knew it was a ridiculous impulse, not worth her time or effort, but the prince always did this to her, made her feel shaky and off her game, so she tended to strike back without thinking. Just as Strella had accused her of, just as she’d promised her friend she’d stop doing.
“I—” She held her tongue a moment, thinking better, before she sighed. Her hand skimmed over her forehead and paused a second to rub her temple. “I’m tired. I-I’ll rest,” she said, directing it to the room at large.
Jarok stared, then turned his head to the side, and she saw he bit the inside of his cheek. He stopped his own words as well. Maybe, just maybe, they could begin to be more civil to one another.
“I’ll get my roll,” she called and moved to the door.
Jarok stopped her with a raised hand. Without a word, he turned sharply and strode into the darkness, presumably to fetch the rolls for everyone, not just her. It was a very un-princely thing to do for his companions, but Piris stuffed the thought down as soon as she had it.
Jarok took a while fetching the bedrolls, which Piris learned was because he had gone behind their cabin to make sure the coachman was comfortable and secure for the night, an action she decided to ignore.
They’d talked little to one another as Cylian prepped a simple stew pack over the fire, mixing water with dried ingredients to provide them a hearty, warm meal. Piris offered to empty the pot afterward and scrape the dishes, but Gem stopped her, taking the outdoor duties so she wasn’t exposed.
Instead of taking offense or being annoyed, she tried to do what Gem had suggested and get used to the idea. She took the time to set up her and Gem’s bedrolls close to the right side of the hearth, placing Gem’s a little in front of her own so she’d get more heat. The Aurora warrior snorted at the position when she saw it, but said nothing, apparently also getting used to the idea the lady wasn’t going to be treated like a lady at all times.
It was full dark as all four Fae bedded down for the night, saying little to one another above what was necessary. Jarok and Cylian discussed when they should leave in the morning, what might need to be prepped again for the continued journey. Gem stayed quiet, so Piris didn’t add to the conversation either and was thankful the talk lasted only minutes. Seemed everyone was tired enough to sleep early and hard, which was what Piris wanted to do.
She squirmed a moment in her roll, twisting so she could cradle her head in her left arm and face the two Fae men who were thankfully turned toward the opposite wall. Piris thought she needed to get used to sleeping on her back or right side, but let the thought drift away as she went down, down, down into sleep.
She was a gangly thirteen-year-old, two years past the revelation of her powers, sitting on a rock beside a roaring fire. She looked through it, around it, trying to see anything other than the flames, but little showed itself. From across the bright expanse, she heard her father’s words. Words he’d drilled into her over and over again when she had been in training: “Secrets keep you safe.”
Piris had been terrified when her magic manifested as a preteen Fae. Most Fae found their affinities between ten and twelve, around the same time their bodies started to slowly change. She knew of mimics, of course. They were the hushed boogeymen of children’s stories, a history so dark the truth of it wasn’t learned until Fae were much older, if at all. Except she knew a little more, as mimics ran in the Volesion family long ago, and she’d drilled her father about their abilities and history. When she’d started imitating her mother and father, along with their magic, the ability slipping out of her without thought or direction, she’d told her father first. She remembered the tears and fights between her mother and father, days of worry and stress, until they came to her with the plan: they’d pretend she’d never manifested an affinity, marking her a null instead of confessing to anyone she was a mimic. She’d be a different type of target as a null, open to gossip and derision within the nobility they slowly started to distance themselves from, but she’d be safe from the worst that could happen to mimics.
At the same time, her education as a lady would continue, along with new combat and magical training from her father. In secret, of course. All in secret. All in hiding. He’d been tough with her, which she now appreciated, but in the face of her roaring dream fire, her adult mind slammed back in the too-stretched teenage body she felt she had no control over, and just as she felt she had no control over her life then, the anger once again rose. Anger at the unfairness, the burden, the whittling away of who she was and could be, all in service of a secret she’d been told must always be hidden away.
Strella was the only one let into the secret, a mistake she’d thankfully made at a young age. Her parents had been so angry with her, but after discussing it with both her and Strella, they were confident in her friend, as they should have been. Strella never gave away her powers, never would have. Piris had done that all on her own, and she’d do it again, to help her friend save her love.
Adult Piris’s eyes looked down at her tinier self and flexed her cracked knuckles, hands hurting from hours of practice with daggers and combat training every week. She spoke with older Piris’s voice into the fire, a choked confession. “I told, Father.”
“You are not safe,” her father said, his voice melting into the roar of the rising flames, the heat searing itself across her face.
“I can make myself safe.”
“Can you?” It was not her father now, but another voice, one more grating, one with enough heat to sear through the fire in front of her.
“Yes,” she hissed at the sound of Prince Jarok, rising, her body transformed into what it was in reality, an adult Fae woman. She stood clad not in the traveling dress she wore to sleep but in her brown fighting leathers, the leathers she’d worn the first night she was at the palace, the first time she had encountered the prince.
A shadow of a body flitted across the flames, and the wind picked up, warm and caressing in a way Piris wanted to lean into but wouldn’t allow herself to, as an unnerving and infuriating chuckle sounded. “Maybe. Maybe not, lady. Some flames you can’t extinguish when they start to burn.”
“Nothing burns yet,” she bit back, her eyes trying to follow the direction of the prince’s disembodied words. Another chuckle… then all was darkness, sound and feeling and sight snuffed out in a second like a small death.
Piris started awake a moment later, her breath quickening as her eyes sprang open. She didn’t often dream like that. Not that she didn’t dream. Sometimes she even had delicious dreams. This one had been heartbreaking and infuriating in equal measure.
After blinking a few times, her eyes adjusted to the soft glow of the banked fire in the hearth. She looked ahead and saw the prince facing her, his golden face and dark eyes blurred in the darkness but still sharp enough for her to see they were trained on her. Slamming her eyes shut, she rolled over on her back before looking at the ceiling, determined to sleep like this. She’d try anything to avoid the eyes she couldn’t quite see but still felt on her, just as she’d felt the heat of her dream.