Chapter 3
Turned out that manual labor was not a substitute for a workout because I’d never worked so hard in my entire life.
It had been two days since Lars introduced me to the Head Gardener and the Stable Master.
Two days of using wheelbarrows piled high with dirt or shit, carrying bales of hay, and seemingly endless hours of raking and shoveling.
I bathed each night over a bowl of hot water with the harshest soap I’d ever used and fell into bed absolutely exhausted.
I took some comfort in the fact that I did seem to be helping my fellow laborers, so I was earning my hearty meals, clothes, and that bed.
And from these folks, I learned about the curse.
“Nothing grows here?” I asked in confusion since the plants all around us seemed just fine. Me, Sarosh, and Doran were on a break for lunch and sitting in a part of the garden no one could see from the palace. “Like in specific places? Or certain plants won’t grow?”
“No, that’s the wrong word.” Sarosh had a shaved head, dark skin, and big brown eyes. He took particular pleasure in filling my wheelbarrow, but he was good people. “It grows to a point, and then—”
“Nothing ripens,” Doran said and held up a perfectly normal strawberry.
“These are an exception because strawberries ripen in the early spring. But anything that grows in spring and ripens in summer just doesn’t anymore.
It’ll all rot if we don’t pick it early.
” Doran was as tall as me but leaner and had a voice like thunder.
That was about the most I’d ever heard him say at one time.
“That,” Sarosh said with a finger pointed at Doran.
“We used to have a perfectly normal growing season. As the Spring Court, we kicked off spring for every other court. Now we’re locked into our individual seasons.
” He shook his head sadly. “I can only imagine the people of Winter are struggling just to feed themselves.”
I winced at the thought of an endless winter. Had they had supplies enough to get them through setting up… Greenhouses maybe? And then waiting for anything to grow. Er, would anything grow? I had to ask, “If nothing ripens here, does anything grow in the Winter Court at all?”
Both of them shrugged, and Sarosh said, “We don’t know. The barriers cut us all off from visiting, but I heard a rumor you can’t hear through them either.”
“And that horse,” Doran added.
Sarosh groaned with a hand over his heart. “Bless it. The poor thing.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but… “What horse?”
“Another rumor, but they say a group from here sent a horse with a wagon full of supplies into Winter—because the animals and such can pass through the barrier whenever they want to. But after a few times, suddenly a lake appeared and…” He cut himself off, his face screwing up like he was in pain.
“It drowned,” Doran finished.
“Well, shit.” I patted Sarosh. He was one of the stablehands and talked to the horses like they were his babies.
“So not only is there a barrier,” I said, “but it can change itself to make sure no one and nothing gets through it. And no one knows who did all this? Because that sounds evil and I would’ve thought you’d know who your enemy was.”
They shared a look, and Doran shrugged. “They’re all our enemies.”
“From time to time,” Sarosh added. “We’d fight over something, make peace, treaties for whatever, fight again…” He twirled a finger in a circle a few times.
“Sounds like where I’m from.” I was old enough to start seeing the pattern, and I really didn’t like that a fairytale place wasn’t any better off. “So, after years of doing that, now you’re just cut off from each other.”
They both nodded.
“And you really have no idea who did this? Not a single suspect?”
They shared another look, and I swore from the way they widened or squinted their eyes that they were having an entire silent conversation.
“Guys, I promise I’m just trying to understand.” I held my hands up. “I have no agenda here.”
They nodded at each other before Sarosh scooted a bit closer to me and leaned in.
“My cousin’s friend’s boyfriend’s great aunt,” he said quietly, “is a spellworker who swears the king did this to punish the princes for all the wars.”
I cocked my head, considering that. “I mean, okay, war is bad. I get that. But people could’ve died when Winter was closed off and trapped in their season, right?
And I assume there’s an Autumn Court?” I waited for them to nod before continuing.
“Do they have a growing season at all? Like do you have to have spring to have apples in the fall?”
I looked at Doran, the gardener, with Sarosh. He shrugged. “I know decorative plants, not farming. The trees barely get new leaves before they fall off and start again. Same with the flowers.”
“Well, then it’s possible people are dying of starvation there, too.
” I rolled up the sackcloth bag my lunch had been in and stuck it behind my belt, glad I hadn’t had much to eat after this revelation.
“They must’ve been getting a whole hell of a lot of people killed with their wars for mass starvation to be better. ”
Doran stood and brushed off his butt. “Can’t say the king was preferable to the princes most days. He started a few of the wars, too.”
“Incredible spellworker, though,” Sarosh said as he got up.
Now that could make me believe the king was in on all of this since the ring that had brought me here was supposed to be very powerful magic.
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to hear what the rumors were about me, but I did wonder what possible role I could have to play in this messed up place.
Just after we were given leave to go clean up and have dinner, I came around a corner of the castle and nearly tripped over Hydris.
His wings fluttered him out of the way, and I grabbed a lamppost to stop myself from squashing him.
And then we stared at each other. Only when I heard the shuffling of feet on the stones behind me did I look around to see everyone else stopping in their tracks to stare at their prince, too.
Hydris nodded at them, smiling shyly. “Please continue on your way. Have a pleasant evening.”
Each person went past him, echoing his salutation. A couple people paused to bow or curtsey. Hydris’s face got redder the longer it took for everyone to walk by. When they were finally gone, he put his hands on his cheeks and blew out a breath.
He’d abandoned me, but he was still damned adorable.
“Good evening, Your Highness,” I said before making to walk around him.
“No, wait!” He stepped in front of me, his hands out. “Please, I want to talk with you.”
“Okay.” I pointed back the way I’d come. “There’s a nice grove of—”
“Actually, I’ve had dinner delivered to my quarters. I thought maybe you could join me.” He had his hands behind his back, one toe digging into the stones, and his face was getting pinker by the second.
He wanted to talk to me in private over dinner? I wasn’t usually a suspicious person, but that seemed a little fishy.
“I’m not allowed above the staff levels.”
I’d learned that when I’d tried to go up yesterday to see if Valborg had made any progress with the spell workers. A pair of guards had informed me I wasn’t permitted above stairs and promptly escorted me back down.
“Oh, well, um…” Hydris looked up, craning his neck as he stared at the wall above us. “That’s me,” he said and pointed to a window three stories up.
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure how knowing that would change anything. I wasn’t a climber and there wasn’t a tree or trellis nearby to help at all.
Suddenly, Hydris was behind me, his hands under my arms, and he was lifting me right off my feet!
I wanted to flail and scream, but I also really didn’t want him to drop me, so I sucked in a breath and held it as we went up.
Never would I have thought he’d be anywhere near strong enough to lift me an inch off the ground, let alone three stories.
He flew us forward and pressed me against the window. I got my feet on the stone ledge and tried to open the window, but it wouldn’t budge.
“You stay here,” he said, “and I’ll go inside and open the window.”
“Oh, fuck.” He seriously just let me go to stand there on a tiny ledge. “Hydris, I swear to god…” But he was already gone, the little shit. I clung to the window frame, such as it was, and locked my shaking knees. “Fucking fairies,” I whispered as a breeze ruffled the hair at my collar.
All of a sudden, the window opened inward, and I didn’t even care what was in there, I lunged forward. Turned out that there was a window seat with some cushions that I sent flying and, well, Hydris was right there, too. I crashed to the floor with him underneath me.
I was nose-to-nose with him as he gasped a tiny breath. Quickly, I got up on my hands and knees to stop crushing him. He took a deep breath and a blush bloomed on his cheeks.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, n-next time, I’ll make sure the window’s open first.”
I snorted a laugh and stood up. “If there’s a next time, I’ll take the damn stairs.”
“Oh. Yes, of course.”
I found two cushions that I’d kicked in opposite directions and put them back on the window seat only to realize the third was down in the garden. “Sorry about that. I’ll get it and see if someone can bring it up to you.”
Hydris peered out the window before he fell headfirst out of it! I exclaimed and tried to grab him, only remembering he was fine because he could fly when he swooped down and got the pillow. He flew back up, and now I was the one blushing.
“Maybe we should sit,” he suggested.
“Yeah, that sounds safe.”
The table was small and round with covered dishes and two place settings. Everything was crisp and clean, which was a pretty big contrast to the state I was in.
“Um, could I wash up?”
“Oh! Yes, of course.” He gestured toward a closed door opposite the table.
As I walked past his enormous bed to open the door into the bathroom, I told myself that Hydris might blush every time he looked at me, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Why would he flirt with me? He wouldn’t.
I concentrated on getting the crap out from under my fingernails and then wiping a smudge of who knew what off my cheek.
I came out of the bathroom to find him sitting at the table, all prim and proper. His wings fluttered a couple times, and I wondered if he was nervous. I wasn’t sure why, but that made me feel calmer.
I took my seat, he blushed, and I said, “I hope I don’t smell too much like a horse.”
“You smell rather…hard-working.”
I chuckled since that was about the most polite way of saying I needed a bath.
And suddenly, as I watched, three little pink daisy-like flowers bloomed in Hydris’s hair. They were the sweetest little things, and he looked so pretty with them in the blue of his hair. I reached over to touch one before I thought better of that when he blinked up at me.
“Um, do you know that there are flowers growing out of your hair?”
He gasped and felt around on his head. Every time he found a flower, he ripped it out and tossed it on the floor.
I felt bad for bringing them to his attention. “Is growing flowers a bad thing?”
“I’m not supposed to,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?”
He couldn’t seem to look at me now. “It’s bad enough that I can’t keep my wings away, or that I can’t dye my hair a normal color, but to allow the flowers is a failure of character.”
That sounded suspiciously like he was quoting someone else.
“Who told you that?”
“No one.” He fidgeted in his seat.
“Hydris…”
He slumped and sighed. “Mannix means well. He’s been very helpful. Most of the time.”
Oh, I was going to have to call bullshit on that. “Anyone who tells you to stop being yourself is the one with a failure of character, whatever the hell that means.” I reached over and held his hand. “If it’s normal and natural for you to have flowers in your hair, let them grow.”
He looked at our hands and then my face. “That’s not…everything, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more that I’m…um…”
“Suppressing?”
“Yes.”
I gave his hand a squeeze and smiled encouragingly. “Hydris, with me, you don’t need to hide anything. Let it all out. I’d really love to see whatever you’re supposed to be.”
He met my gaze and smiled shyly before closing his eyes and biting his bottom lip.
His brow furrowed like he was concentrating, and then the flowers came back.
This time there was a bigger pink one on the left that was round with at least a hundred petals curling toward its center.
Across the top of his head spread other flowers in pink and yellow. Like a crown.
His wings changed shape next. They became larger and their black outer edge was now rippled, while the colors deepened to richer shades of blue and green. The bottom sections developed a drooping part that resembled a raindrop. And they looked like they were covered in sparkling dew.
The same twinkling texture appeared on his face like freckles over his nose and cheeks.
I couldn’t resist reaching over to touch him, find out if it was like a sheen of perspiration on his skin.
His eyes popped open and they were a brilliant blue now, so much more vibrant than they’d been before he’d had permission to be himself.
“I just look dewy,” he whispered. “I’m not actually.”
I nodded since the dew on his face was nothing more than a subtly bumpy texture of tiny crystalline dots. I briefly cupped his cheek and smiled.
“You’re absolutely beautiful,” I told him. “Please don’t hide who you are.”
He bit his bottom lip again but smiled this time as he nodded. “I’ll try.”