Chapter 5
Bridge, you should step away from the water,” Hydris said as one of his little fingers pointed down at my feet.
I looked, saw the water was coming for me again, and got the hell away from there. “Can’t you redirect it, split it, freeze it, or…something?”
“Why?”
I pointed at the people on the other side of the barrier. “That could be one of my friends. He was trying to cross over and nearly drowned.” Which was weird because Milo was a great swimmer.
“No, sir,” that woman said to me, “the water itself tried to drown that human and threw Humphrey onto the land. The water attacked them.”
Well, that had me gulping and taking a few more steps away. I’d thought it was Hydris messing around when the water touched me, but now it was, what? Sentient water?
“Hydris, why the fuck is water trying to kill people?”
His big eyes got even wider as he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t you? You can control it.”
While we were looking at the water, the snowy guy and others lifted the human off the ground and headed toward a tent. I could only see him in profile, but that human was definitely Milo.
“Oh my god, that’s Milo.” My heart started racing to know he was here, too. I wanted to brave the water. I wanted to— “Milo!”
But none of them could seem to hear me as they disappeared inside the tent with smoke billowing out from the top of it. They were clearly going to warm him up, take care of him, so I shouldn’t worry, but he was my friend and I needed to know he was alright.
Someone slipped their hand into mine, and I looked down to find Hydris. He smiled sympathetically and gave my hand a squeeze. I gripped him back, but then gestured to the water again.
He gave me a huffy look before walking closer to the lake.
I couldn’t fathom why he didn’t want to try. “Just make a path through it. Part the waters, baby Moses.”
He looked over his shoulder at me, his face scrunched up in annoyed confusion. I shrugged. He might not have a clue who Moses was, but he had to know that being all sweet and cute and pocket sized was going to get him called baby.
I watched Hydris focus on the water. He had his hands out like when he’d taken the water off of me in the pool, but the lake water wasn’t moving.
Well, no, it was retreating from his every step toward it.
The weird thing about that was how it revealed level ground and spring grass.
So how was it deep enough to drown men and horses?
Magic probably. The water might not be sentient—please not that—but it was resisting another magic user’s efforts to control it.
At one point Hydris’s wings fluttered him up and over the water to drop him in the center of it. He landed on flat dry ground. His arms were curved up from his waist, like he was deadlifting weights, muscles straining. He looked powerful and determined.
Until he relaxed with a holler, took a moment to stand there panting, and then flew back to me. “That isn’t regular water,” he said as he wiped perspiration from his reddened brow. “It’s definitely enchanted.”
“Shit. Who can enchant water like this?”
“Maybe the same person who made a fairy ring that can divert to multiple places at once.”
He had a point. It was all tied up with the curse.
Movement on the other side of the barrier had me looking over to see several guards in armor taking stances as they aimed spears of ice at us.
I glanced at Hydris, and he shrugged. “My brother doesn’t like me much.”
“One of them is your brother?”
“No, the one who went into the tent with your friend is.”
“That walking snowflake is your brother?”
“Walking snowflake?” He snickered. “Yes, that’s Flurris.”
Given the fact that Flurris had looked like winter personified, I had to wonder if there was more to Hydris being the Spring Prince. He was still wearing his crown of flowers, his wings big and showy, his skin dewy. But was there more to him he was keeping under wraps?
“Are you still holding back your floweriness?”
“Well, yes. I could create clothing of leaves and flowers and such—I’ve done that before—but it could be considered rather risqué.”
I remembered how his vividly blue curtains matched the carpeting. Just a peek of pale skin anywhere down there would be a provocative tease, but a hint of blue? I’d swoon.
“Sure, okay.” I cleared my throat. “I’m guessing your other two brothers are similar in their uniqueness from every other fae?”
“I think Solaris is the most normal. He’s just…blond.” He shrugged. “And Incendis can extinguish himself whenever he wants, but he looks like he’s on fire most of the time.”
“On fire?”
“It’s very dry in Autumn sometimes, so Incendis can control fire in case of lightning storms and such.”
“And you can control water.”
“It floods occasionally.”
I gestured at the lake.
“Oh, no,” the woman said, “that isn’t from flooding. The lake appeared beneath Zebetta’s horse and drowned the poor thing. Murdered it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Norena.”
“Bridge. This is the horse that was going back and forth with supplies for Winter, right?”
“We sent supplies?” Hydris asked, sounding surprised.
Norena gave him some stink-eye before looking back at me.
“One and the same. They’d sent the poor dear through the barrier a few times before the water just bubbled up under her hooves and sucked her down.
” She shook her head mournfully as she gazed through the barrier.
“We tried to stop them from letting that human through, but they couldn’t hear us. ”
“Milo. His name’s Milo.”
She nodded and said his name, making me think she was going to be the keeper of this story now, too.
“What was the horse’s name?” I had to ask as I thought of Sarosh.
“Dumpling.”
I groaned a little. Poor dear, indeed.
Movement inside Winter caught my eye. The guards who’d gone into the tent with Hydris’s brother and Milo now exited.
They went to stand around the fires the remaining guards had created, clearly trying to keep warm.
Did that mean Milo was doing okay? Even if he didn’t see me, couldn’t talk to me, I still wanted to make sure he was unharmed.
“Well, well. Look at the little prince way out here without his guard. And us having just been forced to start paying his new taxes. How interesting.”
I turned around to see five men and three women slowly surrounding Hydris, each of them holding scythes and looking like absolute trouble. Hydris was already a couple feet off the ground, his wings fluttering fast.
“What new tax?” he asked.
“What new tax?” one of the women practically snarled. “The one you leveled on our whole village for not producing enough foodstuffs for the crown.”
“We’re grass-growers,” a man hollered.
“You expect us to stop what we’ve been doing for three generations,” another man said, “to start growing food that won’t ripen because your own father cursed your worthless ass?”
Hydris went from concerned to upset in a blink. “My father didn’t curse us. And you can grow what—”
“We’ll grow whatever we want to grow,” the man interrupted and raised his scythe, “and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
I had to intervene. “Hey, now,” I said as I eased between them to stand with Hydris. “Let’s not let our emotions get away from us.”
Another woman shoved into the group, making a few of the agitators scramble out of the way so as not to stab themselves or each other. Oh, she was very pregnant. And by the fierce expression on her face, having none of this.
“If a single one of you,” she said in a menacing tone, “thinks I won’t turn you in for threatening the prince, you better think again.
I won’t have my home besieged by soldiers just because you can’t use your damn words to talk through a problem.
I’ll take every last one of you down to protect my children. ”
I found myself wanting to get out of her way and I wasn’t even the aggressor here. Those who were seemed to feel the same as, after some grumbling, they slowly dispersed. Hydris came back to earth and slipped his hand into mine. I held on.
“Thank you,” he said to her. “I really don’t know what tax they’re talking about, but I’m very sorry that they’re so upset.”
She shook her head at him and tsked. “Clean up your court, Your Highness, or this won’t be the last time your people want you dead.”
A man came over and helped her to a stool under a tree. I looked down at Hydris.
“You have to know,” I said, “that the tax they’re talking about is one Mannix issued in your name. You know that, right?”
He looked guilty as hell and nodded. “I’m sure he has a reason.”
“Look at these people, Hydris. It’s obvious they don’t have much.”
He wouldn’t look.
I let go of his hand.
“She’s right about you needing to clean up your court, and you should start with the lords and ladies ruining it right under your nose.”
I checked on Milo one more time—still inside the tent—before approaching the nearest person to keep up with my cover story. “Hey, I’m also here to get some grass for the royal stable.”
The guy’s gaze flicked over toward where I’d left Hydris. “Uh, I’m not sure—”
“He’s not the one who’s going to eat it, right? Would you really cut off Silver Sparkle?”
He sighed. “I mean, no. But—”
“Sarosh told me you’re the best grass-growers around. I can’t go back and tell him he was—”
“Okay,” he said with some attitude. “Take it easy. We’ll get the grass for you.”
I gave him my best smile as he walked away. While I waited, I sat on a nice big boulder well away from the creepy lake and stared at the tent. I really needed to see Milo come out of there on his own steam.
The soldiers of Winter were all standing with their backs to us now, and it felt deliberate. Hydris had said his brother hated him, but I had to wonder if it was actually Mannix who the Winter Prince hated.
When Hydris wandered over, I gestured to the soldiers and said, “Does your brother know about Mannix?”
Hydris didn’t look over there as he shrugged. “Maybe? He told me I should make a council to help me run everything.”
“But instead of helping you, you just gave them every power and walked away.” I realized now just how disappointed I was in him.
“No, I didn’t!” He glared at me, hands on his hips. “I made Mannix too good at being a leader. I shouldn’t have given him so many strong qualities when I…” He seemed to fizzle out right in front of me. “When I’m not strong enough to rule over him,” he whispered.
“I think you could be the one in charge, if you tried.” Before he could say something contradictory, I asked, “But what do you mean when you say you ‘made’ Mannix? When you chose him? Appointed him?”
“I literally made him.”
I pulled back, disbelieving. “Like he’s your son?”
“No,” he said on a laugh. “I just…manifested him. I thought about the qualities he should have and he…became. I did that with all of the first generation citizens. That’s just how it’s done.”
“Oh. Huh.” That was the weirdest thing I knew about this place. “And the second generation?”
“Children of the first.”
“Like boy meets girl and nine months later there’s a baby?”
“Uh, eleven months, but yes.”
I let that slide since at least there was a baby instead of a manifestation. “So you literally made Mannix and the rest of your council. But you made Mannix too strong and he took over.”
“Right. I think Valborg and Anezka are trying to take over from Mannix. Not together. Independently but with the same goals.”
He’d manifested his own daytime drama. “Okay, well, regardless of how they came to be or their strengths or who’s fighting who, if you stand up and remind them of their places—their reasons for even existing—then I think you could have a great council that you rule.”
Hydris clasped his hands behind his back and toed at a little stone in the grass. “I thought about making someone strong enough to take over from Mannix, but then I thought it would be the same problem, just with a different face.”
I poked him in the chest to get him to look at me. “You are the one who can take over from Mannix. You brought him into this world, and you can take him out again.”
His eyes got very wide.
“I don’t mean kill him,” I hastened to add now that I’d heard myself. “I just mean, you made him for a reason, and if he’s not going to do the thing, then he leaves. Period.”
He gulped. “Maybe you could tell him?”
“Sure. Then I can be the prince of the Spring Court. Bet I’ll be the first human prince, huh? And I’ll keep you in a box on my bedside table so I can have pretty flowers every morning.”
He squinted at me like he wanted to curse me out for that, but he didn’t say a thing.
“Oh, come on! I can’t put you in a cage. Use you for flowers. Tell me to fuck off.”
He glared some more and a blush bloomed on his pretty face, but he said, “Fuck off, Bridge.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “There you go!”
Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy with Mannix, but baby steps.