Chapter 14
Everyone was caught between fear over what that sound had been and elation that it seemed like winter was finally giving way to spring.
Those people who had been outside said there had been a huge gust of wind that came through and created a few snow drifts.
And where the snow had been cleared wasn’t frozen dirt but bright spring grasses and the first buds of tiny flowers.
The tree branches were dotted with the green of new leaves just beginning to grow.
I took a deep breath and thought it smelled like spring had arrived. The air wasn’t so crisp and cold and there was a definite greenness to the breeze. And then I realized that the fake frost that had clung to my clothes since I got here was gone.
“Look!” I hollered to everyone close enough to hear me. “I’m not frosted anymore.”
I rushed back inside, curious to see if the interior of the palace was different.
It was! I hadn’t noticed as we’d run from Flurry’s chambers and out the front door.
Or else it hadn’t done it yet? I couldn’t be sure, but the weird frost wasn’t covering the furniture, framing paintings, or climbing the walls anymore.
What was white was now just naturally so, with the wood and fabric and stone being totally normal.
I went back out to find Flurry crouched down in the snow peering at a little patch of grass where tiny white blooms were growing.
I found I couldn’t step off the snow and onto the grass as I made my way to him, not wanting to crush the brand new blades.
When he smiled up at me, I swore it felt like my heart skipped a beat.
That great and horrible cracking sound happened again. I stumbled back from the palace, half expecting to see a whole section of it collapsing. But when I looked at Flurry again, he was staring off toward… Toward the barrier with Spring.
Could it be?
A second later, and Flurry was flying away like a rocket.
“A horse!” I stumbled after him and corrected myself because there was no way I’d survive galloping on horseback. “No, I need a carriage. Somebody get me a carriage!”
“This way, sir,” a guard said and started running.
It took way too long to get the carriage hitched and on the road, and I couldn’t help leaning out the window as the driver pushed the horses as fast as they could go.
There were actually four carriages zooming toward the barrier, all of them packed with advisors and the magic wielders in their graduation outfits.
Every face I saw looked like they desperately wanted to be hopeful, which was how I felt, too.
“The snow’s gone!” our driver yelled, before doing a maneuver that nearly sent me right out the carriage door.
I looked out the window to find that we were on an unpaved road with fields of grass on either side.
Behind us, the other carriages were veering onto the road as if they’d only had a vague idea of where it had been until now.
Giselle was in the carriage with me, and she’d said that the seasons had always changed like a breeze pushing them from one court to the next. It made sense that it would be more spring-like the closer we got to Spring.
And then I saw the barrier.
A massive crack stretched for what seemed like miles in the clear glass-like wall. Shards had fallen from various places, spearing into the ground, and opening up the barrier to Spring. The air that blew through was warmer, the sunlight just a little brighter.
That goddamned lake was gone!
A minute after I’d stepped from the carriage, Flurry came barreling into me and nearly knocked me on my ass. As it was, I think I stayed upright only because I grabbed onto him and his wings were still buzzing fast enough to hold me up.
“It’s breaking! The whole barrier is breaking!” He laughed a little hysterically, tears on his face.
I laughed with him only to sober as I wondered if I should try going through again.
“No,” he said and flew so that he was pushing me backward. “What if it collapses? What if it manifests a raging river this time? No.”
I nodded because, yeah, no.
Giselle and her husband came over. “Why does it look like there’s only one crack?” she asked. “We heard two.”
“Summer?” Flurry said as he landed in front of me.
I looked between them. “Would that mean they’re going to get spring weather, too?”
“We’re usually all in the same season,” Flurry said.
Giselle cocked her head at him with her mouth quirked.
Flurry rolled his eyes. “We’re supposed to be all in the same season, but it wasn’t always the case.”
It took me a minute, but then… “Did you weaponize the weather?”
“I didn’t do it first,” he snapped, like that somehow mattered.
I wasn’t going to say it out loud, but there were times when I could understand why their father had locked these little idiots in separate corners of their world. Brutal and extreme, sure, but time apart didn’t seem completely wrong.
Flurry was giving me a look that seemed to be telling me to shut up. I grinned at him, loving him a little more because he knew me so well.
Loving him…
Oh, my god.
I cupped his face in my hands and made him look up at me. “I know I said you don’t have to say it, but now I think maybe you do.”
He blinked at me, his eyes so big and blue. “Say what?”
“I love you.”
I felt him shiver, and then he took my hands and held on tight.
“I love you, too.”
The ground beneath our feet shook like an earthquake. We both turned to stare at the barrier as shards fell from it like giant pieces of glass. As the graduating class ran around avoiding the shards while also trying to touch them, I refocused on Flurry.
“Will that happen every time?” he asked with clear concern.
I shrugged. “Maybe if you say it enough times, you’ll shake the whole barrier down.”
Instead of laughing at all, he put his hands on his hips and stared at Spring. “Hydris had better be required to do his part. It shouldn’t all be on me.” He gestured in the opposite direction. “Solaris, too. And Incendis most of all. That shithead has always—”
I covered Flurry’s mouth and pulled him into a hug. “Easy there, babe. Let’s not try to rebuild the barrier, okay?”
He grumbled behind my hand before looking up at me, rolling his eyes, and sighing. I moved my hand away only for both of us to jump when someone sobbed.
I turned to find Giselle smiling while also crying into a hanky. She was smacking her husband’s chest, too, before holding out her hand like she wanted him to put something in it.
He clicked his tongue at her and pushed her hand away. “Yes, yes, you’ve won again, but I don’t have any money with me at the moment.”
I snorted a laugh, realizing she’d won another bet and wanted him to pay up. “Love?” I asked her.
She nodded, looking all red and puffy but very happy.
“Wait,” Flurry said. “I had to fall in love?”
I gave Flurry a squeeze. “I think there might’ve been a lot of things that needed to change before the curse would start to break.” I smiled a little, hoping he didn’t take offense.
But he sighed and nodded instead. “I am not the same as I was.”
“You’re better.”
He looked up at me and blushed. The ground shook again, and while I chuckled, he flew up high enough to look down at me. “I don’t want it to do that every time!”
Every time he looked at me with love in his heart. I couldn’t agree with him because my whole body went all mushy for him. I knew the grin on my face was love-struck goofy but I couldn’t help it.
Flurry chuckled like he thought I was ridiculous but he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and his wings vanished, letting me hold him, so I didn’t mind.
“Oh, look,” Badru said, “people!”
I turned to see several people on the Spring side walking over to the barrier.
I couldn’t be sure, but they might’ve been some of the same folks who’d been there when I went into the lake.
Setting Flurry down, I held his hand and walked closer.
There was a missing shard of the barrier about twenty feet up that might let them hear me.
“He had to change!” I yelled and pointed at Flurry. Surely they knew he was the prince since he was so unique compared to everyone else.
“And fall in love!” Flurry held up our clasped hands and kissed the back of mine.
The Spring people stared before one man sprinted to a horse, jumped on, and road away.
“Think he’ll go tell Hydris?” I asked.
“I certainly hope so.”
I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “Should we go try to tell Solaris?”
Flurry gave me a bit of a stink eye before he groaned. “Fine.” He dragged me toward the carriages. “Arturo, take us back to the palace so that we can pack for the journey to Summer.”
I chuckled at his crankiness as I followed him back to a carriage. “How long will it take to get there?”
“Three days.”
Oof. Three days bouncing around in a carriage?
I wasn’t looking forward to that, but maybe having spring following us there would be cool to witness.
I looked at Flurry, who was slouched on the seat opposite me, and thought maybe I could find other fun things to do for three days alone in a box with him.
He caught me looking and his eyebrows jumped up. He slowly started grinning. When Lord Lennon suddenly tried to climb into the carriage, Flurry stopped him. “Sorry, we’re full,” he said before closing the door.
Outside, Giselle laughed heartily. I couldn’t help wondering if she’d just made more money.
Flurry came over and sat on my lap, facing me. He rapped on the wall behind me, and the carriage started moving. The gentle rocking had him swaying against me, so I pulled him in closer and left my hands cupping his ass.
“One question,” I said when he leaned in to kiss me.
He paused and pulled back. “Yes?”
“Will you stay like you are throughout the seasons? Like, even on the hottest days of summer, you’ll still—”
“Of course I will,” he said with a frown. “Did you think I’d become pink and hairy and unremarkable?”
I frowned back at him. “Is that a crack about me, you grouchy little icicle?”
He snorted a laugh and tried to kiss me, but I turned my head to get away from him.
I was glad he was in a playful mood, even if it was at my expense, but I still made him work for a kiss.
I finally had to wrestle him onto the seat beside us and use my weight to hold him down because he was so damn wiggly.
And strong! He nearly put me on the floor of the carriage twice.
“I like you as you are,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Same. And I’m really proud of you, too.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. The curse needed you to change to break it, and you have. You’re amazing.”
He ran his fingers through my hair. “Because of you.”
“No. Huh-uh. This has been all you. I just came along for the final adjustments and got to love you. Your transformation is all you.”
He shook his head. “I wanted to be better for you.”
I kissed him as it started snowing inside the carriage.