17. Kienna
This time when Kienna woke up in her cozy cottage, her recollection that it was a dream came almost immediately, between one breath and the next.
She put water on for tea and sank into the chair next to the fire. The lights filling the space seemed drabber today, or the color of everything was flatter; her dream state reflected her melancholy.
She briefly considered trying to change the dream. She missed home terribly, especially after the past few conversations with the beast. Especially after that evening. That he had even thought to shift into a rabbit, something surely so against his instincts, just because she’d made a passing comment about missing home and her pets…
The thoughtfulness of it nearly overwhelmed her. She didn’t know what to do with this version of the beast, one who wasn’t so stoic and prideful.
And the way he’d appeared in the dining room, looking like an almost exact replica of Mushroom—his fur had been silky soft, just like hers.
Perhaps she could conjure up a replica of home here. But after considering the idea for a moment, she decided against it. It wouldn’t be home just because it looked like it, just like this cottage wasn’t home, despite how her mind tried to whisper to her that it was. She didn’t want to see fake versions of her family. That would only dig the ache deeper.
A part of her wanted to wake up. Being alone in this dream cottage felt unappealing. If only her regular companion would appear with his silvery hair and glowing blue eyes. She much preferred her dreams with him than those without. She supposed she could have snuck away to find him in the waking world too, now that she knew where to find him. But he was just so… much in the waking world. He overwhelmed her with the way he didn’t have the same reserved manner, how he’d crowded into her space with his touches and smiles. It should have been flattering, but instead it put her off-kilter. Maybe she just needed to go meet him again—she’d only visited him once. She needed to give it more time. He… he just felt like a different person.
Maybe he was. Maybe she’d found the wrong man.
The idea prickled along her spine. If he wasn’t her dream prince, then who exactly had she found? And why had he let her believe she knew him?
She wouldn’t avoid him in the waking world forever. She just needed to figure out how to suss out if he was who she thought, and if he wasn’t… how to handle that.
And if he was her dream prince, she just wanted time to become accustomed to the idea of that loud, bright version of him. His presence in her dreams was calmer. Comforting and steady. She missed him when he wasn’t here.
She shook her head. It wasn’t logical to miss the prince. She didn’t even know him—not the man she’d found in the waking world, nor the man in her dreams. All she truly knew was that her dream prince felt dangerous, but not to her. She didn’t even know his name. But then, that was the way of the fae world she found herself in, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like she knew the name of anyone else here either, besides Zoya. Even the beast hadn’t given his true name.
And the beast—he was another man of contradictions. Of all the people in the Winter Court, he was the one she felt she knew the best, and still she knew so little about him.
Perhaps at their next dinner, she would ask him more. After all, he had opened up to her about his parents, and he had comforted her this evening. He always seemed so proud, dignified. Every inch the prince he was, even in an animal form. But he had chosen a different form—for her. A form it had been clear he found uncomfortable. And she had shown her gratitude by weeping on him.
She pressed her hands to her flushing cheeks. That had not been her finest moment. She truly didn’t know what to make of him. He was a mystery to her, one she found herself wanting to understand. She had to stay in this place for a full year; the least she could do was befriend her only companion.
Not her only companion, she corrected herself. She had her prince, her fellow prisoner, as well. The thought of him only served to further complicate the feelings in her chest toward the beast.
A knock at the door broke through her reverie. She jumped to her feet. The kettle over the fire was whistling as well. How had she not heard it?
She pulled it quickly off the fire and set it on the table on her way to the door. There he was, as tall, broad-shouldered, and intense as ever, but there was something different today. His long hair was pulled back, halfway done up in a braid that fell over his shoulder with the loose bottom half of his hair. Even with the change, he looked as much the prince as ever. His circlet crown glinted as he tilted his head.
Kienna smiled at him. “It’s as if my thoughts summoned you.”
He raised a delicate brow. “You were thinking of me?”
When he put it that way... She turned quickly to hide her blush from him. “Come in. I’m sorry the tea isn’t quite ready yet. I was caught up in my thoughts.”
“Of me.” His voice was too serious to tell if he was teasing her or not.
She busied herself pouring the tea. “No, not at all. I...” She let out a slow sigh. “I was thinking of home.” It was true enough. She had been thinking of home before her thoughts turned to the man before her and the beast. It was the safest thing to admit, anyway.
His mouth tightened. “You are homesick?”
“Yes,” she admitted, her hands stilling. It was like him speaking the word allowed something in her to loosen, to grieve.
She was homesick.
The prince’s eyes tightened. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. If anyone could understand her desire to be free, it would be him, her fellow prisoner. “In general, it’s lovely here, really. It... it just isn’t home.”
He shook his head. “What you’ve seen of the Winter Court in the waking world is a mockery of what it’s supposed to be like. The Court I grew up in is so much more than this wasteland we have now. There was nearly always snow, and the cool crispness in the air was the perfect contrast to the pale winter sun. Everything glistened like jewels, and fires filled our hearths, giving us a place to warm ourselves, to gather together after a day spent in the cold.” His voice, which had grown impassioned with his words, dropped. He curled his hands over the back of the chair he stood behind. “That was home.”
His words resonated in her, calling forth memories of sled rides, of building snow angels and snowmen, of the perfect crystalline stillness in the forest in winter.
“I would have liked to see that,” she said softly.
He cast a sideways glance at her. “If you truly mean that… I could show you.”
She made a face at him, wrinkling her nose. “I do not say things I don’t mean, good sir.”
A flicker of a smile graced his face, and he held his hand out. “Come with me.”
She didn’t hesitate to put her hand in his. His fingers curled around hers, rough and warm and strong.
And then he was pulling her toward the doorway. He stopped on the threshold and glanced back at her. “Close your eyes.”
She obeyed, pressing one eye shut at a time. The action earned her another quirk of a smile on his face before she could no longer see him. His fingers tightened on hers, and she could almost feel an exhale before he whispered a word in Elyri she hadn’t learned yet and pulled her through the door.
A gust of cold air kissed her face, pushing her hair back with enough force that she gasped at the shock of it. Her eyes flew open.
Everywhere around them was glistening white. She spun in a circle. Her dream cottage was gone; instead, behind her stood the Winter Court castle, its roof covered in snow, with beautiful, proud evergreens guarding its perimeters. Around her, impossibly, was a garden in full bloom. Silvery flowers, blue flowers, light pink flowers edged in white, deep green bushes, and trees rustling with needles. She had never even seen most of these plants, but clearly they thrived amongst the snow and the ice and the frost that glittered on their leaves and petals.
“Come.” The prince tugged her forward.
She let him pull her along as she drank in her surroundings. She no longer wore one of her summer dresses; she was cloaked in layers of wool, softer than anything she’d ever worn, with a simple, elegant wooden brooch clasping the outer cloak. They followed a path cleared of snow around the side of the castle. When they came to the back, he tugged her off the path, their boots crunching and leaving two sets of prints behind them as they went. It was the same path she and the beast had taken once before, near the beginning of her stay at the Court.
He wove between bushes until he came to one that she recognized in full, glorious bloom, though it looked different surrounded by vitality beyond its own. This flower she knew well: the frostrose her father had taken, the flower that had led to the bargain that had paused her life. The ones the beast had shown her that day in the gardens. Each of them was just as magical, silver, and glittering as they’d been when she’d seen them that day.
He slowed there but didn’t stop, the fingers of his other hand brushing against one of the roses even as he continued onward. The ground started to slope down, and finally they reached her companion’s destination: a pond entirely frozen over.
Kienna hesitated even as the prince continued forward. At the resistance, he stopped and looked back at her.
“Is that safe to walk on?” She tried to keep her voice light but failed entirely. Her gaze flicked back and forth over the ice.
“Of course.” His eyes softened. “Even if this were not a dream, I would ensure that it would be no threat to you.” He squeezed her hand and gently tugged it, not demanding but inviting. “Trust me. I’ll protect you.”
Kienna stared out at the blue-white ice covering the small pond. She had heard of ice skating, but she had never done it herself. The idea of the ice breaking and being swallowed into the freezing water below terrified her. She took a step forward, and then another, until her side brushed her companion’s.
He squeezed her hand again and moved forward, wrapping his other arm around her shoulders and pressing her against his side as they moved.
It felt good there. Safe.
On the next step, she looked down and realized she was wearing skates with a blade along the bottom of each sole. Her grip on her prince tightened.
“I’ve got you.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Move like this.” He pushed one leg out, and then the other, showing her how to glide across the ice. Where he was sure-footed, she wobbled, but he was patient and sturdy, keeping her from falling as they moved together.
After a while, he released his grip on her shoulder and held her elbow and hand instead. She immediately missed the comforting weight of his arm around her, but he kept murmuring soothing words of encouragement, and the longer they skated, the more her confidence grew.
They circled the pond several times before coming to a slow stop where they had begun. Kienna was breathless. Her cheeks and nose stung from the cold, but a joy had built in her chest. A joy for this place. Of being with him.
She beamed at him. “That was marvelous.”
He rumbled an agreement in his chest, the sound familiar somehow.
“Can we go again?”
“I’m afraid my magic is limited. I can’t maintain this illusion for very long.” His mouth twisted down in a grimace at the admission, and his words doused her joy.
She looked around, seeing her surroundings in a new light. Remembering what they looked like in the waking world. Dusty and brown and barren, despite the frequent night rains. Nothing at all like this vibrant winter wonderland.
“What happened here?” The question tore from her. She ached for the loss of this beauty nearly as much as she ached for her own home.
As she watched, everything around them faded away, and suddenly they were by her cottage again, the blistering sun beating down on their heads.
Her prince turned around and opened the door to her cottage, not meeting her gaze.
“The beast did.”