Chapter 2
Ashtine
The Wind Princess stepped from the winds, only to realize she’d left her slippers in the Water Court when she registered the cool stone of her rooms beneath her feet.
Blood will be shed.
A prince will fall.
The realm hangs in the balance.
A beginning or an ending? Time will tell.
Ashtine released a shuddering exhale. The winds were restless, and it was driving her slightly mad.
She hurried to her dressing room and stripped out of the dress that smelled of the sea, pulling on a fresh gown of deep navy blue with fine white detailing.
Shoving her feet into new slippers, she hurried from her rooms, running along the small parapet that connected her quarters to the main building of the Wind Citadel.
He is to the left.
The winds’ whispered warning had her taking the next right to avoid Ermir. She loved her Second like a daughter loved her father, but he had grown … worried about her these last months. It wasn’t surprising, but they didn’t understand.
No one understood.
No one else could hear the constant whispered warnings.
She moved down the stairs, taking them two at a time, only slowing when she reached the main floor. Then she became the poised and collected princess she’d been raised to be.
“Your Grace?” came a feminine voice, and she turned to find her personal handmaiden.
Her dark auburn hair half up, the female’s light green eyes held a knowing look, and relief flooded through Ashtine.
The female may be her handmaiden, but Ashtine also considered her a friend.
She was a few years older than Ashtine and had proven her loyalty more than a few times, keeping quiet about Ashtine’s secret wind walkings from the Wind Inner Court.
Few knew how often she actually ventured out on her own.
No one knew where she went on most of those outings. Many times, she wasn’t even sure where she was going until she got there. Some might find that disconcerting, but she found it freeing. It was the only time her movements were not constantly watched. Guarded. Studied.
Everyone knew she was a Wind Walker. That had been expected considering her mother was one of the few known Wind Walkers in history. Her father hadn’t been a Wind Walker, but had been one of the most powerful Wind Fae to exist.
Or so she’d been told.
But it stood to reason, given that pairings among the Royal Fae were often arranged to ensure power was passed down in order for the royal lines to remain strong.
Ermir told her often that her parents’ marriage may have been arranged, but they had come to truly care for each other in the end.
When she was a child, she’d found it romantic and endearing.
Now that she was older, she saw it for what it was: a story to make her more amenable to the idea of her own eventual pairing.
An heir would be expected of her after all, and everyone would expect that heir to walk among the winds.
As though she had any control over that.
“Noelle,” Ashtine said, forcing her breathing to even out.
“Was your outing enjoyable?” Noelle asked.
“It went as I anticipated it would,” she answered, clasping her hands in front of her. “I was on my way to the catacombs.”
Noelle smiled. “I am not surprised in the slightest by that. Would you like to take your dinner there this evening?”
“Dinner?”
“The meal one eats in the latter part of the evening,” came a deep voice from behind her, and Ashtine’s eyes momentarily fell closed at knowing she’d been caught.
He knows, the winds whispered.
I am aware. Thank you, she retorted.
As if the winds cared what she thought.
She sighed internally. This is why people thought she was odd.
Or part of the reason, perhaps? She honestly didn’t know.
While others grew up with peers and families, her company growing up was the books in the catacombs.
And Talwyn, she supposed, but that relationship was forged out of necessity, even if they considered each other friends now.
“Princess?”
She opened her eyes, finding Renly standing before her, his dark blue eyes studying her carefully.
“Yes?” Ashtine asked.
“Ermir has been looking for you.”
“He clearly was not looking in the proper location.”
“Or a princess was not where she was supposed to be?” Renly countered, a brow arching.
“Who is to say where one is supposed to be? The gods? The Fates? Time itself?” Ashtine replied.
The ones across the sea.
Enough, she snapped at the winds, her gaze going to where a window was open.
The winds could find her anywhere, but they weren’t as loud when the doors and windows were shut.
It was part of the reason she spent so much time in the catacombs.
No windows down there. Everything was calmer, more peaceful.
Even the winds there were more subdued, letting her be with her books and thoughts as she tried to decipher everything they whispered to her.
Noelle cleared her throat lightly, glancing knowingly at Renly before asking Ashtine, “Would you like dinner in the catacombs tonight, Princess?”
“That is unnecessary. I will simply procure food later when I am finished,” Ashtine answered, feeling the air stir around her.
The others felt it too, and Renly and Noelle seemed to have some sort of silent conversation.
Ashtine had never understood how others could do that.
Then again, social cues had never been one of her strengths.
It had never really bothered her until recently.
It’s not as though she hadn’t tried, but being so guarded growing up, she wasn’t around other children.
When her primary sources of company had been mature Fae, fitting in with other children didn’t come naturally.
Talwyn was the same way, and now, as royalty …
Some days, it seemed rather pointless.
She used to prefer the company of the winds over others, but that had changed these past years.
“May I escort you to the catacombs?” Renly asked, pulling Ashtine from her thoughts. She blinked, finding them alone in the foyer. Noelle had disappeared.
“That is not needed,” she answered quickly.
“I would enjoy the company,” he said, holding out an arm and gesturing for her to move ahead.
She sighed internally again, and Renly fell into step beside her.
His father had served as her mother’s Third.
From what she’d been told, he’d been killed protecting her mother in the Great War.
Renly had spent all his years determined to honor his father’s memory by obtaining the same position.
It was at Ashtine’s own coronation that she had asked him to be her Third, the position having been vacant since his father’s passing.
While Ermir was like a father to her, Renly was akin to a brother.
Or what she assumed a brother would be like. An older brother, perhaps? She really didn’t know.
“It has been a week’s time since you have joined your Inner Court for dinner, Princess,” Renly ventured as they turned a corner.
Had it truly been that long?
When she didn’t answer immediately, he added, “Noelle also informed us you haven’t been eating regular meals.”
“It may have escaped me a time or two,” she replied absent-mindedly.
“One does not simply forget to eat,” he said, a hand gently gripping her elbow and tugging her to a stop. When she looked up at him, he added, “Except you. You have a tendency to forget to eat when you are trying to figure out the winds.”
“That is an impossible task,” she said with a slight scoff.
“And yet you spend hours trying to do just that.”
Ashtine pursed her lips, her gaze darting to the side. “I cannot simply ignore their warnings, and that is what is being asked of me.”
“Is this about the supposed war again?” Renly asked, and while he tried to hide it, she heard the faint exasperation in his tone.
Most people eventually ended up with that tone when conversing with her.
But the Water Prince hadn’t.
If anything, she had carried that tone before she’d left.
“Princess?”
“Yes?” she asked, bringing her focus back to Renly.
“We have looked into these supposed warnings numerous times. Nothing has ever come of them. You know this,” he said.
“And yet the winds still speak of them.”
“The winds know everything and nothing,” he said. “You tell me that all the time.”
Her fingers curled into the skirt of her gown, and the texture of the material gave her something to focus on. “They are rarely this relentless,” she finally answered.
Renly nodded, seeming to mull this over, before he spoke again. “We understand the winds can be prophetic, and we trust you to relay important whispers from them. But you must, in turn, trust us to help you decipher them. Ermir and Sion did so for your mother; let us help you as they did her.”
Guilt turned her stomach, and she reached up, tucking her hair behind her arched ear. She offered him an apologetic smile. “Of course I trust you all.”
“We take what you bring to us seriously. Truly you know that?”
“Of course.”
“We do not simply brush aside your concerns.”
“I understand.”
His brow furrowed, and he swiped a hand through his hair, pushing out a harsh breath. “Perhaps you should dine with us tonight. We can all discuss your concerns—”
“To what end?” she interrupted.
“I do not understand,” he ventured, eyeing her as a gust of air blew through the vacant hallway.
“Each time my concerns are investigated, they come back as unfounded,” she replied, turning and continuing on her way to the catacombs.
“We are not simply dismissing them,” Renly argued, easily catching up to her with his long strides.
“That is not what I am implying.”
“Then come discuss this with us at dinner, Princess,” he said again.
She forced herself to halt once more.
Blood will spill.
She may be too late.
The ones across the sea know. Go there.
Go there.
Go there!
I can’t go there, she retorted. No one can go there.
She can. She must, or the balance will tip and—