Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The Great Hall
The Winter Forest
Breakfast had long since ended, though many still lingered in the Great Hall, warming themselves by the large hearth before returning to their duties.
Beyond the tall windows, snow still blanketed the castle grounds, sparkling beneath a pale winter sun.
The snow had stopped for several days after having fallen for a whole day, but the cold remained sharp enough to keep most people indoors.
King Dravic sat upon the dais, only half listening to the petition a merchant presented while his gaze repeatedly drifted to the table below where Adira sat with Feena.
Something was wrong.
Adira toyed with the food on her plate, moving it about with her fork without taking more than an occasional bite. It had been the same the day before and the day before that. He had watched her long enough to know her habits, and this was not one of them.
The merchant finally finished.
Dravic dismissed him with a nod, then looked to Tavish. “Bring Feena to me.”
Tavish did not question the command. He crossed the hall, stopping beside the two women. Feena looked from Tavish to the king before giving Adira’s hand a reassuring pat and rising.
Adira watched them both with quiet curiosity.
Feena stopped before the dais and bowed. “You sent for me, my king?”
Dravic did not waste time. “What troubles Adira?”
Feena blinked in surprise. “My king?”
“She has scarcely eaten these past several mornings.”
Feena glanced toward Adira, who had returned to absently push her food about her plate.
“There is nothing physically wrong with her,” Feena assured him.
“If not physically, then what?” he demanded.
His abrupt tone had Feena responding quickly. “She misses the forest.”
Dravic’s brow drew together. “The forest?”
“Aye, my king. Before she came here, she spent much of her time wandering among the trees. She loves the woods, the streams, the creatures that make their home there. Castle walls…” Feena looked around the vast hall with a gentle smile.
“…are grand, but they cannot replace what has always brought her peace.”
Dravic looked again at Adira. She sat quietly beside her untouched meal, her gaze drifting to the frost-covered windows as if searching beyond them.
Without another word, Dravic beckoned to a nearby servant. “Fetch my cloak and Adira’s winter cloak and gloves as well.”
The servant bobbed his head and hurried off.
Only then did Dravic look back at Feena. “You may return to her.”
Feena bowed and made her way back to the table. As she resumed her seat, Adira looked at her questioningly. Feena merely smiled and rested her hand gently against Adira’s chest, letting her know all was well.
Adira returned Feena’s smile, though confusion lingered in her eyes.
Dravic caught the servant returning with the cloaks before he reached the dais. He shrugged into his own heavy wool cloak, fastening the silver clasp at his throat in one practiced motion. Then, taking the smaller cloak and gloves from the servant, he crossed the hall to Adira’s table.
Conversations around the hall gradually quieted. It was not often the king left the dais to attend anyone.
Adira looked up in surprise.
Dravic stopped before her, pointed to her, and raised his hand palm up.
She understood he wanted her to stand and she rose at once.
With a swift motion, he settled the cloak around her shoulders. She stood patiently while he drew the edges together and fastened the clasp beneath her chin, his fingers brushing faintly across its softness.
He stepped back to inspect his work. Satisfied, he held out a pair of fur-lined gloves.
Adira accepted them with a grateful smile but made no move to put them on.
Dravic folded his arms across his chest as he drew his brow together. Then, deliberately, he lowered his gaze to the gloves resting in her hands.
Adira followed his gaze and, realizing he waited for her to slip on the gloves, she hurriedly did so.
He gave a single nod of approval and reached for her hand.
It wasn’t that he never took her hand before now.
It was usually when he was in a hurry and wanted her to follow him.
So why take her hand now, not that she hesitated to place hers readily in his.
After all, they wore their winter cloaks which meant only one thing.
They were going outside and that delighted her.
Together they crossed the Great Hall.
Behind them, Tavish caught the eye of the captain of the king’s guard and gave a subtle signal.
Without a word, six guards quietly fell into place a respectful distance behind the king.
The great doors swung open. A blast of crisp winter air swept into the hall.
Adira drew a silent deep breath, but Dravic noticed.
Outside, snow blanketed every rooftop, wall, and field surrounding Caerith.
Boots crunched over the packed path as they crossed the bailey.
Rather than head toward the castle gates, Dravic led her along the outer wall, around the side of the keep where a narrow trail disappeared among towering pines.
The moment they stepped beneath the shelter of the trees, Adira did not hesitate. She gently slipped her hand free. Finally, she was where she belonged.
Dravic watched as she wandered only a few steps away before stopping beside an ancient pine. She rested both gloved hands against its rough bark, closed her eyes for the briefest moment, then smiled. A smile unlike any he had seen from her within the castle.
It transformed her face. Features he had once thought plain suddenly held a more natural beauty. Her green eyes sparkled with a life he had never noticed before. The cold had painted her cheeks a delicate pink, and her lips, chilled by the winter air, had taken on a rosy hue.
He found himself wondering if she had changed… or if it was simply the first time that he had truly looked at her.
She moved on, kneeling where snow covered a patch of earth. Pulling one glove free, she brushed away the snow with careful fingers until a cluster of tiny evergreen leaves appeared beneath. She touched them with unmistakable delight.
Dravic’s first instinct was to order her to put the glove back on. The cold would quickly numb her hand. The command rose to his lips and remained there. She looked happier than he had ever seen her, so he kept silent.
When she rose, she reached for his hand without hesitation.
She had never done that. No one ever had. He was king and no one touched him without permission. But she had not hesitated. Could it be she was fearing him less and trusting him more? And why should it matter to him?
Her fingers were icy and he quickly closed his hand firmly around hers, surrounding it with warmth as they continued deeper into the forest.
After a few steps, Adira stopped and pointed toward the trees.
Dravic followed the direction of her finger. He saw nothing of consequence.
She pointed again.
This time toward a pair of rabbits darting across the snow before disappearing beneath a fallen log. Before he could speak, she pointed elsewhere. Sunlight broke through the evergreen branches, scattering across untouched snow until it sparkled like countless tiny crystals.
Again, she pointed.
Bird tracks stitched delicate patterns across the white ground. Then to crimson berries clinging stubbornly to winter-bare branches.
He realized then that she was not pointing at just one thing. She was showing him the forest—not the hunting grounds he had ridden through countless times, nor the woodland surrounding his castle. It was a living place, filled with wonders he had never once thought to notice.
Adira knelt once again, this time brushing snow away from another patch of ground. Smiling, she pulled off her remaining glove and dropped it beside the first.
Dravic frowned. The cold would soon numb her hands. He caught her hand and pointed to the gloves lying in the snow.
Adira glanced at them briefly, then gently slipped her hand free and wandered off toward another patch of snow where something else had caught her attention.
Dravic glared at her back. How dare she walk away while he was in the middle of giving her a command? Muttering under his breath, he bent to retrieve the gloves. As he straightened, a tiny golden light flashed before his face so close that he jerked back in surprise.
It darted left, then right. Then it hovered so near his nose that he was forced to lean back.
Tiny hands settled firmly on tiny hips.
“King Fool.”
Dravic’s eyes narrowed. “Fairy.”
“Fiora. Are you too afraid to acknowledge me by name? Too afraid I would become all too real to you just as Adira may become all too real if you refuse to see the obvious.”
“I see Adira quite clearly,” he snapped, annoyed he was even speaking to the little pest.
Fiora’s tiny finger pointed toward Adira. “Is that so? Then you see that she hears with her hands.”
“At the moment, I see that her hands will freeze if she does not put her gloves on.”
Fiora rolled her eyes dramatically. “Your sight is far too narrow.”
“Mind your tongue,” he snapped again, growing more irritated.
“Or what?” she challenged, folding her arms. “You’ll finally catch me? You’ve not managed it yet.”
Dravic swung the gloves at her, striking nothing but air.
She had already vanished in a streak of golden light, her laughter dancing through the trees. “You missed!”
He swung again.
She darted behind his shoulder.
Again, he missed.
“A king who cannot even catch a fairy,” she taunted, laughing harder.
“I have had enough of your insolence,” he admonished and swatted once more.
Again, she slipped effortlessly aside.
Then—a snowball struck him squarely in the face. Snow slid down his cheek and along his jaw, before dropping onto his cloak.
Everything turned silent.
For one small heartbeat, Fiora stared in stunned silence, then she burst into delighted laughter. “She got you!”
The laughter died almost as quickly as it had begun.
Six guards reached instinctively for the hilts of their swords and hurried forward.
Dravic never looked their way. He simply raised one hand, the silent command stopping them where they stood.
His gaze remained fixed on Adira. She stood frozen, one hand still outstretched from throwing the snowball.
She had not meant to hit him in the face. She meant only to stop him from swinging at the fairy.
Her eyes darted from the snow still clinging to his cloak to Fiora, who hovered nearby laughing so hard she could scarcely remain aloft. Then she looked back to the king.
Slowly, very slowly, Dravic wiped the melting snow from his face. Then without a word, he bent and scooped up a handful of snow. Methodically, he packed it together, turning it once in his hands until it formed a perfect snowball.
The guards exchanged uneasy glances and took several steps back.
Dravic straightened, his eyes locked on Adira.
Then he threw it. The snowball sailed through the air right past Adira’s shoulder, striking the trunk of a pine several feet to her left, where it burst apart in a shower of white.
Adira stared, then she looked at the shattered snow on the tree, then back at the king.
She was not sure what to do. She had enjoyed snowball fights when she was young, had not had one since then. She simply could not let the joyfulness of those memories slip away.
A smile spread across her face, one that sparkled with mischief. She crouched, gathered another handful of snow and quickly fashioned a snowball.
Before Dravic could make another, she let hers fly.
It struck him squarely on the shoulder.
Fiora clapped her tiny hands. “A snowball fight. You get him, Adira!”
Dravic looked from the snow on his cloak to Adira. No one had dared strike their king. Yet here she stood waiting, another snowball already taking shape in her hands. A reluctant smile teased the corners of her mouth.
Fiora darted excitedly between them and cheered. “Again. Get him again, Adira!”
Before either of them could move, a familiar voice called from beyond the trees.
“My king.”
Tavish approached at a brisk pace, his expression stern until he stepped into the small clearing and came to an abrupt halt.
His gaze settled first on the snow clinging to Dravic’s cloak, then on Adira, another snowball cupped in her hands.
Finally, he looked at Fiora, who hovered nearby looking altogether too pleased with herself.
For perhaps the first time in years, Tavish found himself at a loss for words.
Dravic’s patience wore thin fast. “You interrupt.”
“Out of necessity, my king.”
That got his full attention. “What is it?”
“A messenger has arrived from Driochmor.”
Dravic’s expression hardened. “And?”
“The messenger refuses to speak to anyone but you… and Wynn.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Even Fiora’s smile faded.
Dravic looked once to Adira before turning to Tavish. “We return to the castle.”
Adira did not know what was being said, but the expressions on their faces and the sudden stiffness in their movements told her the time in the forest had come to an end. Without thinking, she let the snowball fall from her hand.
Dravic crossed to Adira and took her hand.
He took one step, then stopped and shouted, “Gloves.”
One of his guardsmen hurried to retrieve them from the snow and hand them to him.
Dravic handed them to Adira, and she did not hesitate to slip them on. As soon as she did, he took hold of her hand and set a brisk pace.
Though after only a few paces, he shouted. “Someone capture that blasted fairy.”