Was he trying to enchant me? More so, was he failing? He’d said my name. I’d never had magic used on me before, but only royal fae were powerful enough to try to manipulate another’s mind. And only one court had a young royal. Prince Fenlas of the Flame Court. I wasn’t sure why, but he failed. Now that I knew who he was, I played along. I would take any reason to leave, especially now that I’d offended a royal fae. I waited for the fear to come, but it didn’t.
I nodded and turned back into the open ballroom. His firm hand caressed the small of my back like fire on ice. Miraculously, I resisted the urge to gut him, balling my fists as I moved. I should have been afraid. I should have lumped him in with the other royals I’d come to know for a distance. But my mind refused, holding only fury.
No matter how loud the room was, I thought I could hear his heart pounding. Or my own, I wasn’t sure. He moved around to stand between me and the guards as he dipped his chin to them and they opened the door. I wanted to be shocked, but the look of hatred he shot me prevented me from being anything but curious, and even a little intimidated, which was equal parts disarming and charming.
My thoughts created a maze of questions on my ride home. What just happened? What would my father say?
He’d known my name. Why.
Chapter 3
Temir
It didn’t matter how hard the piercing wind blew. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. This was the right thing to do. Others may not have noticed, but I was that boy, cowered in the warmest corner of the freezing stables with a blanket half my body length. I would beg the breeze howling through the gaps in the walls to relent. I tossed the fur-lined blankets bundled in my arms over the tiny boy and intended to leave without speaking a word. I couldn’t sleep warm in my bed knowing he was suffering, but we didn’t need to make a big deal of it.
“Th-thanks, Tem,” the boy whispered.
“Just keep it to yourself, kid,” I grumbled and walked out. I couldn’t stand the smell of the stable. I crossed the courtyard riddled with storm-ravaged pines and swung open the massive wooden door, imagining how I must have looked to him. A lesser fae, just like him, but with stag horns. I was allowed to walk around free, while he and nearly all the lesser fae in the Wind Court were told to keep their heads down and their hands busy. King Autus wanted them to train with the armies or cook and clean in the castle. That was it.
Why was I chosen, and they were not?
I stepped back into the stone castle and stamped the fallen snow from my boots before heading back to my rooms. Though it was nearly midnight and a storm was wreaking havoc outside, the inside of the castle still bustled with activity. The lesser fae typically cleaned through the night while the rest of the castle engaged in all manner of bedroom activities, and not necessarily in their bedrooms.
Sitting silently in my study, I leaned forward, placing my elbows on the desktop and resting my fingertips against my temples. I thought back to when I was slightly older than the boy and made the discovery that changed my entire life.
I worked in the stable. I lived in the stable. I ate the horses’ oats just to stay alive sometimes. I trained as a boy with a wooden sword when it was too dark to brush, feed or saddle the horses.
One day a rider came in hunched over the front of his giant fae horse. It was saturated in blood, and I was sure the rider was dead. I was terrified. What child wouldn’t be, to find a dead soldier on his hands? I wanted to run screaming, but I knew old Marte would skin me alive if I drew any attention to myself. I tied the horse up with shaky fingers, and the rider fell onto the frozen ground. He moaned so loud I screamed and darted under a tack table.
I could hear him mumble for help. I looked from the fallen high fae to the door and back. No one came. I stayed huddled below the table for minutes, waiting. Gradually, I crawled on my hands and knees across the frozen stone floor to him, tucked my arm under him and used all my strength to roll him over. As I looked into his eyes and he stared back at me, I knew, without a doubt, he was going to die. I couldn’t help him. I didn’t know what to do, but I couldn’t leave him. I was never allowed to step a single foot out of the stables. I was never allowed to call on a high fae, even Master Marte.
Instead, I placed my trembling hand over his gaping wound, as I had seen soldiers do in the past to stop the bleeding, and looked around for something, anything to help me, but there was nothing.
“Please don’t die,” I whispered. “Please don’t die.”
Suddenly, the world called to me. It was the first time I felt the pull of my power. All at once, I knew the male would not die. Instinctively, I just knew that if I willed it to happen, and pushed the urge to save him, I could do it. I wasn’t sure what would happen to me afterward, but I could feel it in the wind. I could hear it in the trees. I had to save him.
I woke three days later in my frozen corner in the stable, half buried in straw. Master Marte was feeding the horses when I crossed the barn toward him.
“Thought you were dying over there, kid. You haven’t moved in days.”
“What happened?”
He huffed a breath. “Yes, indeed. What happened, Temir?”
Eyes wide at his use of my name, I stammered. “The-there was a male. And he fell from his horse and scared me. And that’s all I remember, Master.”
“I see.” He scratched the back of his balding head. “Get these horses fed and the end stall cleaned out. I’ve had to come in and do your work on top of my own. A real inconvenience you’ve been to me these last few days. I’ve half a mind to keep your supper for my own belly. Best be hasty, kid.”
It took me weeks to remember that I saved that high fae’s life somehow. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not re-summon the power I had felt that day.
I thought I’d gotten away with it until I was beckoned by the king himself. I was a small child, a lesser fae, with no idea of who my parents were. My earliest memories were in the castle stables, raised by the hands that worked there. Being summoned by the king who kept me locked away was easily the scariest thing that had ever happened to me. While every part of my childhood was internal resentment for King Autus and the high fae children who could come and go as they pleased, having to stand before him was the very last thing I thought would ever happen.
Marte let me wash in the horse trough and, although it was chilly, it was the first bath I could ever remember having. I’d washed myself with a dirty rag every time before that. I remembered putting on the new pants and soft shirt and thinking that no matter what the king wanted, even if he killed me, I’d die happy. I couldn’t remember the last time I had gotten a new shirt, if ever.
I walked to the castle barefoot with sentries surrounding me. My heart pumped in beat with their solidary steps, and I had to remind myself to blink. I wanted to look around. I wanted to run and laugh and swing my arms and spin in circles until I fell from dizziness. I couldn’t believe I was actually out of the stables. The world smelled different. All I had known was dirt, mud, oats, and straw. The ceilings were so tall, and the halls were so wide and it was better than my wildest dreams.
As we entered, I pressed my elbows into my sides and tried to make myself as small as possible. This was an entirely different world, one I had no idea where I fit into, or if I did at all. I had watched the castle out of the stable doors my entire life and imagined what it was like inside. I often practiced sword fighting with the wooden trainer Master Marte would let me borrow. I would pretend I stormed into this castle and told the king he had to let me go. I realized then, in all my meekness, that would never happen.