I fiddled with the napkin by my plate as he took another bite of stew. “When will I learn why you took me, my prince?”
His lips sealed around his spoon as his jaw worked through the stew’s tender meat and vegetables. “Soon enough.”
A biting retort was on the tip of my tongue until I caught the seriousness in his eyes. He wasn’t lying. Even though I didn’t have Cailis’s affinity for truth, I knew he was being honest. He would eventually tell me.
“Now, eat.” He pointed his spoon at the bread. “You won’t stay warm during the flight tomorrow if your belly’s empty.”
Looking down, I tore a piece off the bread and forced it into my mouth. The soft dough and smooth butter nearly melted on my tongue, yet despite that, I had to force it down because another horrible, awful thought came to me. Maybe he wasn’t telling me why he’d taken me because my fate was much worse than mere death.
Soft violin music continued floating around us as the prince slowly finished his meal. I couldn’t take another bite.
I had to know.
“My prince, are you going to torture me? Is that why you won’t tell me of my fate?” I asked quietly.
His hand stilled from scooping his last spoonful. A moment ticked by. Then another. A muscle in his jaw began to tick.
“What makes you think that?” he finally asked.
Because it’s what you do. And if it’s not torture, it will certainly be death because that’s what you did to my brother and my parents. Yet you obviously don’t know that. You probably don’t even remember murdering my family.
But I kept those words sealed in my mind, locking them down as far as they would go. “Because what use could you possibly have for me—a weak, wingless, defective fairy if not to purge the Solis race of my existence and perhaps punish me for ever having been born?”
His eyes burned with an intensity that put a fire elemental’s affinity to shame. “Is that how you see yourself?”
“Don’t you?”
But instead of answering that, he simply said, “I’m not going to kill you, and I’m not going to torture you.”
With that, he leaned back in his seat, his wings settling behind him just as the door opened, and Nish, Sandus, and his other two guards poured into the lodge.
Nish ran a hand over his short, shorn hair, then sauntered toward us. He smelled of wind and snow, and the cold air still clung to him.
After pulling out a chair by the fire, Nish straddled it and signaled Milis over, then took in the prince’s empty bowl and half-drunk mug of ale. “How long have you been here?”
“Oh, the usual,” the prince replied. “Hours upon hours. If you bastards weren’t so slow, we could have flown all the way to Solisarium tonight.”
My jaw dropped because we’d not even been here an hour, and the prince’s tone had been joking. I never would have thought the Death Master could have a sense of humor.
Sandus grinned and pulled out the chair by Nish before shaking the snow from his beard.
The other two—the one with round cheeks and the other with a long braid down his back that settled right between his wings—pulled over chairs until our table was overflowing with the large males.
Snowflakes fluttered from their clothing, wings, and hair, but the second the flakes made contact with the floor, they fizzled out of existence, letting me know the magical wards surrounding this establishment kept the elements at bay. If only my village’s field barn had contained that kind of magic.
At the bar, Milis filled another tray with drinks and food, and the enchanted platter lifted, the heavy weight inconsequential to the magic that propelled it.
“Are your arms sore from the long flight?” Sandus asked the prince.
Prince Norivun cocked an eyebrow. “She doesn’t weigh more than eight stone. You insult me.”
But Sandus just grinned again, his smile peeking through his bushy beard.
“She give you any trouble?” Nish asked, nodding my way.
“She has a name, you know.” The words shot out of me, and all five males’ easy smiles vanished.
“And what name is that?” the round-cheeked male asked. His voice was joyful and smooth, yet he looked to be the oldest of them. He had a broad nose, light-blue eyes that were as bland as a small pond, and firm lips. Even though his features weren’t typically handsome, he was still attractive, and of all of them, his demeanor seemed the kindest.
I brought a fist to my heart in traditional Solis greeting and replied more calmly, “Ilara Seary, daughter of Mervalee Territory. And you are?”
The prince’s eyes widened slightly as a hint of a smile ghosted the guard’s lips before he also brought a fist to his chest. “Haxil Hubberline, guard to the crown prince and son of Isalee Territory.”
I sat up straighter, the mysterious words from the fae females at the harvest market over the weekend returning. “Is it true the crops are dying in Isalee?”
All movement at the table stopped. The male by Sandus, the one I hadn’t met yet who had the long braid, lowered his drink as the prince’s eyes narrowed.
“Where did you hear that?” the prince asked in a voice so cold that it sent a chill down my spine.
I resisted the urge to fidget and clasped my hands in my lap. “I overheard two fae talking about it at Firlim’s market last weekend.”
The prince’s eyes turned to slits. “What did they say?”
“That the plants are black, the soil is gray, and the fae in Isalee are starving. She said our land’s orem is failing. That the celestial events aren’t replenishing it, and we’re all going to die.”
Prince Norivun and his guards all gave one another side-eyes, and if I hadn’t already been curious about the rumors, I was definitely curious now.
“Is it true then?” For the first time, genuine alarm pulsed through me.
“How many others have spoken of this?” the prince asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Have any fae in your village or in Firlim spoken of being discontented?” Haxil asked, the earlier warmth radiating from his round cheeks gone.
My brows pinched together as all of them watched me intently. “No, not that I’m aware of.”
Haxil’s shoulders relaxed, and I wondered what in the realm was going on. “Is something amiss in Isalee? Is the orem there—”
A door burst open to the side of the lodge, and a female fairy came stumbling over the threshold. My breath sucked in when blood dripped from a long slash down her wing. She nearly fell to the floor but caught herself on a chair.
“My prince!” she called. “Please, I beg of you. Help me! He’s going to kill him tonight. I’m sure of it. He won’t stop!”
Milis rushed forward, her arms going around the female as she hushed her. “Not here, Mealow. This isn’t the place. Alert the patrol.”
The female grabbed onto Milis’s arms. “I tried, but they’re busy with a snowgum.” The female gripped the bartender tighter. “I don’t know who else to turn to. He’s full of leminai and angry tonight, Mil. So angry, and I heard the prince had come.”
The prince let out a long tired-sounding sigh.
“Want us to handle this, Nori?” the guard with the braid asked. He had angular cheekbones and looked as though he’d been crafted from a steel arrow.