A wind gust abruptly caught us, sending us higher into the atmosphere. A scream lodged in my throat, and even though I hated myself for it, I clung tighter to him.
“I won’t let you fall,” he said calmly, as if having a petrified female millees above the ground was a daily occurrence for him.
I forced my arms to loosen, but when I tried to let go completely and allow him to hold me entirely . . . I couldn’t.
As ridiculous as it would be for him to take me from my village only to intentionally drop me thousands of feet to my death, I didn’t trust him to keep me safe. I knew what he was, so despite my pride slugging me in the gut, I kept my grip on him.
“How long will it take to reach Solisarium, my prince?”
“Two days.”
My head whipped up to see if he was serious, but all I saw was the undercut of his jaw and his long lashes as he stared straight ahead.
“Two . . . days, my prince?” I was to endure being held by him for two full days?
“Yes.” He glanced down at me. “Have you never been there?”
“No, of course not.” I vaguely knew where the capital was on a map, but it was so far away that I’d never even considered traveling there. In fact, I’d never been beyond my village, Firlim, or the other villages surrounding that small city.
I tried to remember what I could from the seasons I’d been in school. We’d learned the geography of our continent and this realm, but that was so long ago. All I could remember was that Solisarium was at least a thousand millees from where I lived. Perhaps even farther.
Keeping my hands clasped around his neck, I dared a look over his shoulder to search for Sandus, Nish, and the two other males who traveled with the prince.
Their distant specks were visible through a smattering of pink clouds. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll lose your guards?”
“They know the way.”
I tried to ignore how his hard chest felt against my side as he breathed evenly, so I glanced down, but the ground was so far beneath us I couldn’t make out any details. I had no idea where we were.
Swallowing the uneasiness in my throat, I asked, “So we’ll fly like this for two days straight?”
His brow furrowed, and a moment of fear stole over me when his power rumbled around me. “You seem to be forgetting how to address me properly.”
My breath caught when I felt his affinity brush against me. A wave of coldness and bottomless darkness gathered around my soul.
I recoiled, and my heart beat as rapidly as a trisilee’s wings. My prince. I was supposed to add “my prince” to the end of every question. I was not to speak to him casually, like I would to Finnley.
My hands turned clammy as I stuttered, “I’m sorry, my prince. I forgot . . . I mean, I’m not used to addressing royalty, my prince.”
“As I’m coming to see.”
That comment shut me up, and I vowed not to say another word during the next two days, but a minute later, the prince broke the quiet again. “We often stop at the same spot whenever we’re patrolling the continent, so no, we won’t fly like this for two full days. Even if I lose my guards in the clouds, they’ll eventually end up in the same location as us.”
I nodded tightly, not trusting myself to speak further without offending him again. I needed to remember what was best for Cailis. Stay alive. Get back to her. Don’t anger the prince.
I could only pray that when my time with the prince came to an end, that my death wasn’t waiting.
CHAPTER 5
The hours drifted past, and my arms grew so sore that I debated lowering them from the prince’s neck.
I hadn’t felt the brush of his affinity since his admonishment, so I was no longer concerned that he’d drop me or kill me. Not yet at least.
Tentatively, I let go of my death grip and bit back a hiss. My limbs would barely move. It was as though they had frozen around his wide frame. The prince’s expression gave away nothing as I slowly and painfully curled my arms stiffly to my chest.
The landscape continued to be a blur. We were flying over mountains—I knew that much, and if we were traveling west, then I assumed they were the Gielis Mountains—the large mountain range that separated Mervalee from Prinavee Territory.
“Our lodging for the night is just up ahead.”
I started at the sound of his voice. After hours of traveling in silence, with only the wind howling through my ears, I’d forgotten how deep and commanding his tone was.
We abruptly dropped from the sky. Swallowing a scream, I grabbed a hold of him even though pain shot through my limbs from the unintended movement.
The air whizzed past us, blowing my hair around my face and covering my eyes, but I couldn’t bring myself to release him again.
Down, down, down we went, spiraling and dipping from the atmosphere, and I wondered how high up we’d been.
He tightened his grip on me, as if in reassurance that he wouldn’t let me fall, but when he shifted my weight as he maneuvered from a horizontal position to a vertical one, I realized it had only been to accommodate his landing.
Snow flattened beneath his large booted feet when we returned to the ground as lightly as falling mist. Around us, a thick forest covered a towering mountainside. The pale green sky above was still visible in the setting sun that was quickly disappearing behind the highest mountain peak.
I breathed heavily, and a moment of panic hit me when I realized how incredibly vulnerable I’d become. The clearing we’d landed in was devoid of life. No birds, creatures, or plants other than the towering pines whose needles were a sapphire blue surrounded us. If the prince left me here, I would be frozen and dead by morning.
“May I ask where we are, my prince?” Thankfully, my voice sounded calm despite my fear.
He released me from his grasp, and my stiff legs protested from the shift in movement. If it wasn’t for my determination to act as though the day’s long flight hadn’t affected me, I would have crumpled to the ground.
“Near High Liss. The mountain village is just beyond those trees.” He pointed toward the setting sun, which meant the town was west. “Our lodging for the night is down that path. Now, before we go . . .” A pulse of his magic fell around me, like a veil. It was so subtle that I almost didn’t detect it.
I gasped when, before my eyes, my hair turned from pitch black to pure silver, just like all Solis fae.
“What . . . how?” I stuttered. “Is this a glamour?”
“No, it’s an illusion, to draw less attention to you. Glamours aren’t strong enough to conceal your hair for a long duration. Come.” He tucked his wings in tight and headed toward the trail leading out of the clearing.
Curling smoke from a chimney rose above the trees, which meant our lodging had to be close. Marveling one last time at my hair, I finally stopped fingering the locks and followed him, placing my feet where his had been in the deep snow, which meant my strides had to nearly double in size.
Heaving, I finally caught up with him as a sprawling lodge appeared through the foliage. The rugged two-story abode with a wide porch and a towering chimney was a welcome sight. Lights blazed from the windows, and faint music stirred the air. A sign hung over the door, reading Liss Lodge.
“This way.” The prince strode ahead, and since the snow here had been cleared down to inches, it made walking easy.