The next day we passed through Spring Court and greeted the people, taking their well wishes with us. The well wishes were sparse. Only half the town came out to greet us, and most did so with a look of obligation. It was nothing like the Fall Court reception we’d had, and I imagined only slightly better than we would receive at Summer. The prince of Summer, Marcelle Haze, and the winter king had a longstanding feud. After Lucien froze over thirty of his people, the prince of Summer had stormed the Winter palace and demanded reparations and an apology. From what I’d heard, what he got was a beating.
The carriage left Spring lands as we ventured into Summer, and I looked over at Lucien. Who was this man? His history was so mysterious and dark and filled with fantastical stories.
“Are we going to war with the Nightfall queen?” I asked suddenly.
Piper was beside me knitting and pretended to be overly interested in the stitching pattern in that moment.
Lucien stared at me seriously, his eyes darkening. “I haven’t decided.”
His tone said it was the end of discussion, but I crossed my arms and glared at him. “Why would we?” I snipped. “Things are peaceful and she doesn’t bother us!”
He leaned forward, edging into my space, and I swallowed hard. “Do you know why she doesn’t bother us?”
He wanted an ego fluff, fine. “Because of you. She fears you.”
He nodded. “She fears me but still hates our kind. She will pick off the dragon-folk and elves first, then the wolves. Then she will come for the fae last so by that time it will be too late for us to band together and overthrow her. But make no mistake, she will come for us one day. The question is, do we go for her first?”
Holy fae, his words sent goosebumps down my arms and I couldn’t help the terror that climbed into my heart. The Nightfall queen hated magical persons yes, but… but she didn’t bother us.
Why? Because Lucien was right?
I suspected he was, and I couldn’t help but feel in that moment he was king for a reason.
He was clearly the best man for the job, cunning, powerful and slightly scary.
“Do I get a vote?” I asked. “When we marry, will you consult with me before you go throwing our people into war? Or will I just be some decorative queen that stands by your side and looks pretty?”
He looked pained at my accusation and I instantly regretted it. “Of course. I will cherish your council, but in the end I will do what it takes to protect you in the long run, even if you hate me for it.”
He had this uncanny ability to say romantic things that were also kind of scary.
A smirk pulled at his lips and his eyes ran from the top of my head to my crossed ankles. “I also think you make a pretty ravishing decoration.”
Piper snort-laughed beside me and then immediately swallowed the sound.
My cheeks heated and I wanted to open the window and get some fresh air. “I don’t know what to think about you,” I confessed in frustration.
He laughed, and the entire air shifted. It was deep, throaty, and had a way of crawling under your skin and caressing your heart.
I love his laugh, I thought to myself guiltily.
“Are you disappointed I have not cut out anyone’s tongue yet?” He grinned.
I gasped, and even Piper set down her knitting to look at the king.
“Well… yes, to be honest,” I told him.
That laugh rang out through the carriage again and I felt like a fool.
“What’s so funny? Surely not cutting out a man’s tongue!” I snapped, reaching out to poke his chest.
His hand snaked out and caught mine, clasping my fingers lightly as a shock of ice cold zipped up my arm. His gray eyes bored into me then and it felt like he was seeing my very soul. The way he gazed at me was unlike any look a man had ever given me. It made my stomach drop and warm at the same time.
“I became king at sixteen, shortly after my mother died. My father abdicated in his prime, which made our family look weak. How else was I to ensure my position so that no one would come to dethrone me?”
Our fingers were still touching, and I couldn’t get that out of my mind enough to process his words, but Piper gasped next to me, clearly getting his reasoning.
“You made up the stories,” Piper said.
Lucien smiled at Piper. “Yes. I paid my palace staff to spread rumors that I was a horrible, powerful, vengeful king.”
Shock ripped through me, and I finally pulled my fingers from his. “You didn’t! But… people hate you for those stories.”
He shrugged, peering at me coolly. “I’d rather be a hated and feared king than a challenged and dead one.”
My mind spun with this new revelation. He wasn’t wrong. The way his father became king was to challenge and fight the previous king, killing him and taking his place. It was our way. But no one challenged a powerful king who was known to fly off the handle at any moment and cut out a tongue.
“That’s… You…” I couldn’t find the words.
“Genius?” Lucien offered, raising one eyebrow and looking impossibly handsome.
I scoffed. “Well, the rumors of your lack of humble nature are true I see.”
Lucien just smirked as if he enjoyed ruffling my feathers. It all made sense now, why the man who had shown up to negotiate my dowry was a far cry from the ruthless menace I’d heard stories about.
“But the Freeze, that was real. I lived through it. You admitted as much,” I told him, indicating the night so many across our realm died.
He sighed, his face falling as a haunted look took over him. “Yes, well, not everything is a rumor. I’m not a perfect man.”
A deep sadness crept into my heart then. I didn’t know why I thought all these years that he didn’t carry any regret over that night, but the look on his face, like I’d shot his beloved pet, told me all I needed to know.
That night was a mistake, and he regretted everything about it.
I reached out and grasped his hand tenderly. “I have trouble controlling my powers too sometimes,” I told him. It was a bit of a lie. I rarely lost control, and when I did, it was easy to rein back in.
He looked at me flatly. “Have you ever killed over fifty people with a windstorm that you created and couldn’t stop?”
I dropped his hand and leaned back into the seat. This was clearly a touchy topic, and I didn’t want to push him anymore.
“No,” I admitted, and we settled into a silent ride. Everything he had said filled the air. My mind chewed over every single word.
He lied. The cut-out tongues, the dragging staff from horses as punishment… all of those insane stories of a cruel king… were lies. It was also kind of genius, like he’d said. No one dared challenge the ruthless winter king. The Thorne family ruled for generations, only having been dethroned a few times but always winning the kingship back with the next heir. It’s why our realm was named Thorngate.
When Lucien’s mother died, there were rumors that it broke his father and that’s why he’d abdicated. Lucien had to step up and become king at sixteen years old or someone would have come for his father. They would have challenged him and killed him.
But the Freeze was real, and he did have a cold personality at times, so there was a story there but not enough to make him the monster I’d spent my entire life believing he was. The longer we drove, the more the guilt of what Sheera had told me was eating me up inside and I could no longer contain it. This was my future husband, the father of my future children, my king.
“Lucien, if I told you a secret, would you promise not to retaliate or punish the person in question?” I said as Piper went rigid beside me.
Lucien slowly looked up at me through steel gray eyes. “I can make no such promise, but I will do my best.”
I chewed at my lip, knowing that now that I had mentioned it I would have to say something, but also that I didn’t want to indicate Sheera.
One gift the king had, that all the kings across Avalier had, was the power to detect a lie.
Careful with my wording, I cleared my throat. “Be careful with Duke Barrett. I heard a rumor he might like to overthrow you one day.”
There, the truth, and it protected my friend.
Lucien relaxed. “That old man couldn’t win a fight against me. No, if Barrett wants me dethroned, it will be Prince Haze who fights me. They will team up together, probably also talking your father into it and coming at me together somehow.”
My mouth popped open at his bleak assessment. Prince Haze of Summer Court, who we were on our way to see right now, was the most powerful summer fae in a generation. He could light fires with his hands and send sunrays so bright into your face that they blinded you.
“You’ve thought about this,” I noted.
Lucien looked coolly across the carriage at me. “I’m the most hated man in Thorngate. My enemies are many.” His voice was monotone, but there was an underlying hurt there. Like he didn’t want to be hated.
“My father wouldn’t—” I began to defend him but Lucien held up a hand.
“I’m not accusing. I’m just saying it’s a possibility, especially if Prince Haze threatened to scorch all of his crops.”
I crossed my arms. “Like you have threatened to freeze ours in the past?”
Lucien relaxed easily into the seat, raising his arms above his head and hooking his fingers behind his neck. “Yes, well, I know how to get what I want, don’t I?”
I huffed. He was absolutely incorrigible! And insanely attractive. It was infuriating.
I felt at odds with the situation. Did I like the winter king or did he annoy me to no end? Maybe a little of both. And maybe that’s what marriage was. Or at least what this marriage was about to be. Part of me wanted to slap Lucien Thorne across the face, and the other part wanted to kiss him.
THE SECOND we reached the Summer Court gates, I knew something was wrong. The gates were closed and a line of a dozen guards stood before them.
“What’s going on? Aren’t they expecting us?” I asked. We’d sent word to all the realm of our engagement the moment after we negotiated my dowry.
Lucien’s jaw grit and his nostrils flared. The carriage pulled to a stop and he stepped out. I moved to follow him and he held up a hand. “Stay here. I will handle this.”
I pushed his hand down. “I’m going.”
He cast me an annoyed look but helped me out of the carriage. We walked together past the Winter Soldier on horseback and to the lead Sun Guard at the front of the gates.
“What do you think you are doing barring your king from entering a territory in my lands,” Lucien spat. A gust of a cold wind stirred at our backs.
Okay, not the first thing I would have said to the guard, but I was learning that the rumors of Lucien’s hot temper were very real. Just minus the tongue cutting out.
The lead guard stepped forward and pulled a scroll from his sleeveless vest. The Summer sun insignia on his breastplate glinted in the bright sunlight, and I tried to keep things calm.
“Greetings, I’m Madelynn Windstrong, the princess of Fall,” I told the guard in case he didn’t know who he was dealing with.
“I know who you are,” he said flatly.
Lucien bristled at that. Suddenly a blade of ice shot out from his palm and pressed against the guard’s throat. Every soldier present spurred into action then, pulling out their blade or conjuring sunlight in their palms.
“You are a lowly guard, so when you address a princess you will call her by her title,” Lucien growled at him.
“Yes, my king,” the guard mumbled, eyes wide.
Lucien pulled the ice blade from the man’s throat and it clattered to the ground, breaking into a dozen pieces.
I was frozen in shock, unable to react by the time it was all over. The other guards didn’t seem to know what to do. Were they really going to attack their king? Their allegiance was to the prince of their court, but above all was the king of our fae realm and that was Lucien.
They seemed to remember this in that moment, and one by one put away their blades and defused their sunlight powers.
Lucien glared at them each in turn.
“Tell me what the Hades is going on right now or I’ll turn you all into icicles!” he shouted.
The scroll was still clenched in the guard’s hand, and he gave it to me with trembling fingers.
I tugged on it, pulling it open.
When I read the first few lines, my stomach dropped.
“They want to divide the realm,” I mumbled.
Lucien turned to me, looking over the document. It said that the Summer prince, Marcelle Haze, was petitioning the realm for separation. He wanted to be king of his own realm, which would include Spring Court, and he proposed the name Hazeville.
Every second Lucien read, the temperature dropped. Snow began to fall from the sky and clouds blotted out the sun.
Oh no.
“He can’t do this,” Lucien growled.
So this was what Sheera had been talking about.
The lead guard looked terrified. He cleared his throat and stared at the king. “He can, Your Highness. Bylaw states that the entire realm has to vote, and if at least two of the four courts are in agreement, it passes.”
Summer and Spring.
No.
The coldness seeped into my skin then and my teeth started to chatter.
I quickly hooked my arm with Lucien and pulled him aside. I grasped the sides of his face and forced him to look into my eyes. “Calm down. This isn’t the way to handle it.” My hot breath puffed out into white fog before me. I’d heard of the winter king’s power but until I looked into his eyes and could have sworn I saw snow falling in his irises, I wasn’t sure just how connected to the elements he was. In that moment it was as if he was made of winter: stone cold skin, snowy eyes—even his lips looked coated in frost.
Lucien held my gaze. “If they want to separate, then they will become my enemy. I will bring war to their gates, kill Prince Haze, and take them back!” he roared.
I understood his anger. Half of his kingdom had just declared treason. The betrayal would sting, especially after he’d protected them for the past six years. The snow was dumping now, falling in huge clumps that landed on everything, including my eyelashes.
I blinked them away and focused on the storm before me, the storm brewing in Lucien’s eyes. “Everyone here hates you,” I told him honestly. “You killed over thirty of their people and never apologized. If you want them to hate you more, then sure, send another storm their way, but I think we should go home, get married, and prove that you are stronger than ever with a powerful and loyal queen at your side.”
At my words, his eyes cleared, the clouds parted, and the snow stopped. The sunlight came back out, the heat melting off the snow and turning it into water that ran into the gutters beside the road. I was amazed at how quickly he was able to turn things around.
My chest was heaving. I had been two seconds away from using my wind magic to push his snow back, but I was glad I’d not done that. It was clear to me now that Lucien didn’t trust many people and I didn’t want him to put me on the list of ones he couldn’t count on.
I pulled my hands from his face and Lucien adjusted his tunic, reaching up to smooth his damp hair. “No, we will go in and show the people of Summer that they have a strong king and soon-to-be-queen right now. No need to separate.” Then he simply walked back over to the guard and looked him in the eyes.
“I recognize your request for separation and will hold a realm-wide vote when I get back to Winter Court,” Lucien said calmly. “Until then, it is your duty to host your king and future queen. Failure to do so will be a declaration of war.”
Future queen.
I knew that was to be my title, but hearing him say it made warmth spread throughout my limbs. It was a powerful position, one I’d never imagined holding.
The guards all looked at each other in confusion, and finally the lead guard nodded and leaned into a messenger. “Bring word to Prince Haze that the winter king and Princess Windstrong are on their way.”
The messenger got on his horse and the gates opened. He disappeared behind them, taking off at a gallop.
The guard then indicated we get back in our carriage, and so Lucien and I walked over to it. When we reached the door, Lucien looked to me, bending down close to my ear. “If Prince Haze tests my patience, I will not hesitate to challenge him right here and now.”
I swallowed hard, my eyes widening. “Is now a bad time to mention he was my first kiss?”
The color drained from Lucien’s face, his mouth popping open in shock before uncontrolled anger crossed his face and every single muscle tightened, snapping his jaw shut.
I burst into laughter. I couldn’t help it, he was so easy to upset. Doubling over with giggles, I had to grasp his forearms to keep upright. When I finally stood, there were tears leaking from my eyes.
“You were so jealous,” I managed to get out between fits of laughter.
He looked amused. “I can’t wait to pay you back for that one.”
My face went slack. “What? Hey, I was joking. I’ve never touched him.”
Lucien shrugged. “Watch your back, Windstrong,” he taunted, and then spun, slipping into the carriage.
“Retaliation for a simple joke is not very gentlemanly,” I reminded him as I popped into the carriage and took a seat next to Piper.
He gazed back at me with a devastatingly handsome glare. “I never claimed to be a gentleman.”
Oh Hades, what have I gotten myself into?
