Page 34 of Winds of Darkness

Chapter 2

Ashtine

The Wind Princess stepped from the winds, only to realize she’d left her slippers in the Water Court when she registered the cool stone of her rooms beneath her feet.

Blood will be shed.

A prince will fall.

The realm hangs in the balance.

A beginning or an ending? Time will tell.

Ashtine released a shuddering exhale. The winds were restless, and it was driving her slightly mad.

She hurried to her dressing room and stripped out of the dress that smelled of the sea, pulling on a fresh gown of deep navy blue with fine white detailing. Shoving her feet into new slippers, she hurried from her rooms, running along the small parapet that connected her quarters to the main building of the Wind Citadel.

He is to the left.

The winds’ whispered warning had her taking the next right to avoid Ermir. She loved her Second like a daughter loved her father, but he had grown … worried about her these last months. It wasn’t surprising, but they didn’t understand.

No one understood.

No one else could hear the constant whispered warnings.

She moved down the stairs, taking them two at a time, onlyslowing when she reached the main floor. Then she became the poised and collected princess she’d been raised to be.

“Your Grace?” came a feminine voice, and she turned to find her personal handmaiden.

Her dark auburn hair half up, the female’s light green eyes held a knowing look, and relief flooded through Ashtine. The female may be her handmaiden, but Ashtine also considered her a friend. She was a few years older than Ashtine and had proven her loyalty more than a few times, keeping quiet about Ashtine’s secret wind walkings from the Wind Inner Court. Few knew how often she actually ventured out on her own.

No one knew where she went on most of those outings. Many times, she wasn’t even sure where she was going until she got there. Some might find that disconcerting, but she found it freeing. It was the only time her movements were not constantly watched. Guarded. Studied.

Everyone knew she was a Wind Walker. That had been expected considering her mother was one of the few known Wind Walkers in history. Her father hadn’t been a Wind Walker, but had been one of the most powerful Wind Fae to exist.

Or so she’d been told.

But it stood to reason, given that pairings among the Royal Fae were often arranged to ensure power was passed down in order for the royal lines to remain strong. Ermir told her often that her parents’ marriage may have been arranged, but they had come to truly care for each other in the end. When she was a child, she’d found it romantic and endearing. Now that she was older, she saw it for what it was: a story to make her more amenable to the idea of her own eventual pairing. An heir would be expected of her after all, and everyone would expect that heir to walk among the winds.

As though she had any control over that.

“Noelle,” Ashtine said, forcing her breathing to even out.

“Was your outing enjoyable?” Noelle asked.

“It went as I anticipated it would,” she answered, clasping her hands in front of her. “I was on my way to the catacombs.”

Noelle smiled. “I am not surprised in the slightest by that. Would you like to take your dinner there this evening?”

“Dinner?”

“The meal one eats in the latter part of the evening,” came a deep voice from behind her, and Ashtine’s eyes momentarily fell closed at knowing she’d been caught.

He knows,the winds whispered.

I am aware. Thank you,she retorted.

As if the winds cared what she thought.