Page 1 of The Winter Prince

Chapter 1

Revi

BloodcoatedRevi’spawsand muzzle. Annoyance prickled across his hide, making his fur stand on end. He hated to be dirty, to let the gore and grime cling to him after a battle. He wanted nothing more than to return home, wash the death from himself, and curl up on the hearth.

But as he got closer to the castle, he felt a foreign presence. Intruders. They didn’t have the hot stickiness to them that the monstrouszruyedsdid, but they were stillother—their signatures did not carry the familiar cold wildness of a Winter Elyri. They didn’t belong in his Court.

Growling in irritation, Revi slipped through the forest, his dappled silver and white coat mingling with the play of light and shadows between the trees.

He hadn’t made it much farther when a sense of loss scraped sharply along his magical awareness, like a set of claws against his mind. Something was horribly wrong.

He pressed his magical awareness out as he neared his castle. Intruders indeed. He could sense at least a dozen of them. He pushed himself faster. He would rid himself of them just as he had rid the Court of thezruyeds, and then he would groom, and then, finally, he could rest, if only for a short while.

The forest broke ahead of him. The breeze shifted his way, bringing the scent of leather, oil, and steel to his nose. His hackles rose.

Humans. What were humans doing in his Court?

Threaded among the other smells was a hint of something cold like the first frost or of an evergreen when all other trees have gone to sleep for the winter.

Good. Enlo had already intercepted them. At least they weren’t roaming his Court freely. He crouched and leaped through the air, landing lightly on a branch high above the ground. From his perch, he followed his regular route through the treetops closer and closer to the castle wall before making the leap from the forest to the wall. He slunk along the top, following the odor and otherness of humans with his magic. He rounded the Winter Court’s castle grounds, going from the west gardens all the way around to the east gardens, but his trail stopped before he reached the front gardens and main gate.

No. The humans had not only broken into his Court, but they’d managed to wander intohisgarden. His irritation turned to icy stabs of anger. He leaped from the castle wall’s walkway up onto the parapet. There they were, a dozen humans, all male, most with weapons in hand, and garbed like warriors in blue and grey uniforms that suggested they were part of an organized militia of some sort.

They smelled of horses, but they had none with them, and they looked battered, as if they had just come from a battle. They stood in a crescent in his own private garden—which was nowhere near the front gates. Had they come with the sole purpose of stealing his roses? If they were only wandering, surely they would have kept to the front gardens. Those were the ones the gardeners had tried to adjust to the harsh summer climate his Court was subjected to, so there was a variety of things growing—or at least, attempting to grow.

But his garden was nearly barren. What usually grew here could not withstand the scorching summer sun, and he hadn’t let the gardeners replace any of it. The only thing thriving was the rosebush in the center of the garden. The rosebush that Enlo stood beside, facing off against one of the humans whose clothes—worn as they were now—were finer. The man also looked to be—according to human age—older than most of his comrades, based on the silver threaded through his otherwise brown hair. He was almost certainly the leader.

The leader who held a plucked silvery frostrose in his grip. That must have been the source of the clawing sensation against Revi’s mind.

All the anger Revi thought he’d felt before was eclipsed in a blizzard of rage at that sight. He roared and leaped from the parapet down among the men. The group scattered away at the sudden appearance of a giant bloodied frostcat, but Revi ignored them all. He prowled toward the one holding his rose. He would take it back. He would rip it from the man’s hands, and then tear the man apart for good measure.

“Ah, there’s our illustrious prince,” Enlo said in Kasmian Common, his tone light and amused. He ran a hand through his cropped silver hair, for all appearances entirely at ease despite the situation.

“Enlo,” Revi growled in the Elyri tongue, “why have you suffered these humans to live? Why is he holding my rose?”

The human’s grip tightened on the rose, his skin paling as if frosted over.

Revi prowled closer, and Enlo raised a placating hand.

“The deed was done by the time I reached them, cousin,” he said, his tone still far too soothing.

“Again I ask, why are they still alive? You,” he snarled, baring his fangs at the man and switching to speak in Kasmian Common so the human was certain to understand. “You have trespassed on my Court, and you’ve taken what is mine. The lifeblood of my Court. Life for life. Would you stand and die for your men, or shall I slaughter them in your stead?”

The human stiffened, one hand going for the hilt of his sword.

“I wouldn’t,” Enlo said mildly in Common. “If you antagonize him further, your only choice will be the latter. If you’ll but give me a moment, gentlemen.” He pitched his voice lower and switched back to Elyri. “Cousin, a word.”

Enlo stepped a few paces away from the group. Revi followed, careful to keep at an angle where he could still see the humans. His tail lashed angrily behind him. “Why is that human still holding my frostrose?”

“Because this seems like a perfect opportunity.” Enlo tilted his head toward the humans, who had regrouped. Several of them had drawn their swords, but not the leader. The leader still clutched the frostrose, his face pale but otherwise set in an unreadable expression.

“A life for a life, you said,” Enlo continued. “Could it not be a life given instead of one taken?” Revi started to growl, but Enlo hurried on, his words rushing together. “No, hear me out, cousin. You know what the curse says. This could be the key to breaking it. Our people can’t take much more. They were made for ice and cold, not for this blistering heat. We’ve discussed this. It’s too hot for our crops. The sun leeches more strength from our bones every day. We’re running out of time to rid ourselves of this curse.”

Revi shook his head, a snarl building in his chest.

“Revi!” Enlo snapped. “You must at least try.”

Something in his cousin’s tone stopped him. He tore his gaze away from the humans and looked at Enlo.

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