Havenfall (Havenfall #1)(17)
“Protecting the palace from giant bears?”
Fiordenkill has a lot of the same animals we do—bears, wolves, deer—but they’re all on a giant scale. Deer the size of horses, bears twice as tall as me, even on all fours. Or so Brekken tells me.
“Occasionally,” he says. “Not often enough. But it’s an honor to serve the High Court. And look, I have a sword.”
He reaches down and pulls it a few inches from its leather scabbard before letting it slide back down, and I catch a glimpse of silver and rubies.
“You’d better get me one too,” I tease. “Or I won’t last long in our garden fights.”
Brekken grins and starts to say something, but his words die off as he sees something over my shoulder.
I follow his gaze to see a young Byrnisian man gliding in our direction, someone I’ve never seen before—I know, because I would remember. He looks around our age, maybe a little older, though Byrnisians age slower than humans. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with sharp features and gray eyes, and his pale skin and silvery-blond hair have a weird metallic tint, like he’s been dunked in molten silver and only mostly rinsed off.
As he reaches us, Brekken bows, and I instinctively do the same. It’s only then that I notice an older man behind him, just as tall but unnaturally thin, dressed in black with bangles of Haven silver stacked around his wrists and throat.
“No need for that.” The younger man’s voice pulls us back up, deep and resonant. “I’m only a guest here, same as you.”
“Your Highness,” Brekken says, and a shiver of awe drops down my spine as I realize who this man must be. I’ve heard stories about the Silver Prince. He’s the one who created the massive city of Oasis when he was scarcely more than a boy, erecting a magical barrier to shelter its people from the elemental storms that have nearly decimated Byrn. Imagine if one guy single-handedly stopped climate change, is how Marcus explained it to me once. The Silver Prince rules that city now, and most of the world’s inhabitants with it—everyone in Byrn lives in Oasis, except for a handful of nomads who value their independence enough to brave the lightning and hurricanes and burning wind.
Looking up now into the Silver Prince’s deep-set eyes, I find myself doing math in my head, trying to match the stories I’ve heard to the young man towering over me. He’s probably around twenty-three, twenty-four—not that much older than me, but I can almost feel the power rolling off him like a force field. His magic must be unimaginably powerful to have kept the Oasis storms at bay. He’s never come to the summits before, since he was the only thing standing between Byrn’s last habitable city and destruction. I guess the fact that he’s here means the storms must have finally calmed.
Willow never thought it would happen. She’d always joke that she was lucky to be banished, that she was going to live longer than everyone stuck in a dying Byrn. Seeing the Prince now, his serenity and power, I can’t help but feel a little awed.
“Soldier,” he says, dipping his head toward Brekken. Then he looks at me and tilts his head, considering. “And you must be Madeline.”
There aren’t many humans here other than summer staffers, and it’s not a surprise he recognizes me. Still, it’s weird. I’m used to keeping my head down and avoiding everyone. So I’m caught off guard to be on a first-name basis with a prince from another world.
The Prince doesn’t introduce the other man—a servant, his bodyguard? He just zeroes in on me, those iron-colored eyes holding mine, and says, “You seem troubled.”
Brekken looks sharply at me. Fiordenkill and Byrn don’t have the same rules for small talk as we do. Most of the Fiordens who come to Havenfall would sooner swallow coals than talk about feelings, and Byrnisians, on the other hand, prize truth and forthrightness.
My stomach turns. I am troubled, but I don’t want Brekken to know that. Yet I can’t be rude to Oasis’s and, by default, Byrn’s ruler. I can’t jeopardize Havenfall’s relationship with an entire world.
“It’s nothing,” I say, forcing a smile to my face. “I’m just tired.”
The Silver Prince tilts his head slowly. It’s a little unnerving.
“Is that true?” His voice isn’t reprimanding, just curious.
The man wearing silver is a silent, eerie presence behind him, his colorless eyes taking in everything.
Brekken moves forward, as if to step between us, but I hook my pinkie around his to stop him. His actions carry more weight now that he’s a soldier, and my feelings aren’t worth an inter-world incident.
“It’s just …” I choose my words carefully, trying to find a version of the truth that will satisfy the Silver Prince. “This is the most important place in the world to me. It’s not just a party that happens every summer. It’s my home.”
As soon as the words are out, I regret them. Brekken’s eyes widen, and it feels as though I’ve given too much away.
“Your home?” the Silver Prince asks.
His words are affectless; we could be discussing anything. Still, my skin prickles. Why is he spending his first visit to the Adjacent Realms—a visit that must have been in the works for years—asking the sixteen-year-old Innkeeper’s niece about her feelings? What is that Byrnisian intuition telling him about me?