Chapter 5: Let’s get this over with
For a long moment after Wren left, Dane didn’t move. He stood in the center of the room, the stripe of dawn’s light cutting across his bare feet. The echo of the door click seemed to reverberate in the silence, louder than the pounding had been. His scalp still prickled from the unexpected heat of their proximity. I will be shadowing you. Every hour.Every day. The words hung in the stuffy air, a sentence and a promise.
A slow smile curved his lips, entirely unbidden. It wasn’t his usual charming grin. This was sharper, more private. A strange, fizzy pleasure had uncoiled in his gut as Wren laid down the law. Not at being ordered around—he’d spent a lifetime defying orders—but at the ferocity behind it, the raw, personal investment in Wren’s eyes. It wasn’t bureaucratic annoyance. It was… possession.
“Alright then,” he said to the empty room, his voice still rough.
He looked down at his damp, rumpled shirt, then peeled it off and tossed it toward a spindly silver chair. It missed, landing in a heap on the floor. He let it lie. Walking stiffly to the ornate, dark-wood wardrobe, he swung the doors open.And grimaced.
It was a sea of blue. Slate blue, dove grey-blue, midnight blue, silver so pale it was almost white.Moon colors. Not a hint of gold, ochre, or crimson. Not even a decent black. He shoved the hangers aside, the metal rasping in the quiet. Everything was finely made, elegant, tailored for someone of his height and build. And completely wrong.
He pulled out a simple tunic of deep navy, the fabric soft and cool under his fingers. “Mourning wear,” he muttered. He threw it on the bed and found trousers of a similar shade. Dressing was a slow, deliberate act. The clothes felt strange, like another skin he hadn’t asked for. The trousers were tight in the thigh, loose at the ankle, the tunic high-collared and snug across his shoulders. It was tailored, yes, but it constrained his wings, the fabric cut for a different kind of flexion. He felt like a counterfeit.
He felt like a counterfeit, swathed in a sky he didn’t belong to.
At the vanity, a silver brush lay beside a pitcher of water. He picked it up, grimacing at the stranger in the mirror—pale, tired, draped in midnight. He dragged the brush through his tangled hair. It caught instantly, pulling a sharp sting from his scalp on the third stroke. “Fuck it,” he breathed.
He dropped the brush with a clatter. Working his fingers through the mess, he gathered the long blond strands back into a haphazard knot, securing it with a leather cord he found in a drawer. It was messy, but it was his. Something loose and undone remained. His eyes scanned the vanity’s surface and landed on a small, polished wooden box.
He flipped the lid open. Inside, on a bed of dark velvet, lay a single earring. It was a slender, wicked-looking talon of silver, and from its tip dangled a single, perfect feather. It was a hawk’s primary, barred with shades of gold and russet. A tremor, sharp and unexpected, went through him. Whose was this? It wasn’t his, but it was of his kind. He fastened it to his left ear, the feather’s weight a familiar, comforting touch against his neck. It was the only gold on him.
His stomach growled, hollow and acidic. He ignored the delicate pastries under a cloche on a side table. On a bowl of polished fruit, one apple gleamed, its skin a deep, forbidden red. He snatched it. It felt solid, real, in his palm. He tucked it into the inner pocket of the tunic.
The walk to the lower courtyard was a gauntlet of muted colors and quieter sounds. Moon fae glided past, their steps silent on the polished stone. Their pale wings were held in tight, neat folds. Several dipped their heads in silent, courteous greeting. Their eyes lingered on his clothing, on the feather at his ear, on the restless shift of his own golden wings. He nodded back, offering nothing, his jaw tight.
A tall, arched doorway led out onto a broad balcony overlooking the courtyard labyrinth below. The morning sun caught the dew on the ivy, turning the world into a prism. Wren was a small, grey-blue figure down among the hedges, standing perfectly still. Dane didn’t take the stairs.
He stepped up onto the balcony’s stone railing, feeling the wind catch at his borrowed tunic. He didn’t look down. He pushed off. The air seized him, a buoyant, thrilling rush after the stifling indoors. His wings, freed, snapped open with a sound like unfurling sails. He dove, then arced up, feeling the glorious, familiar strain in his shoulders. Below, a few moon fae looked up, startled. One flinched, a hand going to her heart. They didn’t fly like this here, for the sheer joy of it. It was just transport.
He landed hard, the gravel crunching under his boots a few feet from Wren. The impact jarred up his knees. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the apple, and took a loud, crunching bite. Juice threatened to run down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand.
“Alright,” he said around the mouthful, meeting Wren’s gaze. “Let’s get this over with.”
Wren had watched the entire descent, his expression unreadable. His eyes flicked from Dane’s boots to the apple, to the messy knot of hair, and finally to the feather earring. A micro-expression—something between annoyance and fascination—tightened the corner of his mouth. He wore his own composure like armor again, but it looked thinner in the daylight, more fragile.
He wore his own composure like armor again, but it looked thinner in the daylight, more fragile. Wren’s gaze drifted past Dane’s shoulder to the balcony above, where a few lingering courtiers were still watching, their pale faces etched with a discomfort that bordered on distaste. He let out a slow, controlled breath, the kind meant to steady a trembling hand.
“You are not to fly openly here again,” Wren said, his voice a low, quiet authority that cut through the whisper of the fountains. It wasn’t a request. It was the first rule of the cage.
The words spurred a dry chuckle from Dane’s throat. He took another bite of the apple, the crunch obscenely loud in the hush. “It’s a courtyard,” he said, gesturing broadly with the fruit toward the open sky. “Last I checked, the sky’s public domain.”
When Dane turned his head slightly, he found several moon fae along a nearby colonnade looking at him as if he’d just committed sacrilege. A gardener had frozen, one hand still resting on a sheared hedge. A servant carrying a linen bundle stared openly, her mouth a soft ‘o’ of shock. It was strange, seeing their pinched, unsettled faces. They were so unaccustomed to something as natural as an impulsive flight. Fae were born with wings, born to taste the sky from infancy. The air was a second home. In Korvaria, walking was a lesser form of travel, sometimes a humiliation. Criminals chose the gallows over the shears. Flying was pride. It was identity.
It was conquest.
He would never tell Syra, his hawk, to walk simply because a wingless fox could not fly. So why should Wren?
“You will obey Moon Fae customs while you are a guest here,” Wren cautioned, his green eyes fixed on Dane’s. The warning was clear, but a vein pulsed faintly at his temple. “It’s a matter of respect.”
Dane scoffed, his smirk growing wider, more defiant. He finished the apple in two more savage bites and tossed the core into a bed of pristine white flowers. “Good thing I’m not Elunarian,” he responded flatly, looking deep into Wren’s eyes, challenging the boundary he’d just drawn.
He saw the flare in Wren’s gaze, a quick, green fire. For a second, he thought the prince might snap again, might resurrect the furious, unspooled man from the bedchamber. But Wren’s jaw merely tightened, his composure sealing the crack. He turned on his heel, the fabric of his tunic whispering.
He turned on his heel, the fabric of his tunic whispering. Without another word, Wren strode across the gravel toward a low, vine-covered archway that led to the palace stables. Dane shook his head, a faint, involuntary smile touching his lips, and followed.
The warm, earthy scent of hay, leather, and animal greeted them, a welcome contrast to the courtyard’s perfumed air. Wren was already deep in conversation with a young stable hand, his finger tracing a line along the belly band of a tall, dappled grey mare. “It’s too loose by two holes, Kieran,” Wren said, his voice not raised but carrying a clarity that silenced the soft shuffles and snorts around them. “You cinch it like this, and she’ll swell and make you pay for it by midday.”
Dane leaned against the doorway, hands on his hips, watching with a roguish simper. He admired the display from afar. Wren’s instructions to the other hands were delivered with a calm precision, an authoritative energy that flowed from him as naturally as breath. It wasn’t a show of force, nor was it arrogance. It was a beautiful display of power—he was beautiful. But also strange, Dane thought, like a heart that had the power to beat life, and yet did not know why.
Wren placed a placid hand on the mare’s neck, murmuring something too low for Dane to catch. The horse nudged his shoulder, a gesture of clear trust. Then, with fluid grace, Wren gathered the reins and swung up into the saddle in one smooth motion. He looked down at Dane from that height, the morning light catching the sharp lines of his face. “Our day begins now,” he stated, his tone leaving no room for debate. “We ride through the lower districts. You will learn my city.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He guided the grey mare around with a gentle pressure of his knees and rode out of the stable into the soft daylight. Dane cursed under his breath, a low, creative stream of profanity aimed at princes, moon-fae, and tack that was always correctly cinched. A pale mare had been brought out for him, her coat almost silver.
He grabbed a fistful of her pale mane and swung up, his wings ruffling for balance as he settled into the unfamiliar saddle. He met Wren outside where the path curved toward a grand gate. As Dane nudged his mare alongside the grey, he saw Wren watching him, his jaw tensed with a restraint that seemed to cost him dearly. The prince’s eyes scanned him from boots to the hawk’s feather dangling from his ear, a silent assessment.
“Try to keep up,” Wren said simply, and nudged his horse into a trot.
The city unfolded beyond the palace gates like a grey and silver tapestry coming to life. They rode down wide, meticulously clean avenues where pale stone buildings rose in elegant, curving lines. Everything felt ordered, quiet. The citizens they passed moved with a purposeful grace, their greetings to Wren soft and respectful, their glances at Dane swift and wary.
They descended through terraced levels, the air growing warmer and denser. The polished stone of the upper districts gave way to older, rougher cobbles. The scent of incense and lavender shifted, mingling with the smell of baking bread, forging metal, and the distinct, briny tang of the river. The noise level rose—a clatter of carts, the calls of merchants, the shriek of a child’s laughter. It was still restrained by Sun Court standards, but it had a pulse.
Wren slowed his horse to a walk, his gaze sweeping over a bustling market square. “The Artisan’s Tier,” he said, his voice surprisingly neutral, a tour guide reciting facts. “The lifeblood of Elunara’s trade flows through here.”
Dane scanned the crowd. “Where’s all the yelling? The haggling? The actual blood?”
“We have different methods,” Wren replied, watching a transaction where money changed hands with a silent nod. “Efficiency does not require volume.”
They guided their horses down a narrower lane, the buildings leaning closer together. Here, the order frayed at the edges. laundry hung between windows, and the gutters ran with less-crystal water. Wren’s presence seemed to tighten the space, a ripple of awareness preceding them. Dane caught a young woman’s eye as she hauled a bucket from a well; she stared, not at Wren, but at the glint of Dane’s golden wings in the dappled shade, her expression one of open astonishment.
“They don’t get many tourists, do they?” Dane said, offering her a quick, flashing smile.
She looked away quickly, flustered. Wren didn’t turn. “You are not a tourist. You are an event.”
Wren glanced at him, his profile sharp against the soot-stained wall of a smithy.
They rode in silence for a while, descending further toward the river’s edge. The streets grew denser, the air humid and thick with the smell of fish and wet stone.
He looked over at Wren, who was observing a fisherman mending a net with the same focused attention he’d given the palace stables. The restrained energy in him was a live wire. Dane remembered the feel of it in his room that morning, the crackling, furious proximity. He thought of the feather in his ear, a piece of his own world clinging on in this place of greys and silvers.
He clicked his tongue, urging his horse forward along the river path, leaving Dane with the echo of his words and the unsettling sense that he’d just glimpsed the machinery behind the moon.
He clicked his tongue, urging his horse forward along the river path, leaving Dane with the echo of his words and the unsettling sense that he’d just glimpsed the machinery behind the moon.
Dane kicked his own mount to catch up, the cobbles clattering under hooves. They rode on in a tense, charged silence, the sun climbing higher, heating the damp air rising from the water. The fine mist clung to his skin, a cold kiss against the growing warmth.
Wren must think him a joke. A spoiled, flamboyant child sent to plague his orderly world. Dane could see the assumption in the rigid line of his back, in every precisely chosen word. The prince likely pictured him preening in Korvaria’s golden halls, believing the world spun on his whims.
The truth was a different, brittle thing.
At home, in those glorious sunbathed halls, Dane was a stain on the family fresco. His father’s disappointment was a physical chill. His brothers’ loathing was a casual, cutting sport. Others kept him around because he was pretty, because he was entertaining. That was his secret armor, his only currency. He didn’t believe the world revolved around him. He screamed and burned and flew into trouble to make it seem so, because the alternative was to be forgotten. A runt, buried. He’d learned that lesson early, performing party tricks for visiting lords just to earn a trinket, acting out for any sliver of attention that wasn’t contempt.
Wren’s words today—‘liability,’ ‘embarrassment’—were nothing new. Dane had heard the script before. But when Wren looked at him, when that cool fury had flashed in his green eyes, it felt different. The insults weren’t just recited. They were personal, almost like Wren was trying to prove something to himself. To prove there was nothing more to see.
“So where’s the tour headed next?” Dane called out, his voice deliberately light, scraping away the memory. “The famously dull Moon Archives? The tepid public baths?”
Wren didn’t turn. “The Wharves.”
The path opened onto a chaotic, sprawling dockyard. The smell hit Dane first: rotting fish, tar, wet rope, and the foul, metallic stench of the silt-laden river itself. It was a symphony of decay. Ramshackle buildings leaned precariously over the water, patched with driftwood and faded cloth. This wasn't quiet efficiency. This was desperate survival.
Children with pinched faces and too-bright eyes darted between piles of crates. A barge, low in the water with scrap wood, was being unloaded by men and women whose wings were streaked with grime, their movements weary. This was the lifeblood Wren spoke of? It looked more like a festering wound.
Wren dismounted smoothly, tying his grey mare to a rusted iron ring set in a stone post. He didn’t wait, striding toward a crowded stall where a thin man was arguing with a vendor over a string of silver-scaled fish. Dane followed, his own steps less certain on the slippery, fish-scaled stones.
“Marlon,” Wren said, his voice cutting through the argument.
The thin man—Marlon—spun, his anger dissolving into startled reverence. “Your Highness. I didn’t… we weren’t expecting…”
“The levy from the North Dock,” Wren stated, his gaze steady. “The collector reported it unpaid. Again.”
Marlon’s shoulders slumped. “The catch has been thin, sire. The currents shifted. The silverfin are hiding from us this season.”
“The Crown’s levy isn’t based on the catch. It’s based on the mooring.” Wren’s tone wasn’t cruel, but it was immovable as stone. “You knew this when you took the lease.”
“We’ll have it! Next week, surely. My son, he’s got a line on a deeper run…”
Wren held up a hand, stopping the torrent of words. He looked past Marlon, at the haggard woman and the two small children huddled behind the stall, their clothes worn thin. He was silent for a long moment, his brow furrowed. Dane watched, expecting a royal decree, a cold enforcement of law.
“Send your son to the palace kitchens tomorrow,” Wren said finally, his voice lower. “Tell them I said to give him what surplus they can spare from the smokehouse. It won’t pay the levy, but it will feed your family.” He met Marlon’s stunned gaze. “You have until the next moon turn. Not a day longer.”
Marlon’s eyes filled. He bobbed his head in a jerky bow, words failing him. Wren merely nodded, then turned and walked away, his boots clicking on the wet stones. Dane stood rooted for a second, staring after him, then at the weeping fisherman, then back at Wren’s retreating form.
He caught up as Wren was checking the bridle on his mare. “What was that?” Dane asked, the question leaving him before he could shape it into something more clever.
Wren didn’t look at him. “Practicality.”
“Looked like mercy.”
“Mercy is impractical.” Wren gathered his reins, his knuckles pale. “An empty belly pays no taxes. A dead fisherman catches no fish. It is a simple calculation.”
Dane barked a laugh, the sound harsh in the humid air. “A calculation? Is that all? He was crying. His kids were right there, watching.”
Finally, Wren turned. His face was a mask, but his eyes were alive, turbulent. “Do you think I don’t see them?” His voice was a taut wire. “Do you think, because I don’t fling gold coins or make pretty speeches, that I am blind?” He took a sharp step closer, the space between them crackling again. “You fly over a city and see a painting. I walk through it and see the cracks in the mortar. I feel the heat from the forges and the chill in the tenements. That man’s despair is a variable in my equation. His hope is another. I manage them both, every day, so the whole damned thing doesn’t collapse.”
He was close enough that Dane could see the faint, weary lines at the corners of his eyes, the subtle pulse in his jaw. The clean scent of him fought with the stink of the wharf. “You think my life is scripts and polish. It is burden. It is the constant, grinding weight of knowing that every choice I make echoes in a place like this.” He swept a hand toward the leaning shacks, the tired people. “So forgive me if your performance of rebellion feels like a child shouting in a library full of people trying to work.”
Dane had no retort. The flippant words died in his throat. He just stared, the fisherman’s grateful tears superimposing themselves over the fierce, haunted intensity in Wren’s gaze. The prince wasn't just playing a role. The city was a living thing to him, and he felt every ache in its bones.