Chapter 6: Preferences
The silence after Wren’s words wasn’t empty. It was full of the wharf’s stink, the distant cry of gulls, the wet slap of water against pilings. Dane felt stripped bare, not by insult, but by a revelation he hadn’t asked for. He’d seen the crown, not the crane of the neck that bore its weight.
Wren turned away, the line of his shoulders rigid. He untied his mare with precise, economical movements. The moment of raw exposure was over, bricked back up behind that calm facade. He mounted, looking down the muddy lane toward the city’s rising tiers. “We’ll return through the upper market. The merchants need to see their prince. And you need to be seen behaving.”
Dane swung onto his own horse, the leather of the saddle groaning. “Right. The performance continues.”
They rode back into the tight lanes, the clop of hooves a slow metronome. The tension shifted, becoming a live thing strung between them. Dane felt hyper-aware of the space his body occupied, the shift of his wings with each step of his mount. And he felt, with a hunter’s certainty, Wren’s gaze. It wasn’t constant. It was a flicker, a quick glance stolen when Wren thought he was looking at a crumbling lintel or a shop sign. It was the barest touch, like the brush of a moth’s wing against his neck, there and gone. Dane would look straight ahead, a faint, knowing smile playing on his lips, and feel it—the pressure of that attention, curious and utterly conflicted.
He let it build for blocks, through the gradual improvement of the streets, the air sweetening again with bakeries and flower sellers. The strange pleasure from the morning returned, low in his gut. This was a different kind of game.
“You know,” Dane said, his voice casual, cutting through the quiet. “Back on the balcony. I wasn’t just showing off.”
Wren didn’t respond, just kept his eyes on the path ahead.
“Flying,” Dane continued, pushing. “It’s not just transport. It’s… it’s the point. The best part. You must feel it too. That momentum. The world dropping away.”
Wren was silent for so long Dane thought he’d ignore him completely. Then, quietly, he said, “I do enjoy flying. Of course I do.” He adjusted his grip on the reins, a slight, tense movement. “But my time is not structured around my preferences.”
Dane chuckled, a soft, rolling sound. He turned in his saddle to look fully at Wren, at the elegant, powerful lines of his blue wings, folded so tightly and perfectly against his back. They were a shade deeper than the sky, traced with subtle patterns like frost on midnight glass. “Hmm, so you enjoy flying… and yet you keep your wings folded.” He let his gaze travel over them, slow and appreciative. “It’s a shame. Your wings, they’re… stunning.”
The words hung, too direct, too intimate for the crowded street. Silence returned, plummeting down around them. This time it was thicker, but different. Charged not with anger, but with something hotter, more delicate. Wren’s knuckles were white on the reins. He didn’t look over.
Dane wasn’t a fool. He noted how Wren couldn’t keep his eyes off him. Every time a chance was given, and Dane looked off—at a fruit cart, at a weaving child—he felt it. Felt the moon heir’s eyes. It was subtle, like a creek, attempting to join the ocean, but not really sure where to flow. And every time Dane looked back, he let the tension build, studied the curve of Wren’s mouth, the clean line of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders—strong, he noted, from overwork, not just training. There was a physical solidity to Wren that his composed manner tried to disguise.
They reached a broader plaza, a fountain of a winged serpent at its center. Wren dismounted to speak with a group of silk merchants, his posture effortlessly regal, his questions about tariff adjustments and loom maintenance exacting and knowledgeable. Dane watched from horseback, an ornament in borrowed blue.
As Wren remounted, Dane leaned over, his voice a conspiratorial murmur only Wren could hear. “See? Half-truths. You tell the fish-monger you’re doing a calculation. You tell me you enjoy flying but never do. You give them all just enough to keep them satisfied, and not a drop more. What’s the real truth, Prince? What’s under the mortar?”
Wren’s head snapped toward him. The calm fissured, a bright, stunning crack of pure frustration. “Do you ever shut up?” The words were a hiss, sharp as a blade. He spurred his horse forward a few paces, then reined in hard, turning back. His green eyes were wildfire. “My preferences are inconsequential in comparison to my responsibilities. I do not have the luxury of indulgence.” He bit off the next words, each one clipped and hard. “Nor the inclination to pursue it.”
Dane nudged his horse forward until they were side-by-side again, the animals huffing. He tilted his head, his blue eyes wide and unblinking, seeing straight through the royal edifice to the furious, trapped young man inside. He let his smile fade, leaving something more serious in its place.
“I don’t believe you,” Dane said, simply.
Wren stared, caught off guard by the quiet certainty.
“If you’re the heir,” Dane continued, his voice low, “then you are the kingdom. Your preferences, what you love, what you want… that’s not separate. That’s what you’re building for, isn’t it? Or is it just a prison you’re decorating for the next idiot in line?” He held Wren’s blazing gaze. “You’re allowed to choose, Wren. Even if it’s just choosing to spread those stunning wings for five minutes because it feels good.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He clicked his tongue and moved ahead, riding toward the palace gates that now loomed in the distance, leaving Wren frozen in the middle of the sun-dappled plaza, the truth of the challenge hovering in the air between them, sharp and unavoidable as a knife.
He didn’t look back to see if Wren followed. The clatter of hooves on the paved approach told him enough. The prince had caught up, but he didn’t pull alongside. He stayed a few lengths behind, a silent, brooding shadow. Dane didn’t head for the main gate. He veered right where a smaller, older path, worn by cart wheels and animal tracks, branched off into the thinning trees at the city’s edge.
The palace’s perfumed air faded, replaced by the damp, green smell of soil and bark. The noise of the city softened to a murmur, then disappeared under the chatter of birds and the rustle of leaves. Dane let his horse find its own pace on the narrow trail, the silence between them now a fragile, negotiated thing.
After a minute of nothing but forest sounds, Dane spoke to the trees ahead. “I’m lucky, you know. To have Morgana.” His voice was quieter out here, less performative. He glanced at the hawk’s feather swinging from his ear. “She’s never asked for anything but sky. Doesn’t give a shit about protocols or legacies.” He paused, his jaw working. “I owe it to her to be more than a figurehead. More than a rumor in fancy clothes.”
Before Wren could formulate a response, Dane pulled his horse to an abrupt stop. He swung down, his boots sinking into the soft loam beside the trail. He crouched, fingers brushing a cluster of tall, spindly plants with vivid magenta flowers. Fireweed. He snapped one stem at its base.
Standing, he held the dried stalk between his thumb and forefinger. A tiny, precise flame—no larger than a candle’s tongue—snapped to life at the tip of his index finger. He touched it to the end of the stalk. It caught, glowing a deep red-orange, and began to smolder. He brought it to his lips, sucked in a gentle breath of the fragrant, herbal smoke, and let it curl out from between his parted lips.
Wren had reined in his mare. He didn’t dismount. He just watched from the saddle, his expression unreadable in the dappled light.
Dane took another pull, the ember brightening. He leaned against his horse’s warm flank. “You said you like the silence of the mornings,” he said, smoke weaving around his words. “That it’s the only time you’re truly alone.” He looked up, meeting Wren’s gaze directly. “Is it because it’s the only time no one’s looking at you?”
Wren’s fingers tightened on the reins. His mare shifted beneath him. He said nothing.
Dane gestured broadly with the fireweed stick, the arc taking in the secluded forest. “We’re alone here. No merchants, no fishermen, no courtiers waiting with scrolls. You can drop the act for a minute.” He took another slow drag. “Back home, Korvaria… it’s never silent. It’s always growing, changing. New wings added to the palace, new trade routes blasted through cliffs. It’s loud and messy and it stinks of ambition and forge-smoke.” He let the smoke drift. “That’s the real difference, isn’t it? Your kingdom is tradition. Ours is ambition. One looks to the past to stay steady. The other burns the present to build a future.”
He flicked a bit of ash onto the moss. “So tell me, since we’re alone and you’re not being looked at. Why don’t moon fae like to fly? You have the wings. They’re fucking beautiful. But you fold them up like they’re just… decoration.”
Wren was quiet for so long Dane thought he’d shut down completely. He watched a beetle climb a blade of grass near his boot. Finally, Wren spoke, his voice low and stripped of its usual polished cadence. “We do fly. For ceremony. For necessary travel. But uncontrolled, impulsive flight?” He shook his head, his gaze distant. “To soar just for the feeling of it… it’s seen as indulgent. Reckless. It creates unequal perspectives, fosters a sense of separation from the ground, from the people who cannot follow.”
He looked at Dane then, and the mask was indeed gone. In its place was a weary, profound honesty. “It is not that we do not like it. It is that we are taught, from the time we can understand, that such a personal joy is a theft. A theft of focus from the collective good. Every minute spent in selfish sky is a minute not spent reading a land dispute or surveying a granary.” A faint, bitter twist touched his mouth. “We are taught that the highest purpose of a wing is to be still.”
"The highest purpose of a wing is to be still," Wren finished, the words hanging like a verdict in the quiet air.
Dane just stared at him, the fireweed smoldering forgotten between his fingers. He took a last, slow drag, the ember crackling softly, then crushed it out against a stone. He ground it to powder. "That’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard," he said, his voice devoid of its usual mocking lilt. It was flat, almost horrified.
He pushed off from his horse and walked a few paces into the clearing, his golden wings flexing unconsciously, as if stretching against the very idea. He looked back at Wren, still mounted, a statue of duty against the green. "It’s not just flying, though, is it?" Dane’s tone shifted, becoming observational, probing. "You lot are cagey about the mountains, too. The real peaks, north of the river. Your trade routes all curve around them, like they’re poison. Your scouts skirt the passes. I’ve seen the maps."
Wren’s gaze sharpened, focusing on a point past Dane’s shoulder.
"It’s strange," Dane continued, stepping closer to the horse’s flank. "For a people so practical, so devoted to 'the collective good,' to ignore the most direct paths. It looks almost like a fear." A fragmented lesson from a long-ago tutor surfaced in his mind. Old stories, whispered more than taught, about the wars before the courts were solidified. "Moon fae legends. Nursery tales to scare kids, I thought. Stories of the Shadow Fae."
He watched Wren’s face. A flicker in the jaw, a slight dilation of the pupils. Nothing more.
"Dark, cannibalistic things that corrupted themselves," Dane went on, his voice dropping. "More than a millennium ago. You built your entire peaceful, ground-bound philosophy on the bones of something you’re terrified of becoming again. Or of finding, still out there, in the high, lonely places."
The clearing was utterly silent. No birdsong, no rustle. It was as if the forest itself was holding its breath. Dane mentally scrolled through the rigid moon fae religious views he’d glimpsed—the silent prayers at moonrise, the aversion to pure darkness, the complex rituals for the dead. He almost laughed. It wasn’t piety. It was prophylaxis. A billion tiny rules to keep an ancient nightmare boxed in.
The moment stretched, thin and taut. Wren’s expression was carved from pale stone.
Dane closed the final distance, resting a hand lightly on the mare’s neck, feeling the animal’s warm, steady pulse. He looked up, his blue eyes capturing Wren’s green ones, not letting him look away.
"So let me ask you directly," Dane said, his voice barely above a whisper. "What everyone really means when they talk about duty and stillness and the proper use of a wing." He tilted his head. "Wren. Are you afraid of flying?"
Wren froze.
Not a breath. Not a blink. Every muscle in his body locked. The air between them turned to ice. His eyes, wide and stunned, held Dane’s with a raw, unguarded intensity that was more terrifying than any anger. It was the look of a man who’d just been gutted by a truth he’d spent a lifetime burying.
He didn’t respond.
He just looked at Dane, and in that endless, silent second, the answer was screaming from every line of his frozen form.