Over rolling hills of sun-bleached grass, through tilled fields of towering corn, and around little villages and hamlets bustling with life, the Wild Hunt races forward. Autumn has just begun, and the lingering heat of summer still hangs tacky and heavy in the air. Only the tips of trees that are beginning to yellow show any sign of the coming cold.

And, despite himself, Osmond is entranced. Eyes glued to the blur of passing color and shapes, he logically knows what he’s seeing, but they are moving faster than Osmond’s eyes can keep up, fleeting glimpses of the world Osmond had always been forbidden from.

It is customary for feyer children not to stray too far from the orders that raise them, most not being let outside the walls until the age of ten, when they begin training as pages. But even then, they are confined to neighboring towns and always watched by at least two fully-fledged feyers. According to his teachers, feyer children are a favorite target of the fey, with dozens of kids going missing every year, even with all the feyers’ precautions in place.

But because of his poor health and the overprotective nature of his father and mentors, Osmond never left the castle, despite the many escape attempts he and his siblings performed in their youth. He had learned to settle for stories of the outside world, pushing his longing to explore so deep he had almost forgotten how much he wanted to be free of those stone walls.

It’s not the best of circumstances, and his death is probably being plotted by the Unseelie right now—'if it hasn’t been decided already’—but that isn’t going to stop him from enjoying this moment, however small that joy is.

The air feels different out here, lighter and tinted with something alive that he can’t name. He is no longer choking on iron dust with each breath burning from the magic infused into the very air. Osmond had gotten so used to every breath being a fight, a never-ending battle to live a little longer, that now, without the telltale signs of the iron, he almost forgets to breathe.

So, he lets air fill his lungs almost to the point of bursting, savoring the almost uncomfortable feeling as he holds his breath for a few seconds more than he probably should. His lungs burn, and his next breath is a stuttering gasp, but the burn is almost good, a strain of muscle instead of a painful sting.

Something inside of him shifts, sleepy and mostly dead, shaking off the dust and uncurling like a lazy cat that isn’t sure if it wants to open its eyes. He feels so alive, as if he was never really living before.

The hand around his neck tightens.

His deep breath quickly turns into a strained gasp. He claws at the prince’s hand latched to the back of his neck. For a brief second, the hold gets even tighter, claws digging into sensitive skin, before the prince recoils as if burned, leaving Osmond to gasp and splutter before him.

Osmond turns just enough to glare up at him. “Screw you,” he bites, still heaving for air, heartbeat thundering in his ears from the sudden adrenaline. The Unseelie meets his gaze head-on, but his golden eyes are no longer ethereal and all-knowing. In fact, he looks… confused. Fairies are normally overly sure of themselves, egos the size of mountains, and they are often filled with enough knowledge to back up their pride, so it’s a tad amusing to see such a genuinely perplexed look on the prince’s face.

“I’m not allowed to enjoy my last hours?”

It’s truly a testament to how bewildered the fairy must be for the prince to not respond to that jab. Golden eyes just silently stare down at Osmond, trying to look through him, to see some great mystery just beyond him. As if Osmond is one of the great three Norns, the sisters who hold all things within their weave, and with their power of fate could tell the prince anything he possibly wishes to know.

Osmond’s neck starts to cramp from the awkward angle, and he genuinely doesn’t care about whatever has startled the fairy so badly—unless whatever it was is a threat to him, too, but he doubts it—so he breaks their odd staring contest first. Privately, Osmond wonders if all fairies are as annoying and confusing as the one trying to bore holes into the back of his head.

Once more, he tries to focus on the scenery, watching the colors blur and morph as they go.

The Dale Duchy is not a small piece of land, stretching the entire front of the Woedan Kingdom, from the eastern sea to the western mountains, encompassing hundreds of miles, all bordering the Forest of Ruin. Or, as the fey call it, the Fluxxen Forest. Its towering, twisted trees serve as a warning to the rest of humanity, for before the forest grew overnight, a once proud kingdom stood there—one that sought to conquer Alfheim, the realm of the Seelie fey, with the help of Osmond’s grandfather.

The whole kingdom had been destroyed in a single summer, the Seelie Queen’s wrath a burning inferno that swallowed all, for Merica had committed the ultimate sin against her and her people—taking the life of her only child. To prevent her anger from turning against them, Woedan and the other countries neighboring Merica paid off the blood debt to the fey with the lives of their own children, offering the enraged Queen three babes of royal human blood. She accepted, and the stirring flames of war cooled, but tensions with the Seelie have been tense ever since.

But even having almost come to war, humanity’s connection with the Seelie was leagues better than their relations with the Unseelie. Seelie fey would at least try to make a deal with humans, but Unseelie fey are cruel, biting, and vicious, like the first frost of winter. They care little for deals and even less for the desires of humans.

‘So why is the Unseelie prince still staring at me like I’m a confusing puzzle?’

“Do you need something?” he snaps, sending another glare over his shoulder at the fairy towering over him.

The Unseelie prince tilts his head, golden fractured eyes never leaving Osmond’s form.

“Shouldn’t you watch the path?” Osmond tries again, forcing his tone into something less snappy. That garners even less response, the fey not even moving at all at his words, as if he can’t hear him at all.

The staring is annoying, sure, but it isn’t annoying enough to risk getting kicked off a speeding bear. Osmond turns back around, staring down at the snow breaking off the ice bear’s sculpted fur. Carefully, he reaches out, letting a snowflake land in his hand. It sends a jolt through his system, and, honestly, Osmond doesn’t know what he was thinking. He’s never been very good with the cold, with winter a yearly challenge he liked not to think about. Even with fireplaces, dozens of blankets, and warm herbal remedies, he could just never get warm enough. It was truly silly of him to—

“Are you human?”

“What?”

He spins around, staring up into the shifting golden eyes hidden behind the black wolf mask. “Are you human?” the fairy repeats as if that’s a normal thing to ask.

“You do know I was a feyer, right?”

“No, you’re not an Iron-Blood,” the fey adamantly denies, something sharp and dangerous entering his tone. “Close,” he concedes with a troubled expression. “Very close. But not close enough.”

Osmond is not sure where this sudden hostility is from, so he just tosses out the first thought that appears in his head, “Only humans can become feyers.”

The prince hums, high and disbelieving, eyes continuing to stare into him as if Osmond is hiding something.

“Do you not believe me?” he challenges.

For a long second, they just stare at each other, both of them looking equally confused and annoyed with each other. Osmond’s not sure what the prince has to be confused or annoyed about. ‘What kind of stupid question is he asking? Why would he even ask that in the first place?!’

Finally, the Unseelie breaks eye contact, shifting his gaze sharply upward to the road they are racing along. “We are approaching a town.”

Osmond shifts as well, quickly leaning around the neck of the ice bear. It’s a strange angle since he’s laying on his stomach, stretched across the saddle like a sack, but he manages to find a position that lets him see the approaching settlement.

It’s bigger than the past half-dozen they have skirted around, with tall windmills and fields of golden farmland surrounding it. It looks like an image from one of the picture books his eldest sister, Fleur, used to bring him. Idyllic and impossible.

“Wait, are those moving?!” Osmond leans a little more around the bear, eyes entranced by the windmills slowly spinning in the breeze. ‘Did all windmills do that?! Or just the ones here? Would he be able to tell if they ran past any more towns? Maybe they would pass by one, and he could get a better look at how—'

Laughter, impossible and haunting, like the cracking of frost on a flower’s petals, beautiful in a way that was also terrifying. Osmond quickly looks behind him, into the wide grinning smile of the Unseelie prince.

“You know less of your world than I do, Dandelion.”

Osmond flushes so hard he can feel the blood rush to his cheeks and ears, and he’s sure he looks as red as a redcap’s hat. He had said all of that out loud.

“Shut up!” He demands, turning sharply back around and fisting his hands tighter into the saddle, bunching up the priceless silks and leathers under his hands. He refuses to give the fey royal any enjoyment out of his embarrassment. “I’ve never left the castle before!”

“Never left?” the fey inquires, a laugh still tinting his tone. “So, I really have stolen away something precious,” and he tilts his head evaluating Osmond, “a carefully guarded treasure.”

Osmond flushes once more, but for a completely different reason this time, shame a boiling furnace in his blood. That can’t really be what the fairy thinks. Surely, he’s teasing him—fey love to taunt their prey. The prince is just amusing himself with his flustered state. Osmond is the furthest thing from precious, after all, and he certainly isn’t a treasure. It’s laughable to even consider him something like that. All he has ever been is a burden, even now after tossing away his honor as a feyer, he is happily enjoying a ride with the Wild Hunt as if it’s a simple stroll around the duchy.

The fey must sense his souring mood because he frowns. “Dandelion?” he asks, leaning down so his dark shadow completely blocks out the sun, casting Osmond into a familiar shade. Backstabbers and cowards weren’t meant to live in the light of the sun, after all. Each breath is a struggle, and he suddenly finds he misses the acidic sting of the iron—at least then he was fighting. Now it is just… easy. Too easy.

“You have the strangest look—”

“Yeah, humans do that,” Osmond bites, adding extra venom to the word “humans.” The fairy is just taunting him, rubbing in his humanity—or rather, lack thereof, given he has done the one thing he was never supposed to do.

He forces his eyes to stay locked onto the road. He isn’t allowed to appreciate this, to enjoy the freedom his betrayal has brought. Not when there are so many people more deserving of happiness. Not when Edith is dead and buried, and he is here—happy in the presence of the fey.