A Court of Dew and Shade

Chapter One

The cottage was small but worth the wait. We flew for three hours straight and every muscle in my back ached. I actually wanted to kill Cassian for this even though I knew perfectly well enough that practice was important. But c'mon – I inherited the possibility to cut through winds and just emerge at a new place. By the cauldron, I did not quite understand why I had to fly. 

"Uncle Cas, could we please stop for a second?", I asked even though I knew what kind of stare I would own from my elder brother Nyx for this. "Oh shut up, princeling."

"Princess", he sorted out sharp, "Just keep going. It's not that hard."

"You've been born with those wings. You're used to their weight twenty four hours a day. I don't if you remember", I snarled. And it was true tough: Nyx inherited mostly Dad's powers, whereas I inherited Mom's. That being said – I loved my powers. I really did. But it was hard to manage all of them. Dad did make me practice those on every single day and I was pretty good at it. But my Illyrian practices got cut short because of this.

"Don't be a crybaby", he answered. And Nyx was one of three people on earth who would ever talk to me like this. Well actually I allowed the complete inner circle to talk to me like that. But Mel, Uncle Az' daughter and Az himself were actually too polite to do that. Well on most days.

Okay, to be honest: I didn't mind someone talking to me in an un-royal way at all. But my princeling of brother always mocks me as if I did.

With a glance to him I send him an extremely cold wind for punishing for these words. The magic wasn't dangerous. Just annoying. "I saw that", Uncle Cas said. I pointed out my tongue to his back and waited a second before he eventually began to clap those wings in.

"Oh no", was all I could say before Nyx threw a pice of whatever on my wings, clipping them together. Making me downfall really fast. I wasn't able to open up my wings again and I knew I wasn't supposed to. But if you fall down a couple hundred meters that's usually the first thing you'd try to do – open your wings.

But because my lovely brother attached them to my back I had no problem with making them vanish at all. As they disappeared, I smiled at my brother, cut through wind and time itself, landing on the ground properly.

"No", he shouted from above.

I reached for my hair and went with all ten fingers through the knots. "And that's not what you were supposed to do", Cas said standing in front of me. I just ignored him and wend to the cottage.

Auntie Mor stood there, a glass of wine in her hand and one of her eyebrows lifted. "You know I don't see the problem in her solution. Did you tell her to not use her powers? Exatly."

"Auntie Mor", I said, kissing her cheek. She took me into her Arms and gave me a warm, loved hug. "Nico is inside, waiting for a battle of cards." I smiled. Her son, Nico, was the youngest of The inner circle's generation 2.0 and within this just 2 years younger then me. We formed an alliance whenever possible.

"Will you come?" I asked her. She nodded.

"Your Mom wanted to talk to you first", she smiled. "Something about a crown for your birthday, I guess."

She knew, knew that I would immediately run inside and look for my mum. But the High Lady herself stood in the doorway and grinned. "I missed you", she said, leading me inside. I followed her and watched carefully as she showed me a beautiful crown with stars, the moon and everythin else I loved about our court.

"She's beautiful", I Said and meant it.

"She's from your grandma", a voice behind me said. I turned and had tears in my eyes. I jumped in Dad's arms, not even being a bit washed by my emotions. I hadn't seen them in one year so I wasn't holding back a sec. "She wanted me to give it to my daughter as soon as she was ready to be croned princess or queen for real."