Page 80 of Court of Winter

I blew a strand of silver hair from my forehead. “How can you be so sure?” I swept my arm out. “This field is huge. What you’re asking of me is impossible, and there’s no life here. Noorem. Four days I’ve been at this, and I have nothing to show for it.”

He gently encircled my wrist with one of his large hands. A shiver ran through me. His hand tightened around me more, as though he felt it too.

He placed my fingers back into the dry, cold dirt. “Channel that energy into the field. I have no doubt it’s helping, and remember, next week you’ll also begin working with a tutor. You’ll learn how to do this.”

I scowled as a tingle of awareness slid up my arm. Every time he’d touched me this week that had happened, as though my body recognized something in him.

His palm lingered, his touch so warm in the frigid air. My breathing sped up, and I wondered why I wasn’t snatching my hand away. Perhaps it was because I was tired. Working in the fields each day had left me fatigued every night.

“Keep trying,” he finally said, then slowly withdrew.

I felt every inch of his fingers slide along my skin, the tingles and shivers increasing within my arm until he severed our connection.

I could have sworn that his eyes darkened in the overcast sun. Energy charged the air around us.Blessed Mother.My life had truly become pure madness.

I ran a hand through my hair. “Why are you here with me every day?” I asked, anything to break the current flowing between us. “Why not just leave me with your guards to work on this alone?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Is my company so abhorrent?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that yes, it was, but... That would be a lie. Like it or not, the murderer of my family had become the one constant in my unpredictable life. He was also the only fairy who had the power to keep me safe and shield me from the court’s perverse curiosity. I hated that, but whenever Prince Norivun appeared, a strange feeling of relief flowed through me. It was as though I was worried the prince would one day disappear and leave me to fulfill our bargain on my own while trying to fend off the court’s growing interest.

How had my life descended into this? Not for the first time this week, I realized that I needed to put a stop to whatever strange bond was growing between the prince and me.

I resisted the urge to pick at my fingernails. “Don’t you have other things you should be doing?”

“I have a million other things I should be doing.”

“Then why not tend to them?”

He eyed me, his expression impossible to decipher. “Next week you’ll start training with your new tutor and be done with me, although I’ll still have to mistphase you to the fields when you’re not training with her, but I won’t be staying at your side indefinitely. So rest easy, Lara.”

I started at the sound of my nickname. To hear that name roll off his lips was so intimate, somehow. And I didn’t like the shiver it provoked.

I studied the squareness of his jaw and the cleft on his chin, then forced myself to focus on the task at hand. “What happens if I fail? What happens if all of us begin to starve?”

“I think you already know the answer to that. Nothing good comes from an entire continent of fae going hungry.”

He was right. Obviously. Images of burning cities, pillaging, crime, unrest, and violence swirled through my thoughts. It would be a nightmare.

I fingered the dirt again. If our entire continent truly was going to starve, maybe it was best that my parents and brother were no longer here. Nobody wanted to suffer. It was bad enough that I’d have to watch Cailis starve if it came to that.

“Sometimes I forget that you killed my family. Maybe it’s a blessing that they won’t have to see what’s to come if I fail.” I rubbed more soil between my fingers. “I still have dreams about them and their final moments.”

“I know.”

My head whipped up. “You do?”

“You had a nightmare when we were in High Liss. You were calling for them in your sleep.”

My lips parted as that night came crashing back to me. I recalled a nightmare that I’d experienced in that lodge, but the details were fuzzy. One thing surged to the center of my thoughts, though. I’d awoken the next morning in his bed. I still remembered that very clearly.

“Did you carry me from the floor to the bed in High Liss?”

“I did.”

My heart fluttered more. “Because of my nightmare?”

“Yes.”