Selene Snowflower's Arc

Chapter 2 of 1

Selene left the border town before dawn. The prince had seen her true nature, but she knew nothing of his. To approach him now, as a stranger, would feel like an intrusion he could refuse. She needed to learn who he was first. So she followed the glowing fae roads to the place where he lived. The palace rose from a tangle of vines and flowers. Glowing blooms spilled across cracked stone stairs. Ivy swallowed the railings. Selene found a gap in the overgrown garden wall and slipped inside. She wore a plain gardener's shape now, brown-handed and quiet. From behind a thick hedge, she watched the courtyard and waited for the prince to appear. He came at midmorning. A brown-and-cream hound trotted beside him, pressing its head against his knee. The prince knelt and scratched the dog's ears. He spoke to it softly, the way a person speaks when no one is listening. Then an old servant stumbled on the broken steps. The prince caught her arm before she fell. He carried her basket up himself. Selene's chest ached. This was not a man who would scorn a stranger. This was a man who stopped to help. She leaned closer. Her boot knocked a loose stone. It clattered down the stairs. Something stirred in her fur satchel. A small dragon poked its head out, pastel scales catching the light. Selene had carried it for years without knowing what it did. It climbed onto her shoulder and fixed its violet eyes on the prince. Then it made a soft, glad sound, as if it had found something it had been looking for. The prince turned toward the noise. The hound barked once. Selene froze behind the hedge, certain he would see the gardener and nothing more. But the dragon chirped again and spread its tiny wings. "You brought a heartseer to my garden," the prince called. He was looking past the hedge, straight at her, past the brown hands and the plain face. "It only wakes for someone whose heart is hiding something true." Selene stood. There was no use kneeling now. She stepped out from the hedge with the dragon on her shoulder. The creature leaned toward the prince as if to show him the way. "I am not a gardener," she said. Her voice came out as her own, not rough, not borrowed. "I came to learn what kind of man you are before I spoke to you." The prince studied her. He did not look angry. "And what did you learn?" "That you are kind to those who cannot repay you." She held his gaze. "My name is Selene." He said nothing for a long moment. Then he held out his hand. "Walk with me, Selene. The dragon seems to trust you. I would like to know why." She was no longer a stranger. But now he knew she had watched him in secret, and he would want to know what else she hid.