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    “Pleasure to meet you, Prince Lotinar,” Shade said. Her voice caught in her throat and came out just above a whisper as he turned away and walked to the enormous glass windows. He stared out of them as the breeze swayed the lush trees outside.
    “I have been waiting for all of you to arrive. I can feel much unrest in Faerie, and as it grows, Queen Aveta becomes more restless, and more powerful. She sends her winter abound. Frost scorches my lands and withers the forests, burning the soils with its death grip. She holds the Eastern Realm, but I think she will be mobilizing soon. I feel her taint crossing the borders into the neutral territories. Wild magic is pouring out of the Sacred Vices of Faerie with her disturbances, and I fear she is pawning to capture Shade, since she holds the key to the water magic of Santire.” Lotinar turned then, looking stern and seriously at Shade. “Tell me, Shade, have you mastered the water wielding arts yet? We will need them when Aveta decides to invade the other three territories.”
    Shade clasped the small ampoule dangling from her neck. Ilarial had made her split the original flask of Sacred Santiran Water; one part into a necklace she now wore. The original flask was safe in Guildrin, but since no one could wield it but her, Ilarial thought it better to have Shade keep some with her at all times, that way she could wield it whenever she chose. Unfortunately, no one alive knew how to use the water magic. Shade had been doing exercises with Ilarial. She was able to move water around from bowls to glasses and make it float all around her in a dance of small water baubles. She definitely had not mastered its power yet, let alone be able to use it as a weapon against the dark Unseelie Queen’s army. She slowly shook her head.
    “Pity. I had hoped we had one thing going for us.” Prince Lotinar’s icy voice echoed in the room. Shade caught his cold stare before he turned back towards the dance of the landscape outside.
     
    *****
     
    “ WOW, PRINCE LOTINAR is some kind of stone-cold ruler, huh, Shade?” Sary smiled, crinkling her beautiful hazel eyes. “I have to say, I guess after what happened to him though, he has all the excuse in the world to be so hard.” She sighed and flopped herself on the second bed that was in the enormous room they had been given for their night’s stay at the Glass Castle. Shade sat on the edge of her bed, staring out the obscenely large window into the darkening world.
    “Ya, he’s a whole different kind of Fey.” Shade murmured as she turned towards her roommate with a puzzled look splayed across her face. “What exactly happened to him, Sary?”
    The svelte, redheaded, Warrior, Princess smiled as she leaned on her elbows, her body draped over the width of her bed. “Oh yeah, you probably haven’t heard. He just returned from years of exile. He was cursed, or something like that, by some crazy witch. He disappeared for over a hundred years, and just recently returned. No one knows what happened to him in all that time, but from what I hear, he came back a different Faery. Quite changed they say. Almost like the old Prince was completely gone. Apparently his identity had to be confirmed by his own mother. She knew immediately it was him, and no one argues with the Queen.”
    Shade pondered her words. She wondered what had happened to him that he would be so hard and cold now. Maybe it was all a front to shake them up a bit.
    Oh, whatever.
    “What time is dinner? I’m starved.” Shade asked. “I can’t nap anyway, not in this see-through ice house. It’s so cold in here! No wonder they call it the ‘Glass Castle of Winter’!” Shade rubbed her arms and shivered. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a soft, blue, cashmere, sweater. She slipped it on and hugged her arms in its warmth.
    “I know what you mean. Definitely not the kind of ‘summer’ home I’d want. I wonder just how cold it is at his main home in