Alethea was alerted to Tristan’s approach by her stallion, who lifted his head to greet Hero with a whinny. Or maybe he was greeting the prince – it was hard to tell. Well, hard for me to tell, she thought. Tristan would know. His magic would allow him to understand.
She should have sat up, waved at him, but Thea was feeling crushed by the weight of her self-pity and found that she could not move. Why did the prince always show up when she was in a mood? He must think her a blubbering, self-absorbed weakling. Perhaps that was why he never looked at her the way he looked at all-smiles Megan, with her endearing gap-tooth, her bouncy curls and bubbly personality. Thea pulled a leaf out of her hair and sighed.
“Life is cold,” she muttered under her breath, probably too low for Tristan to hear as he closed the last distance between them. Unless he’d acquired super-hearing since the last time they’d spoken...who knew? “My friend here shares her fur coat with me,” she said louder, finally sitting up to rest on her elbows. The cold had set a flush over her cheeks, and the color made her eyes look a sparkling, autumn-sky blue. It would have made a pretty painting: the dry, golden grass, the colored leaves, the white dress, the blue. But Thea could not see herself, and nothing seemed very pretty to her in that moment.
Except, perhaps, prince Tristan’s hair. It seemed longer, or maybe he was just taller? Much taller than when they first met. She wondered how different she looked, to him.
“I came out to draw,” she half-lied, gesturing to the supplies arrayed next to her. Her open sketch book had a red and yellow leaf pinned to a page, and a very good likeness drawn next to it. A few specimen jars held seed pods of various shapes and sizes. “And to ride. Midnight likes to race the cold. And he can almost outrun it...but I doubt he’d outrun your hero.” She smiled at him, a little shyly. Tristan looked terribly handsome in his riding coat, with a sweat-streaked stallion on lead. Like a prince that was ready for his crown, not a boy who had only recently outgrown his childhood britches.
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