Dain was silent for a while, as we walked. The bark stuck to my bare feet, but it didn't hurt, precisely, so I sucked it up and walked alongside him in silence. We came to a section of the garden that was behind a stone wall, with a lovely gate wrought in bronze and aged a soft green.

He went to push open the gate, clearly expecting it to be unlocked, and got caught up short when it remained immovable. The crown prince's lip raised in a snarl as a growl rolled through his chest. "I told them to unlock the gates," he muttered under his breath, his irritation clear. "Have they forgotten who I am already?"

I caught a glimpse of a servant beyond the gate, giving us a malicious, glittering stare, but Dain had already turned and was stalking away, hauling me with him. I looked over at him, puzzled by that. "Gardeners don't like you?" I ventured, unsurprised by that revelation.

"The entire High Court seems to despise me, pretty Leah," Dain said with a sneer. "As my mother goes, so they follow, like good little ducklings after their dam. If I don't remind them of my strength with blood and steel, I'm insulted and given the barest lip service towards my rank." He rolled his shoulders, his wing-hands curling into angry claws. "I'm the crown prince, whether they enjoy that fact or not."

I chewed on that thought as we turned out of the winding gardens with the bark paths and into a highly formal garden with raked gravel paths. I balked, stopping dead and almost getting yanked face-first into the sharp gray stones as he kept walking.

He turned to me with a snarl. "What is your problem now?" Dain snapped. "Can I not get even one walk's compliance from you?"

"Definitely not if you put it like that!" I said, snapping right back at him. I picked up one leg and shook it at him, glaring. "And in case you didn't notice, your highness, I'm barefoot, and unlike you, I don't have nice, scaly lizard feet to blunt the pain of walking on gravel!"

His jaw clenched and his ears laid back, his hand closing tighter around mine. I saw his wing-arms draw in, too, the fingers curling into fists.

My eyebrows drew together, and some of my anger fell away. "You don't like that," I said. "Me talking about your appearance."

Dain's lip curled up, and he dropped my hand with a disdainful look. "Think what you will," he said. "Since you're done walking, you may return to your rooms."

"How thoughtful," I said, with as much pleasantness as I could muster. "What should I do if skull number five decides to take a crack at me?"