I’d ventured that way once before, but we’d kept to the village close to the bottom of the mountain on the other side, not having had the time to go much farther before Cair was called back. As our destination lay in the lands outside the “borders” of the kingdom—an island the king used to flaunt his power and authority by shipping those who opposed him off to its solitude—we would have plenty of chances to pass through as many towns and provinces as we liked. Reaching my dad was the goal, and because it was in the forefront of my mind, I didn’t want to drag things out. We’d have to stop and rest anyway, though, and I couldn’t travel all that way, through a beautiful land unlike anything I’d seen before, without at least a taste of what it had to offer.

It also might be beneficial for Cair to show his face after so many years in the human realm. The people adored him, but I’d been told that, in the past, lords had become restless with the lack of interest from the royals. They felt neglected, existing outside the walls of the capital, where none of the nobles except Cair ever bothered to go.

It hadn’t surprised my mate that no visits had been made to the people while he was gone—or at least, none he’d learned of—so to prevent tensions rising, he would use this opportunity to give them what they needed.

I was very much on board, as those revolts were half the reason Teighan had battle scars, and we didn’t need to be collecting any of those.

That reminded me.

“Do you not need an armed guard?” I asked, scanning around and noticing no one was following us out the palace gates or into the forest. “A small battalion, even? Whenever we left before, you had people come with us.”

“Rathe took care of it,” Cair said as he guided us through the trees, his hand on my lower back. I’d tripped over a twig within the first three steps, so he was being cautious. “I am a prince, so I will draw attention regardless, but I didn’t want a force of armed Fae trailing along behind us, making even more of a spectacle. I thought being somewhat alone would make you feel less crowded.”

“Oh, yeah. I like that it’s just us.” It was nice that he’d thought of my comfort, though that was standard for Cair, and I supposed he wasn’t wrong. He could never venture across the Otherworld without being spotted—he may as well have had a Royal Blood sign above his head—so an army of bodyguards would just heighten the attention on us by a million percent. “What do you mean by ‘Rathe took care of it’?”