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That's him. That's the quiet, grumpy man who rarely smiles. Who blushes when I kiss his cheek. Who carved me a little wooden dragon curled around a flower.

He's magnificent.

He turns his great head toward me. His amber eyes find mine.

You're not afraid, he says. It isn't quite a question.

"No," I tell him. "Not of you."

I feel something through the bond then. A warm, rough rush of happiness so big it nearly knocks me over. It's been three days since the night in the garden. Three days of learning what it means to be the mate of three dragon kings.

Wonderful. And strange. And more than a little overwhelming.

Every day, there's something new. The bond waking up between us, so that I can feel when one of them is happy or worried or thinking about me. How they look at me now, like they've been given a gift they never expected to get. Rhydian talking for an entire evening about the kingdoms and the courts and all the important people I'll have to meet, and Kaelen telling him to stop scaring me.

And now, flying.

I look down at the world drifting below me, and I think about the woman who ran out of her village with a bag and a little dagger. Who was so scared and so stubborn she walked straight into a blizzard rather than let anyone else decide her life for her.

She's a stranger to me now.

I thought my life was enough. My little cottage. My sewing and my herbs. My quiet, careful days. I thought being alone was the same as being free.

It wasn't. I see that now.

I wasn't living. I was surviving. I'd spent so long protecting myself, keeping everyone at arm's length so nobody could hurt me or disappoint me or try to take what was mine, that I'd forgotten how good life could be.

And then I got lost in the snow. And three men came out of the storm and found me. Then, everything changed.

They're kings. They're powerful enough that nobody will ever be able to hurt me again. Not Silas. Not the elders. Not anyone.

But that's not what matters most.

What matters is that not once have they ever made me feel small. Not once have they tried to take my choices away. They gave me every chance to walk away. They waited for me to decide.

And I chose them. I'd choose them again a thousand times over.

The day goes on. The land changes beneath us.

Snowy forests start to thin out. They give way to rolling hills, softer and gentler, dusted with white. Rivers wind between them, frozen silver in the sunlight. Then roads appear. Narrow at first, then wider. Little villages clustered along them, smoke curling up from their chimneys.

People. So many people.

I've never seen so much of the world. I never even knew it was this big.

And then, late in the afternoon, I see something on the horizon. At first, I think it's another mountain range. It's so huge. It stretches all the way across the edge of the sky, gray and jagged.

But as we fly closer, I realize those aren't mountains. They're buildings. It's a city!

I stare. I can't stop staring.

It's enormous. Bigger than anything I could have imagined. There are towers and spires and rooftops packed so tightly together that they go on and on as far as I can see. Broad streets cut through it like rivers. Stone bridges arch over a wide, glittering river. There are carriages rolling along the avenues, and market squares, and grand houses with gardens, and everywhere, everywhere, people.

How can so many people live in one place? How do they all fit?

And then I see the castle.

It's sitting on a great hill above the city, and it's so beautiful it hurts to look at. Tall white towers reach up toward the clouds. Enormous walls curve around it. There are balconies and bridges and rows and rows of windows, all of them glittering gold in the late winter sun.