The Sound of the Winds

01. The River Bend

01. The River Bend

The carriage's sudden jolt signaled the end of the journey, but the complete absence of heat was the first warning that something was terribly wrong.

Nysalin waited in the darkness of the carriage, her hands resting on the heavy fabric of her wedding dress. Her fingers slid over the white lace.

As a princess of the Water Realm, she had been prepared since childhood to adapt to the currents, but her expectations for that day were specific: the smell of sulfur, the constant smoke from the volcanoes, and the relentless heat of the Fire Realm.

However, when the heavy doors of the carriage were opened by the outer guards, what flooded the interior of the vehicle was not the hot blast of a forge, but a gust of cold, thin, biting air, carrying with it the sound of dozens of brass bells tinkling in harmony.

Nysalin blinked, her blue eyes adjusting to the blinding sunlight reflecting off a sea of white clouds.

Clouds that were, strangely, below her, forming a white carpet beneath a golden bridge.

"Your Highness," her personal bodyguard's voice sounded tremulous, muffled by the constant howl of the wind. "I fear there may be... a misunderstanding."

With the upright posture she had been taught in the coastal fortresses, she declined the guard's trembling hand and descended the steps of the carriage on her own. As soon as the soles of her heels touched the polished white stone floor, a slight dizziness overcame her.

The ground was swaying.

An honor guard was already lined up in front of her.

Soldiers clad in light leather and silver armor tapped their spears against the ground in unison, maintaining an impeccable military rhythm, and at the head of the line, awaiting the woman who was to be his fiancée, stood the man who was supposed to become her younger sister's husband: Prince Suyee of the Wind Realm, heir to the Suspended Kingdoms.

Nysalin clenched her jaw, forcing her expression to remain impassive.

She knew who he was, even though she had never seen him in person.

"Your Highness... I... I'm so sorry," her personal bodyguard said, immediately kneeling with his entire body trembling. "I didn't notice the detour in time!"

The treaty was clear: two sisters from the Water Realm would marry on the same day to seal separate alliances.

She, the eldest, to the Fire Realm.

Talinella, the youngest, to the Wind Realm.

Somehow, at the relay station during the terrible storm the night before, the identical royal carriages had been switched in the muddy courtyard. Or perhaps...

Nysalin gripped the sides of her white skirt. She watched the prince of the Wind Realm approach. Something about his presence made her hold her breath for a split second.

Suyee walked with unquestionable military bearing, his shoulders framed by a cloak that fluttered like the wings of a white hawk, and his brown hair was pulled tightly back against his scalp in intricate, practical braids, designed not to get in the way during combat. When he stopped two steps away, Nysalin was able to look into his green eyes, intense and sharp as tempered glass.

He possessed a remarkable athletic build, clad in tailored garments, but there was none of the rustic brutality she had expected from a warrior of the floating islands. There was a refined elegance about him, his figure narrowed into a slim, firm waist, marked by a silver belt studded with daggers. The wind carried a clean scent of pine trees and morning breeze that emanated from his skin, instantly erasing the memory of the muddy smell from the journey. That sensation—fresh yet imposing—struck her like a bolt of lightning in a storm in the middle of the raging ocean. A spectacle of nature all its own.