THERE IS A tree that sits in the back garden that I adore. Every child has their one favorite tree, and that tree on the manicured lawn is mine. It is taller than the rest, much older too, and rests like an old woman on top of the hill. The branches are long, and the leaves cluster together like strands of green hair that flutter in the breeze.

If you sit against the base in the shade of the canopy, you can see the edge of the sky, the ancient wall that seals the fortress shut, and the lake at the hill's base. Clipped hedges and flowers of every color form mosaics in the grass, creating a clean path towards the water. The tree itself is the only relic left untouched, the wild among the freshly cut grass.

If you are daring, you can climb the tree and when you are just high enough, you can peak out over the wall. The view is indescribable, but not in the way one thinks. The town of Opulentia isn't on this side, so all the eye can see is a plot of farm land.

For most of the year, there are long rows of raised soil speckled with sprinkles of green that stretch to worship the sun. It is more beautiful during harvest season when the fields turn golden and colorful fruit dot the branches and fairies sing with big baskets under their arms. Even when the ground is muddy and rain pummels down on the earth, I still hear the soft hum of song even though no one is in the fields. 

The farmland sings of life and pain; it lacks the ornate beauty inside the palace walls but this fortress lacks its song. Beauty is obvious to the eye here in the palace of plenty, but one must listen with the soul to appreciate what the eye cannot down those hills and past the wall. It is the most tragic form of beauty, one of chained hearts and calloused hands. 

I rested my head against the trunk, perched on a high branch of this tree as my leg swung back and forth. I pulled my cloak tighter around my sides, tucking the feathers of my wings beneath. The wind was blowing and it chilled my skin, my cheeks turning red-- kissed by the breeze, Parisa would say. My fingers instinctively reached up to feel the heat of my cheeks before I snatched it away.

Shuddering, I crossed my arms. I couldn't think of her without twangs of pain and a sense of haunting distance. We hadn't spoken and it had been 5 never ending, tedious days. She had avoided me just as I stayed hidden from her. 

Parisa had been absent from my lessons, leaving me in the hands of Freud, my elder tutor with large, wonder-filled eyes and a crooked nose. She took her meals in her office and I ate alone if Bella was busy, which she had been. She was away in another kingdom on a visit, leaving me to eat alone in my room.

I'd had little contact with anyone more than Georgio, avoiding Xavier and James at all costs besides at dinner where I was forced to be around them all. I'd trained with Georgio three times since the fight and I could see that he sensed I wasn't fully present. 

He would watch me with quiet curiosity as I hacked with my sword in aching, painful blindness. When I picked up my training blade, my anger took over and I let it rage like wildfire. The darkness of it didn't scare me any longer after I extinguished it through exhaustion.

I hardly remembered my training sessions as though a blindfold had been tied around my eyes. All I could do was swing my sword. It felt incredible, and I never ceased until I couldn't pick up my arms from fatigue.

Georgio hadn't spoken to me about my wildness yet. He most likely knew the reason without my own answer, but he was respectful of my privacy, always mindful about our difference of rank. He needed to know that he could treat me like an equal; I was his equal just as he was mine. He was a slave, a fairy to the sylph, and now I knew I could understand him, as I was beginning to see myself only as a slave to Parisa's will.

The faint ring of a horn down the hill and past the wall drew my attention. A long, skinny silhouette of fairies trudged through the mud, flanked by sylphs with heavy sticks and light armor. They goaded the procession on, pressuring them into a faster gait with each stride. But, they let them sing.

I could hear their songs, the sweetness of every voice as the long row began to split into two, then four, then eight and many more. Congregations of fairies walked down each row, large duffles of seed swinging at their sides. Their hands dug into their bags to pull out seed as they each began to plant. The heavy heat of the suns must have scorched their bare shoulders as the breeze whipped their skin. Planting season had begun.

The sylphs who managed the fields carried their sticks, allowing their singing unless they slowed in their part of the machinery. I turned my eyes away when the occasional scream broke the melody of their song. I couldn't watch the fields any longer without my palms beginning to sweat. My head was starting to pound as I closed my eyes and rested my head against the tree trunk, taking a deep breathe of fresh air.

This was wrong. Slavery was wrong here. Enslaving the fairies, our blood relatives and parent species, was unbelievably wrong. Sylphs were half fairy and half magnatom, which were similar creatures to the human race that lived on Earth except with much greater strength and special abilities. When fairies and magnatoms began to procreate together, sylphs were born.

How had no one called for the fairies' emancipation yet in this age? My education in our history had founded my belief in this equality, but not many others had access to the same books and records I did. I was one of few, but the people would never listen to me. I was as good as a slave to them with my wings.

Whenever I thought of slavery, I thought of Georgio. He was treated like a lower species and slept on a cot in a crowded room in the cellars. I lived alone in a room that could have housed forty cots.

He'd told me once of the cellars. It was always dark since no one ever bothered to light it. You had to carry a glowing gemstone when you walked or else you'd step on a broken floor board and fall into the sewer system below. Ropes laid in the corners to help fish out the fallen fairies, and the smell was like mold or rot, suffocating to the point where some of the weaker fairies would faint.

The cellars were also where wings were clipped. A select handful of slaves escaped the torture, usually if they worked as maids to guests or higher ranked members of Sylph society. Georgio had been one of the few to escape his fate as a dressmaker, but he'd watched as many lost their ability to fly. I remembered his voice faltering as he lost the words to speak. All he could say was that there was so much blood, but he couldn't ever tell how much.

Fairy blood is blue, he explained, unlike the sylphs' color of purple. That is the only trait that separates our two species. The floors and walls are all painted a sickening color that resembled what pumps in the fairies' veins. If a slave misbehaved or needed his wings clipped, this act could be done and their blood would be unnoticeable against the floor.

I felt my stomach twist and my head felt light, bile rising in my throat. I held onto the trunk of the tree and swung down into the grass with my bare feet. My flats laid by the tree trunk on a root and I slipped them onto my feet. My toes were cold from the dew in the grass and I wrapped my cloak tighter around my body.

Opulentia and the fortress felt very grey, an ugly and haunting lifelessness seeming to suck up all the air around me. The guard opened the door leading inside for me and I stepped in. "Can I take your cloak, Princess Cybele?"

"No. Thank you, Hex." I touched the fairy's arm and offered a soft smile. He gave me a nod before shutting the door behind me. The hall was empty and warm, lit by lamps every few feet. Couldn't some of these be put in the cellars?

A little fairy buzzed down the hallway around the corner, coming towards me with a large smile and itinerary in hand. "Princess Cybele!" Peony gave me quick nod before holding the paper up to her nose. She set her little spectacles on her small nose, brushing back violet strands of curly hair from her purple eyes. "In a few moments, lunch will commence. After, your lesson with Mr. Freud begins for the following four hours. Dinner is directly after and guests arrive late into the night."

Guests? What guests?

"Yes, Princess Cybele. The Queen has scheduled their arrival during the night. She has requested that you be in her attendance." I must have spoken out loud, and Peony tapped her notes with her finger before fluttering her pink wings. "I shall escort you to lunch. Princess Isabella is taking hers in her bedroom and asked me to fetch you." She sprung up into the air, her wings catching her as she glided down the hall.

Guests? Parisa never had guests. It was a rare occasion.

I followed Peony, watching her lovely wings against the light; she had escaped. I pulled my cloak over my shoulders tighter. We walked down the hallway but we were stopped short by a tall figure.

It was Georgio I realized, and his curious, dark eyes flickered up to mine as he cleared his throat. Peony looked up to him. "Good afternoon! What can I do for you..."

"Princess Cybele?" Georgio ignored Peony, and his voice made the both of us go still. "Queen Parisa has requested you in the entry hall immediately. The guests have arrived early."