Illegitimate children not bourne from the prince's mate, but to the mate of the clan's night warrior. It's a dangerous game the prince plays...

Generation 3 All faeries are proud, but the Winter Court is the most prideful of them all... Congratulations on adopting a Descendant of the Winter Court~ Cold and unsympathetic, the Winter Court fae are as unmoving as the ice they rule over. Earning favor within this court is incredibly difficult, and those who do find it is far easier to lose their favor. The Winter Court is most well known for granting questing dragons justice, but everyone gets their due in time. If you're interested in knowing more about the Seasonal Courts Lineage Project, please click the button!

As a youngster, Silail was hustled out of his birth lair under cover of night, said a hasty farewell to his sorrowful mother, and placed in the care of a kindly Tundra who was traveling north. When he finally ended up in a sunny, sprawling Light Flight compound, he couldn't have imagined anything more different from the place of his birth. "This is your new home," everyone told him, but he refused to accept that. He didn't belong in this sunny, golden place, and someday, any day now, he'd be returning home.

That didn't happen. When he was "old enough" - an adolescent, fully-fledged, old enough to be restless and to feel like he was wilting in the heat of midday - Graupel gave him a letter from his true father. It included directions for visiting the winter court - for all the good that did him, in midsummer - and a flowery, self-excusing explanation of the circumstances of Silail's birth. Wynter and Annessa had shared "a love that overcame all boundaries," which even an inexperienced youth could spot as an evasion.

But even in the Lightweaver's realm, the days could grow short and the nights long and cold. (Well, "cold." Silail hadn't forgotten real cold, not like these warm-weather dragons.) And when Silail crossed the veil into the realm of the fae, he knew he'd finally come home again.

It wasn't because of the welcome he received. His late arrival in the court as a visitor from the mundane realms granted him some cachet that he clearly wouldn't have held had he grown up here. His father avoided him, while his sister, working as a servant, treated him with the graceful deference she used for all the other noble guests, bringing him tea and calling him "sir" as if they hadn't played together as hatchlings. The rest of the Winter Court viewed him with aloof curiosity; the story of his conception had preceded him, and the prince's illicit offspring coming home was, at least, an interesting new development. And there were those among his grandfather's courtiers happy to share the whole sordid story with him. "Is it true--" they'd ask, even though they clearly knew better than he did.

But at least he knew, now. He knew why he'd been sent away from his mother so young. Why he'd been raised in the mundane world instead. Why he hadn't learned from birth how to travel to this place that was his birthright.

He had his foothold in the mundane world, which was clearly an advantage; if he could learn to harness their technology, resources or weaponry, and his own powers, perhaps he could make himself useful to his grandfather and improve his own status. He could silence the snickering courtiers, turn the cold, appraising gazes into admiration or at least curiosity, and prove himself to be more than his father's mistake.