Love in Soft Winds

The sun always shines under the Crown Dome. The jewel of the kingdom of Corona Solis, the Dome guarantees endless daylight, perfect weather, and absolute comfort for the ruling class inside. But outside its shimmering edge lies a harsher truth. The Fringelands, ravaged by storms and monstrous creatures, are home to the abandoned poor — forced to endure the fallout of a climate the Dome manipulates for elite parties and endless leisure. Princess Annaleigh Gershwin has only ever known life under the Dome. Porcelain-skinned and delicate, with sapphire eyes and long black hair, she embodies the beauty and grace her people expect. Yet inside, she is restless, yearning to matter in a world where everything is controlled. Her charming but calculating husband, Kath, convinces her that she can prove her worth by venturing into the Fringelands. What Annaleigh doesn’t realize is that Kath has already decided her fate. He has struck a deal with Haurus, a mercenary who rides monstrous centipedes and commands mantises the size of men. For five hundred bars of gold, Haurus will ensure Annaleigh never comes back. Annaleigh sets out with her guards, trunks of finery in tow. She intends only a short journey, a symbolic gesture. But disaster strikes when one of Haurus’s centipedes attacks her caravan. Guards are torn apart. Her carriage shatters. Annaleigh flees into the wilds, terrified and alone. At the moment of her doom, she is saved by Nyambura, a tall, dark warrior whose body seems carved from storm and stone. He is one of the Wind Touched, people with an uncanny sensitivity to shifts in air and water who can sense storms long before they come. Annaleigh doesn’t know that Nyambura was meant to finish Haurus’s job. But instead of killing her, he pulls her to safety. For reasons even he can’t name, he spares her life. Together they stumble into Delmara, a half-drowned city that floods whenever Corona Solis schedules sunshine. There, Annaleigh begins to see the truth: every perfect “garden party” under the Dome means floods and famine outside. She is horrified when Nyambura shows her the flood-marked poles, each notch named for a celebration. The Dome’s beauty rests on a mountain of suffering. In the market, Annaleigh is stripped of her illusions as she trades her jewels for boots. A ruby bracelet becomes a pair of worn shoes. This loss cuts her pride, but keeps her alive. Annaleigh and Nyambura's fragile bond is tested at the Stillwater Inn, where Haurus ambushes her. Drugged and cornered, Annaleigh learns the cruelest truth: Kath himself ordered her death. Haurus gloats, promising both violence and betrayal. At the last moment, Nyambura crashes through the window, saving her life. They escape bloodied, but alive — and finally bound together by more than necessity. Wounded, they retreat to Skisa, Nyambura’s hidden homeland beyond the mountains. Here Annaleigh meets his fiery sister Azara, preparing for her own transformation rite, and Obankanji, the inventor-ruler whose spider-like mechanical legs scuttle beneath his robes. Skisa is unlike Corona Solis: its people undergo the Inkuro Ya Mwisho, a ritual where elixirs and spirit-guides reweave their DNA, gifting them new strengths to survive. Annaleigh sees a people battered but proud, who would rather live in hardship than bow as servants under the Dome. As she heals, Annaleigh learns to cook badly alongside Nyambura’s sisters, laughs at her failures, and begins to grieve the illusion of her marriage. In Skisa, she finds family — and something more dangerous. Her bond with Nyambura deepens into love. By the time she gives up her wedding ring to buy supplies, she has let go of the girl who entered the Fringes. Now she dreams of a future built in soft winds and hard ones alike. News shatters their peace: the King of Corona Solis is dead. Kath has declared Annaleigh’s funeral and taken the throne. If she does not return, he will not only rule unchallenged but expand the Dome even further, condemning the Fringelands to ruin. Annaleigh realizes she must face him. Before their final battle, Nyambura takes her to Nidiara Astera, the Lover’s Falls, where water thunders into a paradise of lush growth: giant lilies, dragonflies as long as horses, silver-scaled fish shimmering below. Amid this wonder, they finally surrender to passion. Love is no longer unspoken. But the idyll is brief. Haurus ambushes them once more, nearly killing Annaleigh. A savage battle follows. Nyambura fights like the wind itself, arrows and steel flashing, until the tide turns. Haurus is slain, which makes their entry into the Palace more complicated. With Skisa’s soldiers at her side, Annaleigh infiltrates Corona Solis during her own funeral. Using the distraction from one of Haurus’s carriages, she slips through the gates. In the palace halls, servants scream at the sight of her — a ghost returned. She dons black and gold and descends the stairs into the throne room. Kath, mid-eulogy, turns pale as the court parts. Annaleigh declares the truth: Kath plotted her death, Kath conspired with Haurus, Kath sold the lives of the Fringelands for his glory. The courtiers erupt. Kath flees to the Dome’s rooftop control tower, pursued by Annaleigh and Nyambura. On the windswept heights, amid gears and holograms of weather, Annaleigh confronts him. Kath boasts that he never loved her, that he only studied her, that he meant to master the Dome and rule forever. They fight. Kath wounds Nyambura with a hidden blade, but in the struggle, Annaleigh drives him into the machinery. The Dome he worshipped crushes him. Annaleigh, bloodied but alive, reclaims her crown. But she refuses absolute power. She creates the Climate Council, ensuring no single hand can twist the weather for vanity or cruelty again. In the epilogue, rain falls over the palace gardens. Children laugh as they splash in the mud. Annaleigh and Nyambura, now parents to a young daughter, walk arm in arm, watching her run free. Around them, Skisans and Dome-born mingle — Azara spins tales of fire, Obankanji unveils inventions. When Nyambura asks if she wishes the sun had shone for her birthday, Annaleigh smiles. Once you’ve outrun floods and monsters, a little rain is no burden.