I dig my fingers into the railing. To the south are the Seasons. Spring, with its brutality and blood, and Winter, with its snow and ice and coldness that never ends, with its queen who haunts my dreams through images of the refugees and baby Mather.
Mather.
I feel liable to explode, everything in me hot and heavy and choking off air. I hate him for caring, for making me think he liked me too, for giving me a flash of hope as small as a stone and a kiss on my jaw when both of us knew we could never, ever be more than what we are.
“You shouldn’t blame him.”
On a sharp breath, I yank my chakram into my hand and aim it at the shadow behind me.
Sir.
I tense my hand against my weapon. “You’ve got nerve.”
Sir steps away from the corner of the tower he just climbed up. “I couldn’t let the day end without you knowing the truth.”
I laugh. It’s hollow and makes a shiver dance down my back. “Well, it’s already tomorrow, so you’re a tad late.”
Sir surges forward, tears the chakram out of my hand, and tosses it to the floor. Before I can fight back, he rotates me to face the south and keeps a hand firmly on the back of my neck.
“Snow above,” he hisses. “You’ve never seen what’s down there. The closest you’ve come to Winter is the outermost towns in Spring, the aftermath of Winter’s fall. But you’ve never seen the Winterians in the camps. You didn’t see Angra lead them away; you didn’t look into their eyes as they realized what was happening, that Angra was going to use them until they died. Don’t snap at me like you know what’s at stake. You don’t know anything, Meira, and I’m sorry if this marriage is hard for you to accept, but it will happen. You wanted to matter to Winter? This is how Winter needs you.”
I jam my elbow into Sir’s stomach and rip his hand off my neck. He stumbles back, coughing, a look of shock falling over him.
“No.” I point a finger at him because I’m not sure what else I can do. I just elbowed him in the stomach. My arm shakes as I point at him, an outward sign of my inward roiling, rocking anger. “You do not get to lecture me like this is some lesson you’re trying to drill into my head. This isn’t our training tent. This is my life. You know this is horrible, Sir! You know everything, so if I don’t know anything, why don’t you tell me? Why doesn’t Mather tell me himself instead of sending you to do it for him?”
Sir stares at me for a moment, quiet, the rush of fight gone. His eyes are wet, hair frayed, body slowly caving in like he’s been beaten against the rocks one too many times. He was our rock, though.
I pull my hands through my hair, a moan escaping my lips. Something deep and hidden, urged on by the child in me who cries whenever Sir’s upset. “What happened, William?”
He hugged me, once. When I was six, still small enough to sleep in the tent he shared with Alysson, I woke up one night screaming. Drenched in sweat, crying so hard and loud my body ached for days. Sir was instantly at my side, alert and looking for an enemy.
“I saw them,” I whimpered.
“Who?” He was so concerned, his brow pinched, his eyes wide. Like he expected a Spring soldier to leap out of the shadows.
“My—” I couldn’t say it. Mother. Father. I didn’t even see them in my dream—I saw who I thought they were, who my mind created. Two loving people who were slaughtered in the street, their baby tumbling from their arms before Sir scooped me up.
In my dream, though, they were burning. Screaming at me from a building engulfed in flames while Angra stood outside, a monster of a man holding a staff. His conduit. Orange-and-red fire danced up and down the ebony surface of the staff and across the ground, feeding the inferno of the building. I stood behind him, screaming for him to stop.
Angra turned to me. “Not until you’re all dead.”
When I told Sir my dream, he stayed quiet for a long while, his face a war of emotions. Fear and regret and something deep—guilt, maybe. Or blame? But it flickered off his face and he wrapped his arms around me, nestled me against his chest, and let me lean into him.
“It’s not your fault,” he whispered. “Meira, it’s not your fault.”
Sixteen years, and that’s all I’ve gotten from him—one hug in a moment of weakness. When I lower my arms, Sir’s staring southward, as if he focuses hard enough, he can actually see Winter.
“I came here. Fourteen years ago,” he whispers.
I don’t move.
“Two years after the attack. Took me that long to beat down my pride. Cordell had been one of the kingdoms we called for aid when Spring finally got too strong, but they didn’t come. No one did, Rhythm or Season.”
Sir straightens and presses his hands to his eyes, shakes away some emotion. “When I got here, I pleaded with Noam from every possible angle. We needed anything he could give, and he had everything. But …” Sir pauses, chin falling to his chest as he goes deeper and deeper into memory. “Noam hasn’t changed in fourteen years, and he wanted the same thing then that he does now. The same thing all the Rhythms want—access to our kingdom, to our mountains. A legal and binding connection to the possibility of more magic.”
I nod. I didn’t know that Sir had been here before. It makes sense—his hatred of Noam, his passionate anger toward Cordell. I keep my lips pinched together. He’s never talked to me so openly before.
“There was nothing left, though. No Winterian royal court to barter with, beyond Mather, and Noam didn’t have any daughters, not even a niece. So he proposed an alliance between you and Theron, under the condition that once our kingdom was restored, you would be given a title and standing in the new Winter, something worthy of a future Cordellan queen.” Sir sighs. “But you were so young. So small. And I couldn’t—I had no right to promise you off like that. You weren’t even mine. Who was I to make a marriage arrangement for you?”
A lump forms in my throat, choking me. I swallow but it doesn’t budge.
“But that was fourteen years ago. Fourteen years and we’re still no closer to anything. Yes, we have half of the locket, but we can’t get the other half without killing Angra himself, and we’ll never get close enough to do that without support. We need help. Until its heir comes of age, Autumn is too weak and Summer would rather watch us die than make the effort. No other Rhythm has deigned to negotiate with us. So even though Noam’s a Rhythm, even though I know he’s using us—” Sir pauses, voice catching. “We have no options other than to trust that he will actually help. When Angra’s scout escaped our camp, I took Mather aside and told him what would happen. That Dendera would take him to Bithai, and he would meet with Noam, and he would tell him we accept.”
I drop onto the railing, the tower spinning.
“Don’t blame Mather; he was following my orders. And now you are going to follow them too.” Sir’s voice rises from the peaceful lull of storytelling to his abrupt bark. “You are going to do this, Meira. You are going to do what we need you to do.”
I shake my head, but Sir just repeats it—you are going to do what we need you to do. Not what I want to do, not what I can do. What they need me to do. For Winter.
I almost laugh at the irony. After all, I wanted to be needed, didn’t I? But my laugh bites away. No—I wanted to matter because of who I am and what I can do, not just because I’m a Winterian female, and our new ally had a suitable Cordellan male to pair with me. I wanted to belong to Winter, to earn my belonging.
My eyes gradually drift from the floor of the tower to Sir’s face. He’s regained some of his domineering, in-control attitude and doesn’t look quite so broken now.
“Was Hannah sorry?” I whisper. “Before Angra attacked, was she upset about something she did?”
Sir’s entire face freezes as if Angra stabbed Mather in front of him. But he shakes his head, his face setting in a blank stare, and his refusal to answer slams against my question.
I grab my chakram from the floor, holster it, and swing a leg over the tower railing, straddling the sto
ne wall. “I know there are things you aren’t telling me. Big things. Reasons why all this is happening, and someday, Sir, I will find out. I only hope your reasoning is good enough for me to forgive you.”
I drop down the tower and roll on the roof, breaking into a run, the cold night air blowing me faster, the darkness and gleaming stars taking me somewhere I don’t have to feel.
I crawl back into my room through the open balcony doors. Another nightgown waits on the bed for me, but I’m too shaken to bother putting it on. I just lay the chakram on the bedside table and sprawl out on the comforter, fully clothed, keeping my eyes pressed shut.
Breathe, breathe. That’s all I focus on, air moving in and out of my lungs, until I drift away from reality and into sleep.
At first I think I’m in Noam’s palace, but the ballroom is set up all wrong. A great white marble staircase fans in front of me, the room folding out in a symmetrical square. The same white marble floor makes the entire room glow in the calm, quiet darkness of night. This is Jannuari’s palace. Winter.
I exhale, blowing a cloud of white into the air as peace descends deep into every limb. I’m in Winter. And she’s here again. Hannah. I can feel her presence, a gentle aura waiting nearby.
In a distant hall, a baby cries.
I run up the staircase, weaving down hallways paned with ivory marble. White candles flicker on tables as I fly past, adding eerie shadows to every twist and turn.
Finally a room appears on my right, the door thrown open, light streaming out. I hurry in to see a bassinet in the center, soft white light rippling out of it. Hannah stands next to it and baby Mather screams again, wailing like he’s being attacked.
I step forward as Hannah’s ice-blue eyes flick up to me.
“I can’t talk to him,” she says. She moves around the bassinet, close enough that I catch a waft of her perfume. “But Angra isn’t watching you.”
“Angra?”
Hannah shakes her head and looks around the room, her face panicked, anxious, like something might jump out and get us. “He’s coming. But you can hear me, can’t you?”
I nod. “Yes, I can hear you.” I pause. “My queen.”
Where there had only been light in this room, there is now a shadow in the corner. Black and thick, impenetrable. Hannah reaches for me but curls her fingers into her palm.
“Hurry,” she says. “Do what you must.”
“What?” I step toward her and she twitches back to Mather.
“Do what you must,” Hannah whispers to the bassinet. The shadow in the corner grows and grows. It sweeps between us and as I scream out to Hannah, the entire world goes black.
Magic.
It’s the first thing that flies into my mind after I wake up, the blackness and lingering scream from my dream vanishing in the morning light. I roll onto my side and my eyes fall on Mather’s lapis lazuli ball on the bedside table. That stupid blue rock.
While this isn’t the first time I’ve dreamed of her, Hannah has never spoken to me before. To me. Like I was there, back when Jannuari fell. A wave of trepidation makes me shiver and I pull the blankets up to my chin. Is that what Mather gave me? Some weird rock that induces nightmares and visions? I don’t need any other reasons to hate him right now. It can’t be magic. It’s just a rock, and I’m having these dreams because I’m fatigued to the point of nightmares. Not magic.
All this on top of the late-night ball means I’m frazzled, I’m exhausted, and I just want to hurl my chakram at something.
Rose and Mona have other ideas about how I should spend my day, though. After a quick breakfast in my room over which we have an argument about the importance of attending etiquette classes, I climb off the balcony. Rose throws quite the fit when she sees me leap out into the air, but I swear Mona hides the smallest smile behind her hand. Mona is still my favorite, and despite Noam’s threat last night about obeying him, I refuse to buckle this easily. I may be trapped in this arrangement, but that does not mean I’ve become Noam’s future queen-shaped slave.
So I take it upon myself to explore the palace grounds. I’m just doing what I must, as Hannah told me to. Whatever she meant by that cryptic warning. But it wasn’t really a warning; it was my riled mind’s interpretation of events—I hope.
I jog off down a cobblestone path, skirting groups of royals who either perk up at the sight of me or start whispering to each other, eyes narrowed and noses crinkled disapprovingly. Probably because I’m wearing my travel clothes and have a chakram strapped to my back. The nose-crinkly royals grow in number and I realize I’m jogging through a royal garden area, a place where proper future queens would flit around in fancy gowns and coy giggles. Where they let the world move on around them while men make decisions and matter.
I will not be that kind of queen, no matter that Cordell isn’t actually my kingdom. But what kind of queen will I be? I know only what kind of soldier I’ve always tried to be—active, alert, eager, desperate to be a part of Winter. Is that the kind of queen I’ll be too? Or will Noam see to it that I remain a helpless figurehead, some pretty ivory statuette to position just so in one of his alcoves?
All of my thoughts echo back to me in a wave of shock. How I thought about being queen definitively—what kind of queen will I be. Not maybe, not might. Like I’ve accepted the life that Sir and Mather thrust on me. I know I have no choice—I know this is my role now. But I still don’t want this life, and a part of me sneers at the part that knows I need to find a way to not hate this.
I can’t keep thinking these things, can’t keep strolling aimlessly through pretty gardens and pretending I belong here. So I leap over a few hedges, wiggle between a row of tightly placed evergreens—and pop out in a wonderful, wonderful place.
The noises of battle surround me, soldiers grunting and swords clanging and arrows twanging through the wind. Men in various states of undress leap around each other, sparring with weapons or fists in roped-off rings. Behind them all, a barn stretches in both directions, doors thrown open sporadically along the wall, horses whinnying from within and more men carrying stacks of armor in and out.
Cordell’s training grounds.
Which means … I can shoot things.
A range sits on the far left, at least two dozen targets set up alongside a few tall wooden poles for ax throwing and javelins. Some soldiers hurl daggers, knives, others fire good old-fashioned bows, and still more fire crossbows, gleaming metal things that make me giggle just as excitedly as Rose and Mona did over my ball gown.
I can feel my chakram pressing into my shoulder blades, begging to join the fun. So I step up to the range, pull the chakram out, wind back, and let it sing through the wind. The blade spins down the line, nicks the top part of a wooden pole, and whips back up the row until it thwacks to a stop in my palm. A rush of relief descends over me.
“Meira?”
I turn and my chakram tips to the side, itching in my hand, ready to throw and throw until I hurl away every bit of the past few days. But I just stand there, eyes narrowing to hide the fact that my initial reaction is to gape at Theron’s bare expanse of glistening skin. He’s shirtless—and it’s clear that Cordell subjects its men to rigorous chest exercises.
He leaves a group of soldiers by the barn, their bodies angled slightly toward us and their mouths open mid-conversation. Each of them stands sweaty and armed, swords and knives dangling absently from their hands and belts.
And Theron is no different. He slides a sword into a sheath at his waist, an amused smile making my already warm face heat up even more. All the soldiers around us have stopped shooting, their heads tilted in such a way I can tell they aren’t exactly used to women showing up on their field. Or hitting their targets.
Theron nods at the chakram. “A fine Autumnian creation. My aunt sent us a shipment of them shortly after her wedding. Your weapon of choice?”
Yes, throwing. Something safe to focus on. Safer than, say, the way the Crown Prince of Cordell’s arm flexes as he
hefts an ax out of the ground beside me.
In response, I reposition myself in front of the pole and let the chakram loose. It whirls through the air in a beautiful arc and brushes across the target, a hair off from my last hit, before flying back to me. Sweet snow, that feels good.
I look up at Theron. “And yours?”
Theron sizes up the ax in his hand. He looks around us, taking in all the still-gaping men and the fact that many of them are now pointing at my pole and shaking their heads in wonder.
“Why should I give away my greatest strength so soon?” Theron looks back at me with a teasing grin, and my grip on the chakram’s handle tightens involuntarily, as if that’s the only thing keeping me up under his smile.
“First day as Cordellan royalty, and you’re already terrifying the soldiers.”
Mather’s voice knocks into me from behind. The sudden barrage of Theron in front of me with Mather closing in makes me feel like I’m caught weaponless on a battlefield.
Mather. King Mather. King Mather who negotiated the deal that makes me look at Theron and feel terrified and nervous and lit up all at once.
I turn on him, mouth full of all kinds of nasty, steaming curses, curses befitting a rugged soldier, not a lady. But everything I want to say dies the instant I see him. Because—mother of all that is cold—he’s shirtless too, with only the locket half dangling around his throat and his freckled skin reflecting the sheen of a good workout. Not that I haven’t seen him shirtless before, but it isn’t a sight I’ll ever get used to. He was obviously sparring with some of the men—I must’ve glided right by him, grouping his half-naked body in with all the other half-naked bodies. In my defense, there are a lot of good examples of Cordell’s training rituals here. Mather’s abs and arms, which look like they could snap a cow’s neck, aren’t that impressive next to Theron and three dozen soldier bodies.
I force myself to meet Mather’s eyes. And immediately find myself staring at his chest. I swallow and grind my teeth together. All right, clearly the training yard is kept behind a wall of evergreens to keep out gawking girls—like me.