THE CORDELLAN SOLDIERS who escorted us to the palace barely flinch when I dart out of the room. Only two people care, and their presence adds cool reassurance to my racing mind.
Conall says nothing, simply falls in behind me when I turn right, deeper into the palace. Garrigan closes in after him, just as silent, his face strained and questioning where Conall’s is stiff and determined. They both probably wonder what happened, but for once, their station stops them from asking.
I gather my skirt into my fists and keep walking, my back straight. I’m the queen, and I’m behaving exactly as a queen would—orchestrating political maneuvers.
Luckily the Jannuari Palace enhances my illusion of being queen more strongly than anything else. The whole place feels regal—if I focus on what it could be, not on the ruin that it is.
Before I even knew I was queen, Hannah showed me her memories of the palace through our shared connection to the magic. I saw the ballroom, the great square unfolding from the marble staircase in a billowing cloud of such pure white that the entire room gleamed. She showed me the halls, each one taller than the last, lit by sconces that threw light onto the ivory perfection. Everything was white—carvings dug into the walls, sculptures in alcoves, moldings that danced in circles and squares along the ceiling. Everything was beautiful, and whole, and perfect.
All those images conflict with what I see now, creating a collage of old and new, whole and broken. The memories of white statues in every alcove and candles flickering on tables and the white-paneled walls mesh with the half-destroyed palace that exists now, holes gaping in the walls and rubble swept into piles.
A small flicker of longing sparks. Hannah showing me what Winter used to look like was one of the few good memories I have of her. Remembering it now . . .
I’ll find a way to get her back. At least, I think I want to get her back.
I yank open a door that leads to the basement. Garrigan and Conall follow me into the even more frigid air, the gray walls a startling contrast to the ivory halls above. We continue until we reach a corridor, more stones forming a floor and walls that host heavy iron doors.
Like the mines that run under the Klaryn Mountains, a labyrinth of rooms winds deep beneath the Jannuari Palace, the stone floors worn smooth from years of tread, sconces caked in dust yet still able to hold twitching orbs of fire. These halls once housed offices or storage or even dungeons, but most of the rooms now remain closed and unused.
Except for a few toward the end.
I hurry on, footsteps tapping lightly on the stones. Right, left, right again, until I reach a short hall with three doors, all locked tight.
Or . . . they should be locked.
One stands open on my right, catching me in a brief spurt of worry before I compose myself. We just got back from Gaos—the soldiers haven’t yet finished depositing our newest resources yet. It’s only them.
But when I step up to the door, everything drains out of me.
“Mather?”
He doesn’t rise from where he sits on the floor before a crate, a paper in one hand, quill in the other. The stones, still jagged clumps of rock coated in dirt, haven’t yet been polished into the multifaceted, brilliant pieces they’re meant to be. The light from the sconces behind me reflects orange and yellow onto the spoils: eerie and dancing, touching each piece and darting away.
Seeing him sends ripples vibrating through me, because aside from Conall and Garrigan, who linger down the hall a few paces, we’re alone.
Mather looks up at me, his expression pinched as if he expects me to be someone awaiting orders. But when he recognizes me, his face spasms. “You’re not a Cordellan.”
I frown. “Should I be?”
He collects himself, his eyes sweeping from my head to my feet so fast I could have blinked and missed it. “I—why are you down here, my queen?”
This is the closest we’ve been to each other in months—and that’s what he says?
“Why are you down here?” I throw back.
“Helping. You shouldn’t be here—it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“You could be crushed.” He gestures to the stacks of crates around him.
None are higher than my hip.
His focus drops back to the paper and he scribbles notes, his hand shaking ever so slightly as he writes.
“Dangerous,” I repeat. My jaw tightens. He stays quiet, feigning distraction, and the stillness lets the past hour—the past week, the past months—creep over me.
“You’re worried about me?” I snap. “You’ll have to forgive me, since the only interactions we’ve had in the past three months have been in meetings with a dozen other people. So you can see why I might be confused that you think of protecting Winter’s queen, when for the past couple of months, you’ve acted as though you didn’t give a damn about her. But don’t worry, I have plenty of other people in my life who have perfected the ability to pretend to care. You don’t owe me any favors.”
That wrenches his attention back to me. “I didn’t—and—What?” He gapes, glancing around the room like he’s trying to find an explanation in the crates. “I was just sitting here, taking inventory for your kingdom, when you come swooping in. What should I have said? Ice above, do you just need someone to yell at?”
“Yes!”
He flinches and my mouth falls open and all my anger drops away beneath an onslaught of far stronger emotions.
I miss him. So much my chest aches, and I can’t believe the ache hasn’t killed me yet. All I want is to say the right thing, to hear him laugh and joke about sparring with Sir. I need to talk to him, for us to be the way we were—two children standing together against a war. That’s how I feel now, but this time . . . I’m not a child. And I’m not standing with him—I’m alone.
I stagger. “I shouldn’t have—”
But Mather’s eyes close in a scowl before he sets down his quill and rises to his feet. Something about his demeanor breaks a little, and he widens his legs as if preparing for a fight.
“Okay,” he says, arms crossed, the paper crinkling in his fist. “Yell at me.”
I squint. “Yell at you?”
Mather nods. “Yes. Do it. I’ve—” He stops, jaw snapping shut with an audible click. He shifts away from me, back again, lips pursing in nervous frustration. “The least I can do is let you yell at me. We both know I deserve it. So”—he waves me on—“yell at me.”
I square my shoulders, open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Yes, he does deserve it. But yelling at him won’t undo all the times I searched for him in meetings only to see him slouched in a corner, participating as much as would be expected from a newly titled lord of Winter, but not as much as would be expected from my friend. I don’t even think it would make me feel any better, because he’d end up just as beaten and forlorn as Theron.
Mather lifts a white eyebrow. “You don’t have to actually yell, if you don’t want to. Slightly elevated whispering would be fine.”
I sigh. “You’re not the one I should be yelling at.”
“Someone deserves it more than me?”
He’s trying for humor, but it tugs at my worries.
“How did you do this?” I whisper, my chapped lips cracking in the room’s frigidness.
Mather hardens. He doesn’t seem at all confused by what I asked. “I focused on my duty. I put Winter first, above everything.” The sudden heaviness in his eyes negates any advice he just gave. “But I think I messed up. Being king. I’d do it differently now if I could.”
“What? How?”
He shrugs, his words coming faster. “I wouldn’t focus on Winter as much. I’d let myself focus on . . . other things too. Winter isn’t everything.”
“Yes, it is,” I counter. “You were right to focus on your duty. That’s what I’m trying to do, but I feel like I’m barely holding everything together.”
“Did something happen?”
Mather’s expression is familiar—but it isn’t what I expect.
There’s no fear. No brokenness. Just strength.
I’ve been waiting for him to heal on his own. Hoping and needing and wanting him to somehow resolve the issues of our lives so I could have my friend back.
Has he figured things out? Has he accepted our new lives?
Or is he just hiding his pain like everyone else?
“We found the magic chasm,” I tell him, easing each word out in a test of his strength. “And Noam is sending us in search of a way to open it. We’re going to Summer, Yakim, and Ventralli, and I thought I’d—”
“What?” Mather gags. “You found it? When? Where?”
“The Tadil Mine. A few days ago.”
He pulls back, his eyes distant as he thinks. “Noam wasn’t in Winter when you found it.”
I shake my head.
“So why in the name of all that is cold did you tell him?”
“I didn’t want to tell him,” I snap. “Theron—”
Oh, no.
“No,” Mather wheezes. “Theron told Noam?”
I say nothing, and my silence confirms it. After a pause, Mather groans, and I ready for a rant. This will be the moment that tells me where we stand now—how he reacts to Theron.
But Mather just pushes his groan into a sigh. “That was wrong of him.”
My breath catches and my throat wells at the unexpected comfort he offers.
I cough, pulling out of the daze. “That’s not why I came down here, though. I need goods. Separate from the ones we’re to give Autumn and Cordell.”
He squints. “You want goods? Why?”
“Ventralli and Yakim invited me to their kingdoms before this trip was planned, and I want to take advantage of their interest in us while I’m there. Give some of the jewels as a goodwill offering to symbolize trading ownership of a few of our mines for . . . support.”
Mather’s face lightens, his brows lifting as he grins. That whole-face, knee-quaking smile that constantly bombarded me as a child.
“You want to take some from the stores we owe to Cordell,” he clarifies.
I nod. “More than you know.”
He barks laughter. “I think I know pretty well.” He steps closer and lifts the paper he’d been scribbling on, only now it’s wrinkled from where he held it. “I’m one of the Winterians helping to sort the resources from the mines. And what we get is supposed to go straight to Cordell and Autumn tonight, but—” He pauses, mischief sparking in his eyes. “Giving them everything didn’t seem like the best investment for Winter’s future.”
I cock my head. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been pulling aside resources from every shipment to help rebuild our treasury.”
Shock flows over me. “How . . . how much?”
Mather glances at the paper. “Five crates. Which isn’t a lot, I know, but I didn’t want the Cordellans to realize that some of their precious payment is gone.”
He’s been helping me, helping Winter, in ways I didn’t even know I needed.
I surge forward and lock my fingers around his arm. “Thank—”
His eyes drop to my grip, every part of his body freezing at my touch. I don’t pull back and his gaze lifts higher, rising up my arm. My other arm sits tucked inside a tight, ivory sleeve, but this one is bare to my collarbone. I hadn’t realized how much more revealing it is than what I usually wear—or what I used to wear—around him. A shirt and pants and boots.
And when Mather’s eyes meet mine, his cheeks flush such a deep scarlet that not even the dimness of this room can hide it. A coldness rushes down me, the biting sensation of falling into a pile of snow, every part of my body tingling and alert. I’m swarmed with the feeling of being exposed yet too covered up all at once, and the longer he stares at me, the colder my body grows.
I jerk away from him and coil my fingers into my palm.
He swallows, throat convulsing. “I’m glad I could help. But . . .” He stops. “You’re already a better ruler than I ever was.”
I shake my head to fight the way Mather looks at me, as if he’s studying me, noting how close we are, how much closer we could be. I wanted him back in my life to have support, someone to help me save our kingdom—not another complication.
But my heart says otherwise, knocking against my ribs in deliberate, persistent pulses.
He helped Winter. He isn’t dissolving at the mention of problems or trying to avoid issues.
“Five crates,” I echo. “I wonder if that will be enough.”
Mather shakes back into our conversation. “How much are you thinking?”
I smile. The lingering pinkness in Mather’s cheeks deepens.
“More,” I tell him. “A lot more. Enough to send one final message to Noam.”
Mather nods. “I’m a proponent of any plan that irks him.”
I laugh. The sound jolts through me, sharp and bumping, and I clap my palms over my mouth.
“You’re allowed to laugh.” Mather chuckles at my surprise.
The part of me that spent so long missing him sighs, content.
The sound of footsteps echoes down the hall, ricocheting off the stone like pebbles falling down a mountainside. I turn when Sir comes to stand beside me.
“My queen.” Sir glances past me to Mather, who shoots up straight, shoulders rolling back in a sudden stance of alertness. But Sir doesn’t afford him more than a glance, his attention dipping back to me. “We need to speak about the trip.”
“I know—but not just yet.” I turn to Mather again. The idea he planted sprouts roots and unfurls wide leaves, fostering recklessness similar to that of the wild girl I used to be.
But while that girl made mistakes, she is the reason I have a kingdom to rule. I owe it to myself to at least try to be her again, in some small way.
“Where did you put those five crates?” I ask Mather.
His stance relaxes and he waves his arm out for me to follow him.
Down another hall, up two rooms, Mather stops, leading the party of Sir, Conall, Garrigan, and me. He digs a key out of his pocket and unlocks a door, swinging it wide to reveal a grime-covered space even smaller than the rooms we were just near.
But in the back stand five crates, each stuffed with lumpy pieces of Winter’s future.
I pivot to Sir. “At the ceremony tonight, bring only these five crates.”
Sir blinks. “My queen, Cordell is expecting far more than this.”
“They will get what they deserve in time. But for now . . . we have a greater need.”
Sir’s veil of formality lifts, showing a flash of his worry. “Cordell is our only ally, my queen. It is not wise to anger them.”
I know, and I almost tell him that, almost break through my fragile certainty. What I’m doing is purely the old me, something rash and careless, the part of me that snuck away to find my chakram. The part of me that wails in fury whenever I have to use my magic or Noam tightens his grip on Winter. The part of me that wants to matter.
“Which is why I’m going to get us more allies,” I tell Sir.
It’s dangerous, but we need these resources to gain allies so we can get some leverage.
Noam will be furious.
And right now, that sounds wonderful.