I release Sir and turn, my body numb from head to heels.
“When Dendera and I got to Bithai, I met with Noam,” Mather starts. “I explained what happened. We have half the locket; we’re that much closer to getting our conduit back. And now, with Noam already helping Autumn, I told him Winter’s interests and Cordell’s are nearly identical. If he overthrows Spring, Autumn will be saved. But—”
“Autumn does not need Spring overthrown.”
The voice booms out of the darkness and we all turn, focusing on the looming shape at the entrance of the hedge maze.
Noam. I’m going to yank his eyes out through his nostrils.
I’m not sure whether Sir reads my thoughts or my sudden strike-to-kill expression, but he grabs my wrist to hold me back.
“Autumn needs time. They need a few years to keep the Shadow of the Seasons at bay while Princess Shazi grows. Once she’s old enough to use her conduit, Autumn will be able to handle Spring on its own.” Noam steps to the side, leans casually on a statue at the hedge maze entrance. “It is not in my best interest to stage all-out war with a Season.”
Mather lurches toward him. “What makes you think Shazi will be able to hold off Spring once she’s older? Regardless of Autumn’s strength, Spring will not be satisfied staying within its own borders. You’ve seen Angra’s evil! He will spread anywhere he can—”
Noam holds his hand up. “We have been down this road, King Mather. And you know my stance.”
Mather growls. “My mother did not surrender her power to Angra. She did not give up.”
But Noam ignores him. “Angra is not so ambitious that he will attempt to expand to a Rhythm. The Seasons’ problems will remain among the Seasons, and my niece will not be as weak as Hannah.” Noam turns his smile to me. “And I believe Winter has potential. I believe you will be able to reopen your mines and rebuild your kingdom. So yes, Cordell will aid Winter. We will give you support and safety, as long as our support and safety do not extend to a Cordell–Spring war.”
I shake my head, unable to piece his words together. It doesn’t make sense. He’ll help us—but he won’t help us? He thinks Winter will be restored, but he won’t do anything to get us there. What does he think will happen?
Something he said stands out, and I gasp.
“You’ll take our mines because you’re linked to Winter now. You’ll try to find the chasm.” I pull out of Sir’s grip to surge toward Noam, my fingers wanting to reach back and grab my chakram and slice through his skull. “You’ll tear our kingdom apart to find it!”
Noam steps toward me. “Politics do not leave much room for free gifts, Lady Meira. I cannot afford to give another kingdom something for nothing. Yes, I expect payment.”
Fury rises up my body and I start panting. “You have everything,” I spit. “Cordell has everything. You even have Autumn now—and still you want another Season’s resources? You might not find it, you know that, right? What makes you think you’ll have any more luck than the people who have lived there for thousands of years?”
Noam puts a hand on his conduit, the purple jewel on the hilt glowing against his hip. “It’s time a Rhythm tried where the Seasons have failed. Yes, Cordell is linked to Autumn, and yes, I will scour that kingdom for the chasm entrance—but if it isn’t in Autumn’s section of the Klaryns, what then? You are young. You have been removed from politics. But you will soon learn that this is how things work—this is your new world.”
I fall back to Sir. “No. Tell him we don’t do this, not in Winter. We don’t let—”
But Sir’s eyes drop. His entire body looks like it might dissolve and I’ve never, in all my life, seen him show so much emotion at once.
We’re entirely at Noam’s mercy until he decides either to help us or fling us back out into the dark where no one else will come to our rescue. I had always assumed Sir had a plan for who our allies would be after we got our locket back. If this is the best option—a trap—then would anyone else even bother helping us? Or would the other Rhythms rather wait for us to disintegrate under the Shadow of the Seasons and then swoop in to claim our kingdom and, by extension, access to the chasm of magic? With their own internal struggles, none of the other Seasons are strong enough to overthrow Angra.
We’re stuck.
I back up a step. Mather puts his hand on my spine, leaves it there, his thumb moving slowly over the fabric of my dress.
No, no, no.
“Lady Meira.” Noam sweeps his arm back toward the ballroom. “This ball is in your honor. It will raise suspicion if you are gone too long.”
I shake my head but start to walk forward, my feet taking me toward the light of the ball. When I’m parallel to Noam, I stop. “Why me?”
Noam’s smile falters for half a heartbeat and he casts an amused glance at Sir. “That is part of the arrangement, that you will be given a proper title in Winter. By Cordell’s golden leaves, have you been led to believe that you would fade into history once Winter has been reborn? That you wouldn’t matter to your reestablished kingdom?”
I look over my shoulder at Mather, Sir. Next to Noam, who stands cool and relaxed, they both look defeated in the flickering light of the ballroom. Noam has said more things that make sense in the past few minutes than Sir ever has. That sad realization makes something click, something that shuts off the ache deep in my stomach.
I never wanted to fade into nothing, but Sir never told me I wouldn’t. He never let me believe I mattered to Winter beyond my responsibility to lead a normal, safe life once our kingdom was free from Angra, regardless of how fervently I tried to prove to him that I was more. He just let me think I would be lost in all this, that I wasn’t important enough to matter further.
And now this is it. This is how I will matter to Winter. As a marriage pawn.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I did believe that.”
Walking away from Mather and Sir feels like a nightmare. A nightmare in which I want Mather to run after me and fight off Noam and admit he could never do that to me, marry me off to someone else, because he’s been in love with me all along.
Noam opens the door to the ballroom for me, smiling as the music and laughter of his court rushes out. “You are part of this family now,” he says when the door shuts behind us. “And it would benefit you greatly to remember that my son has options. Many more beneficial options that do not involve us in a war. My kingdom progresses, adapts, and changes, while your people fester in stagnation like stones eroded in a stream, sitting atop power but not caring in the least that it’s there. This is a favor, granted only out of my generosity.”
I hold back a growl. Noam slips his hand around my arm, pulling me to a halt, and as his thick fingers tighten against my skin, a memory sweeps into my mind, one of Sir’s lectures on court lineages. Noam had a wife. Theron’s mother, Melinda DeFiore, a princess of Ventralli. In my mind’s eye, I see Noam kneeling at her bedside, her frail body sinking slowly into the tight grasp of death. She was sick, very sick, but there’s something wrong with Noam—did he let her die?
I shake my head. When did Sir tell me how she died? He must have. I remember it so vividly that sometime in all his lectures, he must have mentioned Queen Melinda of Cordell’s death.
Noam shakes me out of the flash of memory by tightening his grip on my arm, holding me the same way Theron did. No, not the same way. Theron was gentle, made sure I knew I could pull away at any time. Noam clutches me like he owns me. He owns everything in Cordell and is used to every person, animal, and plant bowing under the power of his conduit. And even though I’m not Cordellan and his conduit can’t actually affect me, I still feel the power he wields when he curls his hand around mine and squeezes. He does own me now.
Couples spin past us to fast-paced orchestral music. Their laughter falls into the background of Noam’s sudden glare, still disguised by his pleasantly calm aura.
“You need me,” he hisses. “Winter needs me. You will begin proper training to instruct you in the ways of etiquette and Cordellan history. I advise you to not refuse this training and to obey me in all things.”
A tremor runs up my arm. In that moment as he feeds on my fear and revels in power, I see Herod, hissing threats like he was a cat and I was a bird with my wings trapped in his claws.
I yank my arm out of Noam’s grip. “Is that what your wife did? She disobeyed you?” I spit, throwing the accusation out like a chakram into a dark room.
As his face collapses, some of my dislike of him unravels. It’s the last thing he ever expected to hear from me, from anyone, and it shakes him off whatever pedestal he keeps himself on.
“What—” Noam’s mouth falls open. Closes. Opens again, and when it does, his shock shifts away in favor of anger and he grabs my wrist in a threat.
I dig my nails into his skin. “You may have me trapped in this.” I tug him off me. “But you aren’t the first man to underestimate me, so may I advise you to start treating me with a little more respect, King Noam.”
Before he can respond, I spin around and dive into the rows of dancers, darting back and forth between them until I reach the center of the moving bodies and swooshing fabric. Colors swirl around me—glistening gold, dark green, blue taken straight from the deepest part of the Destas Sea. The colors and music combine to create a strange lull in the chaos, a weirdly peaceful hub in the center of the ballroom, surrounded by music and the rotating circles of people. It almost relaxes me.
Almost.