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. 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. I’m having these dreams because I’m fatigued to the point of nightmares. That’s it.
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-crinkling royals grow in number and I realize I’m jogging through a garden area, a place where proper future queens would flit around in fancy gowns and coy giggles. Where they would let the world move on around them while men make decisions.
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 it.
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 clashing 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, 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 and javelin throwing. 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 combination 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.
“Did they outlaw shirts in Cordell?” I mumble, and face the target, tipping my head down to my chakram to hide the blush creeping bit by bit up my neck.
Theron chuckles but bites it away when neither Mather nor I say anything else, and he shifts uncomfortably beside me, twirling the ax in his palm. I can feel him eyeing Mather, both of them caught in an awkward web surrounding me. I’m at the center of a weird possessive feud between the Winter king and the Cordellan prince. How in the name of all that is cold did that happen?
But I feel no sympathy for Mather. Not as he steps closer to me, his boots swishing over the grass, his breath exhaling slowly, painfully. I’m all too aware of how much attention is on us when he stops beside me, close enough that I can feel him if I shut my eyes.
“Can we talk?” he murmurs.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up straight. No. Why should I talk to you ever again?
But I’m not supposed to be mad at him. It’s all Sir’s fault.
I look back at Theron, who isn’t looking at me anymore. His body has pivoted to face the target beside my pole and he pulls his arm behind him, every muscle in his back tensing as he winds the ax around. Winding and winding, tighter and tighter, until all of it breaks in a single thrust that sends the ax flipping end over end through the air. It whacks into the center of the target, the handle wobbling from the force.
Theron turns to me, half his face alight with the beginnings of a smile. “My weapon of choice doesn’t matter,” he says, continuing our conversation like nothing happened. His eyes flash to Mather over my shoulder. “No matter what I use, I always hit my mark.”
My eyebrows launch skyward. Mather sucks in a breath behind me. Every single body in the entire training yard holds still in curiosity, and alongside that curiosity is a tension of warning, the gentle nudge of a fight about to start.
Mather steps closer to my back, his voice low and controlled in my ear. “Meira, please.”
Theron glances to the side, his eyes locking onto mine as he beams, full and bright, and turns to walk down the long line to retrieve his ax. He’ll hit his mark no matter what he uses. No matter what situation he’s thrust into. No matter how little control he has over his life.
I can’t fight my laugh as I turn to Mather and holster my chakram. “What can I do for you, my king?”
Mather blanches. Running a hand over his face, he regroups quickly enough, and a determined stiffness washes over him. He nods to the barn. “Come with me.”