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 of 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 clicking shut with an audible pop. 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 looks at me, 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 sighs. “That was wrong of him.”
My breath catches and my throat wells tight in 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 make good on their interest in us while I’m there. Use 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.”