As if to confirm my thoughts, his features shift and he angles toward me. “I’ll always fight for you. I’ll always keep you safe,” he adds.
The way he says it is a promise and a declaration and a plea all in one. The words feed tremors that shake down to his wrists, highlighting the fears he doesn’t dare breathe aloud.
Protected. Keep you safe.
He’s afraid of our pasts too. He’s afraid that what happened will happen again, nightmares that keep playing out.
“You don’t have to keep me safe,” I whisper.
“But I can. I will.” Theron’s declaration is so stern that I feel it cut across my face.
But I don’t want to need him—or his father, or Cordell. I don’t want my kingdom to need anyone. Most days, I don’t even want them to need me.
I touch my locket, the empty piece of jewelry that stands as a symbol of Winter’s magic to everyone else. They think that once the halves were reunited, the locket resumed its status as one of the eight sources of magic in this world—the Royal Conduits. They attribute any magic I used before then—healing Sir and the boy in the Abril camp, infusing the enslaved Winterians with strength—to a fluke, a miracle, because every other Royal Conduit is an object like a dagger, a ring, a shield. It never occurred to them—or me, before this—that magic could find its host in a person.
They have no idea where the real magic is. And honestly, Cordell is the least of my worries—because something else sits inside of me that could be far more dangerous.
I press my free hand to Theron’s chest. Alone out here, with the snow falling and the cold wind twirling and the feel of his own pulse hammering under my fingers, I let us have this moment. Regardless of what we are now, moments like these, when we can forget politics and titles and our past, keep us both from falling apart beneath the stresses of our lives.
I press into him and lift up, catching his lips on mine. He moans and sweeps his arms around me, curving along the bend of my body, returning my kiss with a passion that undoes me.
Theron runs a hand along my temple, over my ear, and down my cheek, his fingers brushing aside the hairs that curl out of their pins. I tip my head to the side, leaning into his palm, my own fingers encircling his wrist.
His scars are lumpy and misshapen under my touch. My heart—already beating erratically from the way Theron’s lips are rough yet his touch gentle, by the pang of need in my gut when he moans like that—spirals out of control.
I ease back, our exhales turning to frost. “Theron, what happened to you in Abril?”
The words barely come, but there they finally are, dancing through the snowflakes.
He hesitates, not hearing me for a beat, then he flinches, his face awash with horror that he smoothes it into confusion. “You were there—”
“No, I mean . . . before.” Deep breaths. “You were in Abril before I knew you were there. And . . . you can tell me. If you ever need to. I mean, I know it’s hard, but I—” I groan at myself, head dipping between us. “I’m not good at this.”
Despite everything, Theron chuckles. “Good at what?”
I look up at him and start to smile back before I realize how he swept over everything I said. “Good at . . . us.”
His lips explode in a smile that only reminds me of everything it covers. “You’re better at us than you think,” he whispers, freeing his hand from my grip to run his fingers the rest of the way down my face, my neck, until he cups my shoulder.
I offer a weak smile and shake my head. “The miners. I should get to them.”
Theron nods. “Yes,” he agrees. A burst of hope brightens his face. “Maybe this mine will be the one.”
Unlikely, I almost say. We’ve started excavating more than half of Winter’s mines, and none of them have yielded anything beyond the usual resources. The fact that Noam believes we’ll find the place from which the Royal Conduits originated is infuriating. The magic chasm has been lost beneath the Season Kingdoms for centuries, and just because a Rhythm is now the one searching, he expects to unearth it?
These are Winter’s mines, and he’s forcing my people to use what little strength they have to dig them up. They spent sixteen years in Angra’s work camps; they should be healing, not chasing power for a man who already has too much.
My anger flares again and I turn, leaving the carcasses of my mock enemies behind.
Theron walks beside me in silence, and as we weave around a few boulders, Gaos springs up before us as if the Klaryns had been keeping it hidden until my return. It looks much like Jannuari did when we first arrived, but at least parts of that city have been patched together since then. So few people have chosen to repopulate Gaos that we’ve only been able to repair the area closest to the mines, leaving most of the city in ruins. Cottages dilapidated from disuse line the streets; rubble fills alleys in hastily made piles. Snow coats everything, hiding some of the destruction under pure ivory.
I hesitate, just a twitch of a pause, when Gaos comes into view. But it’s enough to cause Theron to thread his arm around my waist, tugging my body to his.
“It will be better in time,” he assures me.
I peer up at him, still desperately clutching my chakram. His hand cups my hip, warm against Winter’s perpetual coolness.
“Thank you.”
Theron smiles, but before he can reply, another voice cuts him off.
“My queen!”
The sound of snow crunching under her feet follows Nessa’s cry, which is just as quickly followed by her brothers’ startled shouts. By the time I turn to face her, she’s halfway across the remaining stretch of snow between Gaos and me, her gown flapping around her legs.