I wish I didn’t have to force it away—I wish none of us had to, and we were all strong enough to deal with the things that have happened to us.
A tingle of chill blossoms in my chest. Sparking and wild, icy and alive, and I stifle a sigh at what it signifies.
When Angra conquered my kingdom sixteen years ago, he did so by breaking our Royal Conduit. And when a conduit is broken in defense of a kingdom, the ruler of that kingdom becomes the conduit themselves. Their body, their life force—it all merges with the magic. No one knows this, save for me, Angra, and the woman whose death turned me into Winter’s conduit: my mother.
You can help them deal with what happened, Hannah prods. Since the magic is me, unlimited within my body, she’s able to speak to me, even after her death.
I’m not forcing healing on them, I say, withering at the thought. I know the magic could heal their physical wounds—but emotional? I can’t—
I didn’t mean that, Hannah says. You can show them that they have a future. That Winter is capable of surviving.
My tension relaxes. Okay, I manage.
The crowd stills as Sir leads me out of the tent. Twenty workers are already deep in the mine, as every opening has gone the same way—they go in, I stay up top and use my magic to fill them with inhuman agility and endurance. Magic only works over short distances—I couldn’t use it on the miners if I was in Jannuari. But here, they’re only in the tunnels just ahead.
“Whenever you’re ready, my queen,” Sir says. If he senses how much I hate these mine openings, he doesn’t say anything, just steps away with his arms behind his back.
I grind my jaw and try to ignore everything else—Hannah, Sir, all the eyes on me, the heavy quiet that falls.
My magic used to be glorious. When we were trapped in Spring and it reared up and saved us; when we first returned to Winter and I wasn’t sure how to help everyone, and it came flooding out of me to bring snow and fill my people with vitality. When I had no idea what I wanted or how to do anything, I was grateful for the way the magic always just knew.
But now I realize that if I wanted to stop it from pouring out of me, surging through the earth, and filling the miners with strength and endurance, I couldn’t. That’s what scares me most about these times—I can feel how boundless the magic is. It sparks and swirls up, and I know, deep in the throbbing pit of my heart, that my body would give out long before the magic would even consider stopping.
I’ve tried to harness the streams of iciness that whirl through my chest and turn every vein into crystallized snow. But reason clogs my certainty, knowing that my people need the very magic I’m trying to stifle, and before I can will myself to control it, it’s done whatever it wanted to do.
Like right now, the magic pours into the miners before I’m able to breathe. I stand in its wake, trembling, eyes snapping open to look on the expectant faces of the crowd. They can’t see it or sense it, unless I channel it into them. No one knows how empty I feel, like a holster for arrows, existing only to hold a greater weapon.
I tried to tell Sir about this—and immediately choked it back when Noam came in the room. If Noam finds out that all he needs to do is have an enemy break his Royal Conduit and he would become his own conduit, he wouldn’t have to find the chasm. He’d be all-powerful, filled with magic.
And he wouldn’t need to pretend to care about Winter anymore.
I turn, hungry for a diversion. The crowd takes that as my dismissal and softly applauds.
“Speak to them,” Sir urges when I move for the tent.
I curve my arms around myself. “I’ve given the same speech every time we’ve opened a mine. They’ve heard it all before—rebirth, progression, hope.”
“They expect it.” Sir doesn’t yield, and when I take another step toward the tent, he grabs my arm. “My queen. You’re forgetting your position.”
If only, I think, then immediately regret it. I don’t want to forget who I am now.
I just wish I could be both this and myself.
Alysson and Dendera stand quietly behind Sir; Conall and Garrigan wait a few paces off to the side; Theron made it here and converses with a few of his men. This normalcy makes it easier to notice how out of place Nessa suddenly looks next to her brothers. Her shoulders angle forward, but her attention is pinned on an alley to my right.
I shake out of Sir’s grip and nod in Nessa’s direction as I stride forward.
“They’re back,” she whispers when I reach her. Her eyes cut to the alley, and I can see from this angle that Finn and Greer stand at the edge of the light, motionless until my attention locks onto them.
Finn bobs his head and they move toward the main tent as if they’ve been in Gaos all along. They left Jannuari with us but split off soon after, creeping away before any Cordellans could realize that the queen’s Winterian council went from five members to three.
Sir guides me to the tent as if afraid I’ll refuse to do that too. But I push ahead of him, crowding around the table in the center with Alysson and Dendera. We all try to maintain a relaxed air, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to draw attention. But my anxiety splits into frayed strands that loop more tightly around my lungs with every passing second.
“What did you find?” Sir is the first to speak, his tone low.
Finn and Greer push against the table, sweat streaking through smudges of dirt on their faces. I cross my arms. Such a normal thing—the queen’s advisors returning from a mission. But I can’t get the gnawing in my head to agree.