But almost immediately it falls, the light snuffing out. “William values you, you know.”
I spin away, plucking blades of grass and tossing them into the air. Mather doesn’t pick up on my sudden distance—or maybe he does, but knows I need to hear what he’s saying.
“William was one of Winter’s highest-ranking generals.” Mather waves his hand through the air, brushing at a few of the blades I freed. “And he feels like he failed. He sees you as someone who should be dancing at balls, not scaling towers and killing soldiers. Just try to be considerate—”
I turn to him, my face hot. “Considerate to the man who can’t even manage a pat on the back when I push us one massive step closer to freeing our kingdom?”
Mather tips his head. “Try to understand that he feels guilty for needing you to help free our kingdom at all. It’s not that you didn’t do a fantastic job—you did, and everyone’s gathered around the fire right now swapping stories about you.”
I grin, if only a little. “I am pretty amazing.”
Mather smiles back. “I bet you would’ve survived even without the lapis lazuli.”
I laugh and run my fingers over my pocket where the small stone pushes into my hip. I keep forgetting it’s there, like I’ve already accepted it as part of myself. “You’re giving credit for my success to a rock?”
He shrugs. “No one has gotten the locket half before. It can’t be a coincidence, and I expect you to heap appropriate amounts of praise on me for giving it to you in the first place.”
“You’ve had it with you on locket missions before. Why didn’t it ever help you?”
Mather exhales and suddenly he’s just watching me and I’m watching him and all trace of humor is gone.
“You’re right. I guess it wasn’t the stone; it was how amazing you are,” he says.
Coolness balls in my stomach against the heat that rises to my face. Sitting there, the dying light playing on his strong features, his words lingering between us . . . Mather is the steadiest force I’ve ever known. Angra has every right to fear him.
With half of the locket in our grasp, we’re so much closer to Mather being who he’s always been meant to be—and I need to see him as that man. Sir has mentioned a few times that Mather will soon need to wed. And he’ll be expected to have a female heir, and I will cheer for him and his beautiful new family, and pretend it doesn’t kill me to not be enough for him.
So I stand. I brush the stray pieces of grass off my pants and stare daggers into him on the ground, ignoring the frantic way my hand grips the stone in my pocket. “You are right, as always, Your Highness. I will try to be more understanding with Sir.”
Mather looks up at me, his mouth falling open like he wants the right words to tumble out. I’ve heard Sir tell him too: You’re royalty, she’s not, and there’s too much riding on your future to squander it on an alliance that won’t benefit Winter.
He stands, his eyes boring into my face. “Remember when I told you the world isn’t balanced?”
I hesitate, all the air trapped in a knot in my throat. “What?”
Mather’s fingers brush my hand, the one that isn’t desperately clutching the stone, gentle pricks of contact that make the knot of air in my throat tighten. He hooks a finger into one of mine, his breathing ragged. “I’ll find a way to restore the balance,” he promises.
I stare at him, unable to process his words. He doesn’t try to explain what he meant or do more than stand there next to me, watching me, waiting.
I know you two grew up together, but he’s our future king. He’s too important to allow anything more than friendship.
My pulse thunders as Mather’s words warp with Sir’s, conflicting bits of knowledge that make me dizzy. Mather is too important to waste on me. But—
I ease my hand into his, his coarse fingers swallowing mine. Like he’d been waiting for me to reciprocate.
No.
My fingers uncurl, slowly, and I slide my hand out of his. It’ll hurt too much when it ends. Not if—when. When he marries some foreign dignitary’s daughter. When he moves on.
I peel my eyes from him, unable to see whatever emotion flares across his face, if anything, when I pull away. Night throws a number of shadows onto the reaching, clawing fingers of scraggy trees and bushes by the stream, and a gust of wind makes a few of the shadows waver, bulks of darkness that swagger like shuffling boars—
I freeze.
Those aren’t shadows.
Everything in my body screams with warning and I curse Herod a million times over for stealing my chakram.
“Mather.” The strain in my voice pulls him out of the tension between us. I can feel when he sees them, his posture sharpening. The bodies in the trees move again, five of them—Spring scouts.
One of the men eases out from behind a tree, standing in full view. He knows we see him. He tips his head, body masked in the darkness of early evening, and I can imagine the smile tugging at his mouth. My master will be thrilled I found you.
The other scouts follow his lead, materializing from the grass and bushes until they stand before us, shoulder to shoulder, hands twitching at their waists. Waiting for us to move. One snaps his head toward the horse pen and back again so quickly I wouldn’t have caught it if I’d blinked. They’re going to steal our horses to get back to Spring; they probably abandoned their own a few hours back to avoid being spotted. They’ll try to kill some of us before they leave, to whittle our numbers even lower before they tell Angra where we are so he can stage the final strike. So he can be the one to kill Mather himself.
We can’t let them return to Spring.
We need weapons. We need to alert the others. We need to—
Mather makes a decision before I do, grabbing my hand and dragging me into camp. I flip one last look behind me. The five soldiers move, tearing over the grass toward the horse pen.
This is my fault. They tracked me. I led them here from Lynia, straight here, because Sir is right—I am just a child who shouldn’t be fighting in a war.
Mather pulls me faster and something bounces out of the collar of his leather breastplate. The locket half. It gleams in the setting sun’s light, faint and flickering in the shadows, yet embedded with powerful and fiery potential. It’s Winter’s essence.
I rip my hand out of his. “Warn Sir!”