“I’m not the joking type,” she replied. “Am I, Bac?”
“No, Lady Thyra.”
Thyra.That name did something to me, opened a hole I hadn’t known it was possible to open. Tears that I did not wish to show, let alone let fall, filled my eyes. My twin sister was alive. Right across the table from me!
For so long, I’d wondered if I had blood family in Winter’s Realm. When I was a slave, I’d imagined a quiet family life in some small town glittering with snow outside the window of a cottage. A place alive with fae and the love of a family. Since learning who I was, I’d resigned myself to not having anyone. At least not a blood family. And I’d been happy to have those who loved me, my chosen family and my mate, take their place.
But Ididhave family, and she was staring at me with those cold ice-blue eyes. Smirking at me.
“I guess you didn’t know I existed either,” Thyra said. “Then, at the very least, no one can claim that you’re far cleverer than me.”
Her flat tone brought me back down. “Why would you say that?”
Thyra shared a pointed look with both Bac and Brynhild before answering. “You were at the Theater, Neve. You heard Avalina Truso’s song. She sang forme, the heir and holder of Winter’s Touch. Once I learned who you were, I looked into the histories. You were born twenty minutes before me, and while I know little of your magic, you’re a threat to my ambitions.” She cocked her head. “You were planning on challenging that upstart White Bear, were you not?”
I leaned back, unable to believe that this moment, something that might have been beautiful, would begin like this. That my twin was worried I’d take what she thought was hers.
However, she was right on one score: As she knew little of me, I could say the same of her. I needed to take a step back and be more cautious.
Thyra had tried to kill me once, and her soldiers had wreaked havoc on the fae of Avaldenn. She was dangerous, and while a sister of blood, she may not be a sister of the heart. I had to tread as though I walked on a frozen lake with a nøkken scratching at the ice from below.
“Yes, I was planning on challenging King Magnus,” I answered.
“When? How? And with what force? You arrived here with eight others, two of them cripples and one of those cripples is a human.” She smirked, but Bac appeared taken aback at her tone when she mentioned cripples. “I understand that your mate is formidable. The others might be too, but your numbers are not promising.”
“I wouldn’t take on King Magnus with only eight?—”
“Use his name. Or call him the White Bear.” Thyra plucked a piece of bread from the center of the table. “Do not allow him to be king. That gives him too much power, which he does not deserve.”
“There’s no denying he has the power, Thyra,” I retorted, my hands forming tight balls beneath the table. With every passing second, I felt more and more that she was toying with me.
“Names hold power,” she insisted. “History recognizes them. Reveres them.”
“Peoplegive those names power. And whether I call King Magnus a king or not,others will. At least until he meets his undoing. I will meet them where they are and, in me, they’ll see a relatable fae.”
Thyra snorted. “Are you aware what they are calling you right now? What they’re whispering in the villages and cities alike? What they’re calling your mate?”
She did not wait for my answer. “Slave Queen. Traitor Prince.”
My name did not surprise or hurt me, but my belly hardened at the thought of anyone calling Vale a traitor. Vale . . . once touted as the Warrior Bear, now a Traitor Prince. That would crush him, though perhaps his fall fromgrace had been inevitable after he tied himself to me. I didn’t think that King Magnus, who still did not know that Vale wasn’t his son, meant for that label to spread. But how could it not?
Thyra shook her head. “We’re both right. The people give names,andthey hold power. But when we are dead, more fae will come after us, and I would not like to be remembered, not for a second, as a slave queen, sister.”
I swallowed. “Considering my past, it’s not so odd.”
Thyra sipped her wine, a thoughtful expression on her face. “You mentioned ending the blight of Winter? How do you intend to do so?”
I frowned. Thus far, she’d been so mean, so unwelcoming, that I didn’t want to tell her, but someone had to extend the rowan branch.
“We were traveling south, to the seat of House Balik, in hopes of gathering allies.” I’d nearly said more allies, referring to the dwarves of Dergia, but they were my secret. I would not tell Thyra unless I was sure I could trust her. Fates willing, that day would come. “But we’ve also spoken of finding the Ice Scepter.”
“So the king doesn’t have it,” Thyra mused. “The rumors are true.”
King Magnus had never come out and said so, though I’d learned from Roar that the noble houses had surmised as much many turns ago. Apparently, the rebels had too.
“What do you want it for?” Bac asked.
“To tame Winter’s hold on the land. To help with the blight—if that is, in fact, wholly related from the disappearance of the Hallow.”
