We’re nestled inside a glen of white-dusted evergreens just over the Hyraxian border. Snow-capped mountains surround us as we sit around the fire, watching the black smoke dissolve into the night sky.
The wind kicks up the snow clinging to the fir-lined boughs, sending soft wisps swirling around us. Serena shivers beside me. I slide my jacket off and sling it around her shoulders, then tuck her into my side.
“Body heat.” She gives me a grateful nod.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that, bud.
“So do we have a plan, or are we just going to wing it?” Kai drawls.
“I have a friend here who might be able to help us,” I respond.
We fall back into silence. Derek’s loss hangs overhead, consuming every bit of air in the glen. I can feel the sorrow rolling off Serena, dimming the light that always seems to hover around her.
“Maybe we should say a few words,” Dover suggests, glancing around the fire. “For the king.”
Everyone is quiet, staring into the flames.
“I’ll start.” Kai presses to his feet, struggling to balance on his good leg.
“Derek was a good male and a strong king. Far better than my mother deserved. I wasn’t always his favorite—in fact, I don’t think Ieverwas. But the day we met, he clapped me on the back and looked me in the eye. It was the first time someone had done that in years. Looked me in the eye and actually saw me. And he said”—Kai smiles to himself— “‘I’m sorry for your loss. But know that you always have a home here. And a father if you so desire. My door is always open.’”
He lets out a bleak laugh. “With that one line, he was more of a father to me than mine ever was. I regret not taking him up on it. The open door. The fatherhood. I regret not being his son.”
Kai lifts his flask, takes a sip, and pours some of its contents onto the freshly fallen snow. “Long live the king.”
“He was kind,” Marideth murmurs, her handtwining with Dover’s. “Fierce. And generous. He loved his kingdom, and he died defending it. There’s honor in that.”
“He welcomed all of us. Depraved as we are,” Dover says, a nostalgic smile on his face. “How many times he could have tossed us out and banished us for corrupting his daughter.”
Kai snickers. “She corrupted us first, and everyone knows it.”
“He was a friend to my parents,” I find myself saying. “He loved them. He didn’t know me, had no reason to put his faith in me, but he did. Trusted me to be on his council. He’s probably half the reason I’m here today.”
The last link to my parents may be gone, but if not for Derek, they would never have bound me to Serena in the first place. I could have gone a lifetime not knowing her. A lifetime missing someone I’d never met.
I guess I have him to thank for that.
“I was too slow,” Serena blurts, lost in the fire. “I was too slow. If I had screamed sooner, he might still be here.”
I angle myself toward her. “This was not your fault. Alright? This is on Kylian and those monsters,” I tell her, but I don’t think she hears me.
“I could have stopped it. Derek—” She breaks off.
Then the flames begin to swell, blasting upward with a loud rush. All of us amble backward except for Serena. She doesn’t move. She stares, entranced by the flames, and that’s when I realize she’s the one doing it.
“Serena.” I clasp her shoulders, shaking her. The flames burst higher as she watches, a slave to her own magic. “Serena, the flames. You have to calm down.”
Furi lets out a whine, shifting around in circles, tail tucked between her legs. Serena trembles as her knees crash into the snow.
“Serena, look at me.”
“It isn’t fair. Twice. I had to lose him twice. How is that—how is that fair…” She shakes her head as the flames surge again. I take her face in my hands, sinking down in front of her.
“It’s not, sweetheart, it’s not. But you have to breathe. You have to leave that fire alone.”
Leave it alone,I urge.
Finally, her eyes snap to me, some awareness budding there. The flames recede to normal magnitude, and her face goes blank like she just woke up in an unfamiliar place. She opens her mouth, but something draws her attention upward, and she gasps.
