When she was gone, I looked toward the tunnel mouth where a sliver of stars was just barely visible through the crack.
Tomorrow, the valley below would burn.
And whether it was Heliconia’s army or the princess asleep in this cave that struck the match, I knew one truth with terrible clarity: If she fell, I’d burn with her. There’d be nothing left for me in this realm without her in it.
Chapter Thirty-One
Callan
Isat on the Harvest Throne, sprawled in what I hoped looked like careless confidence, one leg draped over the armrest. My father’s crown glinted dully on the table beside me. I didn’t wear it unless I had to. It was heavy and had a phantom scent of blood no one had ever managed to wash away.
Reports lay scattered across the table at the base of the steps—lists of troop movements, dwindling supplies, villages lost to ice and flame. I’d read them all twice. The numbers didn’t change. No matter how many soldiers I sent north, Heliconia’s destruction crept farther south each night.
I leaned back, studying the vaulted ceiling. Dust motes floated through the shafts of afternoon light slanting across the chamber. It should have been beautiful. Instead, it just looked old and worn.
“Majesty.”
Lemuel’s voice cut through the silence like a chisel through stone. The elder advisor appeared in the doorway, robes the color of old parchment, eyes sharp and humorless.
Despite his irritating demeanor, he’d proven useful in theshort time I’d been crowned. I’d dismissed the others when I’d realized their loyalty to my father had made them too eager to backstab me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The queen of Winter has arrived.”
“Already?”
“You requested she be admitted the moment she arrived.”
“Yes, well.” I rose, smoothing the wrinkles from my coat. “That was before I remembered she’s likely come to freeze me to death.”
“Majesty,” Lemuel said in that disapproving tone that suggested I was twelve again. “It would serve you to take this seriously.”
“Oh, I take it very seriously,” I said, flashing him a grin I didn’t feel. “I’m simply choosing not to cower in the face of my death.”
He sighed, muttered something that sounded like a prayer to whatever gods still tolerated me, and stepped aside.
The great hall’s doors creaked open. Cold wind rushed in first—sharp, metallic, laced with the scent of frostbitten pine. Then came Heliconia.
The temperature in the room dropped a full ten degrees as she strode in.
She was draped in white fur with silver trim as she’d been the night we’d last met, her dark hair pinned with shards of ice that didn’t melt even under the glow of the braziers. Her beauty wasn’t the kind that invited warmth—it was the sort that warned you away from the edge of a cliff even as you leaned closer to peer over its deadly edge.
“Your Majesty,” she said, her voice smooth and cold as a winter stream.
“Conqueror,” I said, mocking a bow as if it were a title equal to my own.
She let it roll off. “When you failed to answer my letter, I was worried some ill had befallen you, but you look well.”
“I thought I’d offer some build-up,” I said.
“And, in turn, I allowed you more than ample time to consider my offer.”
“Oh, do you mean the offer to spare my kingdom if I agreed to a lifetime of marital bliss? What’s to consider?”
A faint smile curved her lips, more animal than fae. “And yet you delayed your answer.”
“I wanted to think on it.”
