Lemuel stepped between us. “Your Majesty, might Iremind you?—”
Magic struck Lemuel, knocking him clean off his feet. His knees hit the marble with a sound that made me flinch. Frost rimmed the stone beneath him, spreading like veins, creeping toward his body.
“No!” I called. “Heliconia?—”
She lifted one pale hand, stopping me mid-step with a ripple of cold. “He forgets his place.”
“He was only?—”
“Afraid,” she finished. “And rightfully so.”
Lemuel struggled to sit up, breath frosting into the air. “Your Majesty,” he rasped to me, not her. “Do not—bend.”
Heliconia’s gaze sharpened. “Bend?”
She drifted forward. Like mist over ice.
“How aboutbreak?” she purred.
Lemuel scrambled backward until his spine hit the stone pillar. But the ice reached him. Touched his hand. Raced up his arm.
His scream was thin and small.
I lurched forward. “He’s harmless.”
“On the contrary.” Her voice was almost kind. “Loyal men are always the most dangerous. They make kings believe they have something worth fighting for.”
She held out her palm and blew. A puff of icy air shot straight into his face.
The frost took him instantly.
A single, awful crunch as his entire body froze.
Then silence.
My breath hitched. Something in me twisted.
Heliconia stepped over his frozen body like it was a stray log in her path. She touched my cheek. Her fingers were so cold they burned. “You look pale, Callan. I do hope you find some color before our big day.”
“And what day is that? I have an opening in my schedule a week fromtomorrow?—”
“Sunset tomorrow,” she said, tone sharpening. “You will stand beside me as we are bound before your people. And then I will be crowned and set upon the Harvest Throne.”
“Tomorrow?” I repeated, incredulous. “Bit rushed, isn’t it?”
“We do not have the luxury of time,” she said coldly.
“What could possibly?—”
“That little bitch thinks she can burn my soldiers and get away with it,” she said darkly. “But I will show her just what her little trick will cost her in the end.”
The blood drained from my face.
Aurelia.
She’d managed to get into the camp. Maybe even rescue her Aine friend. And now Heliconia would take out her wrath against my people.
I bowed, masking the tightening in my chest. “As you wish.”
