She studied me, her expression unreadable. “Remember this, Callan. When you stand beside me tomorrow, your realm survives. Resist me…” Her gaze drifted to Lemuel’s frozen body. “…and Autumn will fall before the moon has set on its lands.”
Then she left.
A sweep of ice in her wake, a cold so deep the candles guttered.
When the doors shut behind her, I stood there, unmoving. Lemuel’s cracked, iced-over face stared up at me from the marble. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.
“You idiot,” I whispered. “You should have kept your mouth shut.”
But grief crept in anyway. Grief and guilt. He’d died trying to save me.
I crouched beside him. Reached out. My fingers hovered above the frost but didn’t touch.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Then I stood. Steadied myself. Straightened my coat.
And walked away.
I didn’t stop until I reached the hidden door in the back of the hall. Down the spiraling stairs. Into the cold, stale depths beneath the castle.
My footsteps echoed as I approached the small chamber.
And there it sat. The true Harvest Throne. Alive with power. Pulse slow and steady under the veined gold. I sat and rested my palm against its armrest. Warmth thrummed beneath my skin.
“Tell me how to stop her,” I whispered. “Tell me how to save my people. Tell me how to be different than him.”
A faint pulse answered.
Soft.
Warm.
Steady.
Not a promise. A reminder.You already chose differently.
I closed my eyes.
“I know,” I breathed. “Now tell me what choice I make next.”
No answer.
Because that was the cruelest truth of all. The throne could not rule for me. My father’s crown could not protect me. Heliconia would not spare me. And Aurelia—the one person who might have stood with me—was gone.
Above, the palace groaned under the tightening grip of winter. And far north, the smoke of my own scorched army still curled into the sky.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rydian
Ilay on the cot Talthis’s people had given me, staring at the roof of the tent while the sounds of the Lightshore camp slowly thinned. At first: low-voiced conversations, the clink of armor, someone laughing too loudly. Then: the occasional cough, the rustle of bedrolls. Eventually, only night remained—crickets, the distant rush of the river, the whisper of leaves.
My body was exhausted, but my mind refused to quiet.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the endless cascade of furyfire.
A valley turned to ash. Frostwights crumpling. Obsidians screaming. Aurelia, standing alone on that slope, her mark blazing like a dark star while the world burned around her.
