Behind us, the horses stamped the ground. Likely, they sensed something coming, as did I.
A moment later, shapes broke the surface: dark hair slicked flat to skulls, skin with a moon’s hue to it, eyes too clear and opaque to be anything of the surface. The first naiad rose to her shoulders, naked, and set her hands on the bank like she meant to pull the land closer. Water slid from her knuckles in threads.
“Amanti of the Aine,” she said. A voice like a current at the bottom of a pool. “You took your time returning to us.”
“Has Patamoi passed his crown, then?” Amanti said, and there was fondness in the name. “Or are you the royal welcoming party?”
A smile showed small, pointed teeth. “He sent me todecide if you’ve brought him a flood or a drought.” Her gaze slid to me. The current darkened. “Shadow-bearer. I’m surprised you would dare to return to these banks.”
I kept my hands visible and empty of any weapons, including my shadows. “Princess,” I said, bowing my head in respect.
The royal naiad’s eyes cut to Aurelia last. The river stilled like a held breath. “Summer’s secret,” she said, but she said it like it was a title as much as any insult.
Aurelia didn’t flinch. “Your Highness.”
The naiad’s smile widened.
Farther out, three more heads surfaced, each watching me and the Midnight fae that lined the ridge over my shoulder. Behind them, the current swirled in on itself.
Amanti stepped forward, wings tucked, and showed her empty hands. “We’re here to ask an audience with your king. We come with news and a debt he may wish to collect.”
“Your debt,” said the naiad, “is overdue.” She tilted her head toward me. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“The Winter queen seeks to detain us,” I said. “We wish you no harm, I swear it on my own blood and that of the gods. Will you grant us passage?”
The naiad princess lifted her hand and flicked water from her sharp-nailed fingers. The naiad watching her back perked up.
“Follow,” she said. “If you can keep up.”
She vanished. The others slipped under with her, leaving only rings chasing rings across the surface of the water. Slowly, those rings became a tunnel. The water slid away from them, creating a hollowed path into the depths.
Amanti glanced at me. It was dangerous, letting her venture Beneath, considering the debt she owed. I knew better than to talk her out of it.
I stepped to the lip of the bank and held my arm out to Aurelia.
“I don’t need?—”
“I know,” I said. “But the naiad should see you are not unprotected.”
This time, she didn’t argue. She took my wrist, warm and alive, her touch heating my skin in a way that had nothing to do with furyfire, andwe moved together as the river opened and decided—for the moment—not to drown us.
Chapter Fifteen
Callan
Winter had claimed the northern borderlands. From my horse, the world looked like glass; fields encased in silver, rivers frozen mid-current, trees split under their own ice. The villages of the northern reach had once been bright with harvest banners and the scent of mulled cider. Now their windows—what windows were left standing—gaped black, their wells frozen solid. Despite the ice, the air stank of death.
Another village destroyed by Winter’s wrath. We’d put out the fires that morning. They still smoldered beneath the freshly fallen snow.
I dismounted in silence, boots clanging against brittle ground. Even with a layer of snow, the earth here was hard—stubborn, dying, unwilling to thaw. My breath puffed in clouds. The wind howled through the skeletal orchards like it was grieving.
My men waited beyond the ruins, camped in a valley that should have been high with corn. The tents gleamed dull gold beneath the pale sun, but nothing alive stirred. No birds. Noinsects. Not even the sound of water rushing through the streams.
A voice broke the silence behind me. “Majesty?”
It was Holt, shivering in his armor, his breath white in the air. “What are your orders, sire?”
“We’ll return to camp,” I said.
