“And you?” I asked, cocking my head, seeing past all the cold cruelty. “What did that curse cost you, I wonder? It’s been seven years, after all, since the realm has seen you march your abominations to another court’s doorstep to demand respect with violence. Did it really take you so long to recover from your wasted efforts?”
She laughed once—a sound like ice snapping.
“You mistake patience for price,” Heliconia purred. Her voice was a cool blade drawn across silk. “I did notloseyears. I learned how to wait until others exhausted themselves. I let harvest rot, and I let men like your father thin their own ranks, thanks to their greed and cruelty.”
She stepped closer, a soft smile on her mouth. “These years have been much like your Autumn Court. I trimmed and pruned and stored. And now, we reap what we have sown.”
I swallowed. “And now you come offering a fool’s bargain. My crown for your hand. And you call it compromise.” The words tasted bitter.
She cocked her head, eyes narrowing. “I offer survival. You, of all people, should know the difference. You are your father’s son after all.”
“And what if I am my own sort of king?”
Her smile sharpened as if she’d seen straight through my words to the lie. “Decide, Prince of Autumn. Marry and keep what remains, or refuse and watch what you would have ruled turn to a frozen memory. I do not threaten in anger, for you do not mean enough to me to stir it; I state what is inevitable. For you and all of Menryth.”
The frost at our boots creaked, the land listening.
“You will not set foot any farther into my kingdom,” I said with a snarl, more to keep my voice from breaking than from confidence.
She inclined her head as if obligingly amused. “Oh, I will set foot where it pleases me. But I will not dirty my soles where I can take the floor by breaking it beneath you. Think on that while your men shiver and starve, Callan. I will send for your answer soon enough.”
I watched her go until the ridge swallowed the last of her. The silence she left in her wake was a new kind of cold.
I stood there long after the snow coated her footprints,staring at the horizon. The fields were white for miles beneaththe moon’s reflection, the sky dark and still.
Behind me, the campfires sputtered and died one by one.
When I turned for home, I could almost hear my father’s voice again:Rule, boy. Even if you have to lie to yourself to do it.But I was done lying. Maybe not to my enemies—survival was cutthroat and required cunning—but I wouldn’t lie ever again to myself.
Chapter Sixteen
Aurelia
The tunnel stretched ahead like hollowed-out glass. I half expected the weight of the river to crash down on us, but the current curved around the passage—smooth, seamless, full of a magic I’d never witnessed before.
The naiad princess, whom I could only assume was one of Naliadne’s sisters, didn’t reappear. I hesitated, staring into the murky descent of the tunnel, trying to see the end of it. But it went on and on, deeper into the river’s depths—beckoning for us to follow its trail.
The others crowded in behind, but no one volunteered to go first. Even Amanti hung back, waiting. For me to lead, I realized. As if he’d read my thoughts, Rydian nudged me to start moving, and we stepped inside.
The air shifted immediately—humid and dense as it pressed in around us. Beneath my boots, the ground looked like sand trapped in amber. The light that came through the walls wasn’t sunlight anymore but something stranger: diffused, green-gold, and rippling, like the shimmer off fish scales.
Behind us, the crash of water rang out like a deafeningroar. I turned just in time to see the river close over the tunnel’s entrance, the surface smoothing itself until there was no tunnel at our backs; no sign we’d ever been there at all.
Rydian tightened his arm around me, pulling me in closer to his side as we walked. “An intimidation tactic,” he whispered.
“Effective,” I couldn’t help but admit.
He grinned, and I caught a glimpse of the confident prince, the one drunk on his own ego but also obsessed with using it to impress me. For some reason, it reminded me of Callan.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about a little water?” he teased.
“I’m more worried about the king whose will it bends to.”
“Patamoi won’t kill us without looking us in the eye first.”
“That’s so comforting,” I said wryly. “And his half-naked daughter, whom you seemed to know quite well?”
He smirked. “Jealous, Furious?”
