Prologue
She awoke hungry, and the world could not feed her.
There was notenough, not of anything. Want was a yawning pit within her. Nothing could fill it. Nothing could soothe the primordial longing that hollowed her soul.
Butoh, she wanted.
She wanted, and she wanted, and she wanted.
Chapter One
Silas
“You didn’t tell her.”
Silas watched the carriage roll away. He watched until his hands froze into claws where they rested in a white-knuckled grip over the bannister of the South gallery. Watched until there was nothing left to see but a dark speck, edging into the last shadows untouched by the dawn.
“You didn’t tell her what you told me.”
Lady Imogen spoke without looking at him and her flat, distant tone did not deliver the words as a question. So he did not answer.
He was so tired. Tired right down into the marrow of his bones. He thought he might collapse into snowdust, and let the Winds rise and scatter him where he stood. But there was still Edward.
Edward, who had been his friend.
Edward, who had planned to murder his daughter in her bed.
Edward, with the ancient wicked power he’d claimed and the crown hanging at his fingertips.
There could be no rest. Not yet.
Lady Imogen had turned at his silence, and now watched him intently.
“Surely she needs to know that she’s—”
“I didn’t tell her,” Silas said, without taking his eyes from the horizon, “because she is in enough danger as it is. She’s not a child any longer. If it’s still there, she’ll know. This time, she’ll know. And if it was a fluke, or it’s gone, I—”
His voice broke, and he was too tired, too far beyond masculine pride or courtly manners to clear his throat or even swallow down the fractured words.
“If it’s gone, she’ll be safe.”
He hoped it was gone.
That hope was one he’d clung to, the one reason he’d allowed his daughter to bear so many years of loneliness and hurt. Why he’d never brought her home. To the family she deserved. Selma may have had an entire country to protect, but Silas had only one daughter, and for her, he would have seen a thousand kingdoms withered by the Frost.
The dark speck disappeared beyond a snowy hill and was gone. His entire heart, gone. Rolling away into the grey horizon, soon to sail across the ocean. Was it his imagination, or had the very air changed? The sky grown dark and ominous, smothering the dawning light?
“The palace will wake soon. We should go inside, Your Grace.”
Still, he did not move. Hehadn’timagined it—it was as though the aching in his chest had unspooled where he stood and cast a wide net of despair over the kingdom. The cold air was heavy on his skin, the clouds full and black, and something was coming,somethingwas—
“Your Grace?”
The skies burst.
Beside him, Imogen shrieked and stumbled back from the cascade of water that dropped like a thundering veil over the edge of the gallery. Silas reeled only slightly, still holding tight to the railing. Water pelted his knuckles, and he lifted one hand, reaching tentatively into the cold, open air until a shallow pool collected in his palm, rippling and splashing.
“Rain.”
