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Callum’s Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed heavily, his eyes searching mine.

“Which kingdom?” His voice was hoarse.

I tried to remember, tried to find the words Lillian had said. “I…” I licked my lips. “The memory is foggy. I think it started with an S, maybe? Sep… Sep-something.”

“Sepra,” Callum whispered.

That felt right. “Yes, that’s the one.”

Vincent muttered something that didn’t translate. It felt like a curse of some kind, though, uttered with enough passion it almost made me want to laugh.

After a long minute, Callum nodded. Amaria started asking a question, but Vincent quietly cut her off.

“It’ll need to wait,” he said, pointing toward the path where everyone else had continued on. Two horses coalesced from the trees, parting the snow with some kind of magic.

Without a word, Amaria unclasped my cloak and caught it in her waiting arms. Shelby guided Callum’s sweater over my head, adjusting the sleeves so they landed mid-palm. Pine and wisteria surrounded me. A deep part of me that felt entirely foreign settled at the scents. Beyond that, it wanted me to bury my nose in the warm fabric. I resisted on principle. I’d been vulnerable enough in the last ten minutes. As Amaria refastened my cloak, Vincent and Shelby returned to their horses. Callum’s hands were gentle as he helped me back onto Elyssian, adjusting small things on the saddle.

“This should help you be able to adjust without feeling like you’re going to fall,” he murmured. Then he handed me two of the lemon-grapes. “Tell me if you need another break.”

I swallowed and nodded, not sure what to say to him at this point. He palmed my thigh, and heat emanated from his hand. The soaked fabric quickly dried without burning my skin.

“T-thank you,” I whispered.

His eyes flashed with an emotion I couldn’t name as his mouth tightened. Then he was gone, grabbing the coin from the snow between our horses and gracefully swinging into his own saddle, urging the group of us forward as the first flakes of snow fell on Elyssian’s mane.

18

CALLUM

Vincent lowered onto the small canvas beside me with a heavy sigh. Tegan glanced toward us from his perch just outside the cluster of tents before focusing on the forest around us again. Across the large road cutting its way down the Staslid Mountains, another of the general guard sat on watch as well, layered against the cold and intermittent snow. I tipped my head back and closed my eyes, willing my mind to stop whirling. It did not.

“I’m sorry,” Vincent murmured, low enough the words wouldn’t carry to Tegan’s station.

I swallowed down my first reaction, keeping the scream behind my lips where it would do no harm and cause no alarm.

“I don’t understand,” I said instead, just as quietly.

Vincent ran a hand through his loose hair, moving it until it fell over his shoulder. “Perhaps that is why the earth was so adamant. It knew the treaty had been violated and entrusted that reality to you.”

“Then why bring me to her after her sister had been selected instead of before? The diplomatic mess this will be…” I trailed off.

Vincent knew how much of a nightmare all of this would turn into once we got to Starguard in another week. If we were lucky, Sepra would not resist the punishment the Votarists would mete out. I didn’t have it in me to pray to Asher that that would be the case, not when I’d rather not have to navigate the nullification at all.

“You remember what my father said when he insisted I join the Rite this cycle,” I said. Vincent nodded, though it hadn’t truly been a question. He’d sat beside me in the Grand Temple in the capital as my father issued his decree. There’d been heartbreak in my father’s eyes despite his calm demeanor. “A Diviner told him I was to join, that it was necessary I participate this cycle. Why if it would just lead to a war?”

I did not want my legacy to be one of violence and destruction.

The forest was silent, not even wind stirring the branches. Tegan adjusted, slowly standing and then beginning a careful perimeter of the cluster of tents. The small jar of fire he kept looped to his sword belt bobbed with his steps. The light was small enough it did not cast out much more than a few feet, just enough to give him aid in walking without ruining his vision to see what might be lurking in the trees.

“Perhaps it will not,” Vincent offered.

I snorted.

“She was brought into the Rite by Sepra and given only the court languages of there and Varím,” I said. The two kingdoms that split the southern continent. “I see no future in which the nullification doesn’t turn into war. Sepra has been dissatisfied for decades, its trade with Senona troubled just as long. Varím is…” I trailed off. Vincent knew just how volatile Varím could be. I grunted. “And with that civilian trade ship being attacked?”

Vincent sighed again, this one more weary.

“Have you heard of her place?” I asked after a minute.