“You should go talk to her,” Rafe whispered, jolting Xander from his reverie.
“Huh? What?” He shook his head and pulled his gaze from where it had been lingering—on the princess. They’d arrived at the outpost an hour ago, a small set of crystal buildings right on the edge of the House of Peace, a place for a little rest before the long flight home tomorrow.
As soon as they’d landed, his mate had walked right up to the spot where land gave way to air and plopped on the cold stone, staring out at empty space. Her friend had been by her side for a while but must have gotten cold. All the ravens had come inside to escape the chill, but the princess remained outside, as though the ice of her home lived in her veins and didn’t bother her in the slightest.
“You’ve been staring out the wall for ten minutes. Just go say hello,” Rafe prodded.
“I don’t think she wants to talk.”
“I don’t think she knows what she wants.”
Xander snorted, gaping at Rafe in amazement. “Oh, and you do? You know what a princess who’s been lied to, matched with a foreign prince, and practically tossed from her homeland wants? You know that?”
"Fine," Rafe relented, half growling the word. “Maybe I don’t know what she wants, but I know she’s your mate. And I know you need to start somewhere, Xander. The longer you two go without talking, the worse it will get. So…” He let the words trail off as his gaze darted around the sitting room, searching for inspiration. In a flash of motion, he grabbed a fur throw from a nearby chair. “Take this. Tell her you thought she might be cold. See what she says. If nothing else, she’ll appreciate the gesture.”
“I don’t know, Rafe,” Xander murmured, ignoring the blanket as he glanced at Lyana's solitary figure once more.
“Just go, Xander.”
Rafe pushed him, but Xander held his ground, digging his feet in. If he was going to talk to his mate, it would be on his terms. He squared his shoulders, shook the tension from his wings, and turned toward the door of his own accord. Of course, he didn’t take a step forward, because, well, his feet were frozen with fear, his heart thrummed wildly, and his tongue felt fat and idle, with nothing to say. Instead, he stood there for a minute, gathering his courage, trying to take deep, even breaths.
Finally, he gave in and turned around to snatch the blanket—the gods if Rafe’s idea wasn’t a good one—but when he looked at his brother, he paused.
Rafe stared out the window, the muscles in his jaw clenched.
Something in his eyes took Xander back to a different time, years ago, when he’d found his brother in much the same position, standing in the rubble of a scorched room, staring at the sun burning in the morning sky. It had been the day of the king’s funeral, but Rafe had been more interested in paying his respects to his mother, a woman no one else bothered to remember. He’d gone to her room to lay flowers on the balcony and had remained there during the royal funeral, until Xander had come to fetch him. There had been tears on his cheeks then, which had long since dried. For some reason, that same silent, haunted goodbye danced across his lips now as it had then. Though for the life of him, Xander couldn’t imagine why.
“Rafe?”
His brother flinched and jerked his head toward Xander—too quickly. “What?”
“Nothing, just—” Xander knitted his brows, unsure why he felt like an intruder but unable to combat the sensation. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
Rafe’s face softened. “I’d do anything for you.”
“I know,” Xander replied, still torn without fully grasping why.
As though he sensed it, Rafe turned on his heels and crossed the common area, retreating to his room and leaving Xander with no more reason to delay.
I can do this, he thought, clutching the blanket, trying to bring his mind back to the task at hand. She’s a girl. Just a girl. I’ve talked to many before.
But she wasn’t just a girl.
She was his mate.
And somehow, that changed everything.
Xander shivered when he stepped outside, not just from the cold. He hastily tightened his jacket and flapped his wings, firing his muscles to warm his body as he flew the short distance and landed a few feet behind her, boots scuffing loudly against the snow. She glanced halfway over her shoulder, stopping when she realized who was there.
He cleared his throat. “I brought you a fur. I thought you might be cold.”
The princess didn’t respond. She just returned her gaze to the open sky, leaving Xander standing there like a fool.
I knew this was a stupid idea.
I knew she wanted to be left alone.
I knew—
“Well, are you going to give it to me? Or did you just come to gawk in the cold instead of behind the crystal? Speaking as someone who grew up in a palace made of the stuff, I can assure you, it’s not the stealthiest of materials for spying.”
“I— I’m—” Xander winced, and then sighed before stepping forward. “Here.”
Lyana turned, accepting his offer, flicking her gaze briefly to his face before returning it to the blanket. She tossed the fur over her shoulders and crouched back down to perch on the rock, staring out at the world.
Xander was unsure whether she wanted him to go or to stay. But Rafe had been right—this was his mate, and sooner or later, they would have to talk to each other. Why not start now? He wasn’t normally such a blithering fool. In fact, at home some people might have called him charming. Forgoing the practice grounds had given him plenty of opportunity to focus on other skills, and the art of communication was supposedly one of them, though his training was failing him at the moment.
He looked out, wondering what she could possibly have been staring at for the past hour. The sky was turning dark. Behind them, the sun was beginning to set. A white crescent hung low on the horizon, but there were no stars on which to make wishes. Just endless air spotted by clouds dropping into the misty void below, beneath which no one knew what lay.
“Thinking of making a run for it?” he teased as he knelt beside her.
The dove’s tone was unnervingly even as she replied, “I haven’t decided yet.”
Xander gulped, but decided he would stay the course for them both, and that he would fight in the only way he knew how. “What do you think you’d find?”
“The place where the dragons come from, I suppose,” she murmured, eyes flaring to life for the briefest instant. “I’ve heard the fire god walks the earth, the king of a barren wasteland.”
“They say the ocean has turned to a sea of molten flame,” he suggested. “To go near it would mean certain death.”
“Certain?” She joined the fun. “I doubt it would be anything a little snow couldn’t soothe. Worth a bit of pain, surely, to see beneath the mist, to know what waits there.”
“You’re not afraid?” he asked, surprised. “Of the fire god’s wrath? Of his dragons?”
“Other things scare me more,” she told him, voice so soft it was nearly drowned out by the wind whipping over the edge, pressing into their chests, making the blanket snap loudly, though she didn’t seem to notice.
What?
What scares you more than that?
Xander ached to know what could make her afraid, this princess who had won the trials, who had bested all her peers, who had defied tradition, maybe even the gods, by her actions. What could she possibly fear?
“Why did you choose me?” he asked, instead. Because they were little more than strangers, and he didn’t think he’d earned the answers to his other questions. Not yet, at least.
“I didn’t, not exactly.” The princess finally turned toward him, the barest hint of a smile on her lips.
He couldn’t tell if she was teasing, but he thought maybe, for a moment, she was. Yet, despite being delivered in a light tone, the words stung. Xander tried not to cringe. “My brother, then. Why did you pick him?”
“I didn’t pick him, trust me.” A frown passed over her forehead, etched deep with frustration. “He’s rude and somewhat of a grouch. And I just— I—”
The princess paused. Her words had released a knot in his chest, and Xander couldn’t stop a small grin from flittering over his lips at her rather apt description of Rafe. But then she sighed as she unweaved whatever tangled mess was in her unreadable mind. “What would you have done? I had four princes to choose from, all of whom were little more than strangers. My father matched me with Damien, and I’m sure he would’ve made a good mate, but if I’d followed along, then my whole life would have been decided for me. And I wanted a say. Maybe that makes me the typical spoiled princess who doesn’t realize how lucky she is. Maybe it just makes me human. I’m not really sure. All I know is that I chose the last mate anyone thought I would, and it gave me the slightest bit of pleasure to shock them all.”
Xander nodded.
He understood the binds of royalty. He understood the weight, the restrictions, the sacrifices. But unlike her, he embraced them. All Xander wanted to be was a good prince, a great king for his people. Everything he’d ever done was for them—to erase the mistakes of the past, to ensure them a better future. In every decision he placed them first, over his honor, his desires, and even his pride.
“Why did you say yes?” Lyana asked.
“Because,” he started, and then paused. He could lie and say it was her beauty or her brashness, that he’d been swept away in the moment. But it wasn’t the truth. In his heart, he’d gone there expecting someone else, wanting someone else, mind full of a dream that would never come true—the silly dream of a boy, the sort of dream an heir wasn’t allowed to follow. And his mate deserved honesty. “Because you’re the daughter of Aethios.”
Lyana nodded, a series of unsurprised rises and falls, before she let her lips spread into a wry smile. “Then I guess we both got what we wanted.” She stood, ending the moment, whatever it was. “Thank you for the blanket, but the sun is nearly down, so we should probably go inside.”
The princess held out the fur to him, and he took it. Their fingers brushed and they both hastily retreated, letting go at the same time. A gust of wind snatched the blanket, lifting it into the sky so it looked like a living thing as it wriggled in the air, then dropped beneath the edge, fluttering as though it had wings. Either one of them could have raced to retrieve it, but they didn’t. They stayed there, watching it disappear.
“Lysander,” she murmured. The word rolled from her lips, dipped in honey, tantalizing and smooth, as though his name were something precious, as though it held power. The sound sent a tingling down his spine.
He looked at her.
But she’d already turned around. Before he could ask why she’d said his name, her luminescent ivory wings flapped, leaving nothing but a plume of snow in her wake.