UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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16

AS I FLY out of the library and down the hall, Theron unfolds himself from the wall beside the door and falls into step beside me.

“You didn’t tell me they were already planning our wedding,” I snarl as I march, working my way to the ballroom and from there, to Noam’s study. “I guess I should have realized we wouldn’t have a lot of time to get to know each other.”

Theron keeps pace with me. He throws a glance behind us and I follow his gaze, my eyes locking on the herd of Winterian refugees behind us. Sir is at the lead, and when I look back at him his face darkens.

“Meira, stop. You are better than this!” Sir shouts. Mather grabs his arm and says something that stops the procession from following me any farther. A wave of gratitude flies through me for half a breath before I shoot around a corner and lose them.

“I’m sorry,” Theron says when it’s just us hurrying down the hall. “I didn’t want to tell you until I had a chance to talk my father into delaying it.” He spins around a corner after me and nearly smashes into a servant carrying a tray of vases. The servant cries out, both of them fly in opposite directions, and miraculously nothing falls as Theron continues down the hall beside me.

“Why does he think he can pull strings and make us dance around like this?” I growl.

Theron doesn’t say anything.

When we get to the ballroom I soar down the stairs. Halfway across the floor Theron realizes where I’m going and flings himself in front of me, walking backward because I don’t stop.

“Meira, this isn’t going to fix anything—”

“Don’t care.”

“I’ve talked to him every day since he announced the engagement; if I can’t change his mind—”

I grit my teeth. “I. Don’t. Care.”

Theron stops walking and I dart around him. I don’t think; I don’t do anything as Noam’s study looms in front of me. All I know when I pound my fist on the closed door is that I am so, so tired of this. So tired of Noam and Herod and Sir and Angra and all these arrogant, puppet-master men who hold all the strings and refuse to give them up. Life could be so easy if they would just let it go, if they would just let me go, because I am so tired of this….

I slam my fist on the door again. “Noam!” I shout.

No answer.

I try the handle. Unlocked. Stupid king.

“Meira, wait—”

Sir has finally caught up to me, as has everyone behind him, all staring like I’m an escaped animal from Bithai’s menagerie. Sir takes a step forward and I snarl. Maybe I am an escaped animal, and maybe they should look at me with that little flicker of fear. This is who I am, isn’t it? The untamed, unpredictable, useless orphan girl. I don’t want to hate them this much. I don’t want to blame them for this. But I do, and that hating and blaming makes my chest burn until I think I might incinerate from the inside out.

“Congratulations, everyone,” I announce as I open the door to Noam’s study. “You’ve finally broken Meira, the crazy, orphaned soldier-girl. She’s snapped, all thanks to the mention of floral arrangements.”

Dendera whimpers but I put her behind me as I step into the study. Noam isn’t in here. No one is. A desk sits directly in front of the door with tall auburn bookcases all around, mimicking the dark and cozy aura of the entryway just behind me. Papers and quills and ink jars clutter the top of the desk, books sit on stacks of other books and a ledger leans open on a stand.

“He’s not here, Meira,” Sir says behind me. “Leave this—”

He puts a hand on my arm, reaching over the threshold to me.

Don’t you dare touch me.

I snarl at him. “You can’t order me around. You aren’t my father, Sir.”

I slam the door on him before he responds. Before anyone responds. Before they realize I’ve locked the door and barricaded myself in Noam’s study and my little tantrum just went from little to really, really big.

“Meira!” Sir shouts from the other side of the door. He slams his fist against it and jiggles the knob and slams again. “Open this door right now! Do you have any idea of the consequences of breaking into the Cordellan king’s study—”

Alysson and Dendera start shouting too. I swear I hear Finn, Henn, and Greer chuckle, but I could just be imagining it in my delirious tantrum state.

I drop into Noam’s chair. What am I doing? I do know the consequences of breaking into the Cordellan king’s study and locking myself in here, because if he finds out—when he finds out—I’m pretty sure my time in Cordell will be spent in prison, if anything. Not that Noam’s helping us now.

Or is he?

I grab the ledger off the stand and flip through it, looking for some clue that he might actually be helping us, but the only entries are calculations for crops and trade amounts. I drop it back on the stand and look over the nearest stack of papers. Correspondences with a duke in Ventralli, complaints from a farm on the outskirts of Bithai that got flooded. I shove it all aside and start pulling open drawers. Extra quills and blank papers and—

The top left drawer is locked.

I pull again. It holds tight. I grab a letter opener off the table and break the lock just as a new voice joins the fray outside.

Noam.

“She what?” he bellows. “She’s your charge, William; your responsibility. I give you shelter and aid and allow you free rein of my palace, and this is how Winter repays me? By Cordell’s golden leaves, I swear I will—”

I rip open the drawer to papers, lots of papers, and grab the first one. Calculations for iron? The next looks similar but shows estimates for precious gems. Another is a map of—mines? Winter’s mines, dozens of lines swirling through an aerial view of the Klaryns. And then …

A letter.

Every bit of frustration, the tantrum I just had, floats up out of me. All that’s left is the steady pulse of realization, the dull, empty thud that echoes through my chest with each word on each page of this letter.

Copy. Original Sent the First Month of Proper Autumn.

To the King of the Spring Kingdom,

Cordell is now joined with Winter on the promise of engagement. My son and heir, Prince Theron Haskar, will take as his wife a surviving female refugee of Winter. I hereby enforce Cordell’s ownership of Winter and all its holdings as now owned by Spring through a binding and unbreakable contract of proprietorship through marriage.

Due to Cordell’s newfound authority in Winter, I am also prepared to offer Spring the trade of the heir of Winter, Mather Dynam, as a show of good faith.

I’m shaking so hard I can’t see the words on the letter anymore.

Noam betrayed us. He’s going to sell us—no, not us. Mather. He’s going to sell Mather to Angra so that Angra will let Noam take control of our … holdings. So Noam can take the riches out of our mines and gut our kingdom until all the magic comes pouring out. So Noam can get what he wants because he always gets what he wants—he isn’t helping us, he’s just using our connection to start ripping through the Klaryns.

I knew he was using us … but not this ruthlessly.

The door to the study whooshes open, slamming into the wall and knocking books off shelves. Noam glares at me, his face so red it’s purple, one hand on the door and the other on the frame.

“This is beyond unacceptable—” he starts, then his eyes drop to the open drawer, the letter in my hand, the others in my lap. His face gets even darker and he clears the space between the door and the desk in one giant step.

I can’t form words through my shock as Noam’s hand winds back. His fingers curl into a fist, everything in his body morphing into muscle and strength and the dagger at his belt pulses purple, glowing as Noam’s fist barrels through the air toward me—

“Stop!” Theron shouts.

Color whirls, limbs flail. Noam’s pressed against a bookcase, Mather holding him there by his collar, Theron standing just behind Mather. Both of them glare up at the Cordellan king like neither would have any objections to the other maiming him.

“To arms!” a soldier outside the study shouts and the ring of metal fills the air, swords drawn and knives unsheathed. The rest of the Winterians and five Cordellan soldiers press into the room with drawn blades.

Theron spins on his men. “Stand down!”

Noam grunts against Mather’s fists pressing into his neck. “Ungrateful boy! I am your father!”

“You are a coward,” Theron hisses, so low and so soft I barely hear him above the ringing in my ears. He turns to me, his eyebrows tight above his face. “Meira, why—” but he doesn’t finish, just stares at me, calm and scared and waiting.

Noam betrayed us.

“Meira,” Sir growls. He pushes around the Cordellan soldiers to stand before me, his arms trembling, his eyes straining to keep his anger tucked carefully inside.

“What have you done?” he whispers.

I wheeze, hearing his words. “What have I done?” I pant. “What I did was ignore your obnoxious, arrogant, controlling actions for one blissful moment, and uncovered Noam’s plot against us.”

My body goes cold as I grab onto the realization that if Sir had his way, I’d be looking at dress patterns or sitting in another etiquette lesson, not holding an incriminating letter. Not a moment away from putting an end to this charade.

I’d be who he wants me to be, but that weak, innocent girl would never have found this.

I shove up from Noam’s chair and thrust the letter at Sir. “I’m not sorry.”

Mather looks back at me, then at the letter. His anger fades to confusion and he loosens his hold on Noam’s collar. Noam eases away, smoothing out his shirt, but doesn’t fight back, a satisfied smirk falling over his face as Mather joins Sir in reading the letter. Everyone else holds, the Cordellan soldiers still armed and ready to kill us should Noam give the word.

I watch Sir realize it. I watch his frustration at me disappear beneath the sharp stab of knowing he failed, we failed, Noam failed us. Cordell was our only hope, and here is proof that we are, always will be, slaves upon whom other kingdoms prey.

Sir hands the letter to Mather and turns to Noam. He doesn’t say anything, just stares at this great king who was supposed to help us. The silence in the room is oppressive as Mather hands the letter off to Finn, and soon everyone is huddled over it, reading and gasping, muscles tightening in rage.

Noam pulls his shoulders back. “A year after Winter fell, Yakim sent a regiment of men to your kingdom. Tried to take it from the Shadow of the Seasons by force, and Ventralli tried the same thing. Did you know that? Neither let it go public. They were embarrassed, because both had identical failures—Angra slaughtered them. Every single man. The Winterian climate was too harsh, and because Ventralli and Yakim had their conduits so far away, in their respective countries, Angra had the advantage, what with his kingdom adjacent to Winter and his conduit so close. After watching my Rhythm brethren die so spectacularly, I decided on a less aggressive approach.”

Mather’s shoulders rise and fall with each breath, his hands in fists. But his eyes are defeated, vacant, as are Sir’s and Alysson’s and everyone’s, broken and lost and unable to speak around the distress of it all.

And Theron stands before his father. The letter is in his hands now, his face gray as his gaze swings from the words to Noam. Like he can’t decipher the meaning, or doesn’t want to.

“I would forge an undeniable connection to Winter,” Noam continues. “One Spring could not ignore. One the other kingdoms of Primoria would not be able to argue. I’ve waited fourteen years for you to come crawling back to Bithai and accept my offer, William. The moment that boy-king of yours appeared on my doorstep, I sent the letter to Angra to smooth over any bumps Cordell might face on our way to owning Winter—and to begin building a bridge between Spring and Cordell, so that if it turns out that neither Autumn nor Winter yields an entrance into the magic chasm, Spring will let us into their kingdom too.” Noam smiles, so completely powerful. “You’d think slaughtering Hannah would have satisfied Angra’s bloodlust, but the Seasons have never been anything but barbaric. And barbarism is far too easy to predict.”

As Mather twitches to move I swing my body around in front of him and hold him there, one hand on each of his wrists, my head bent into his chest. Low growls bubble in his throat, but he doesn’t try to fight.

“Now that this whole nasty business is out in the open,” Noam claps his hands behind me. “Don’t we have a wedding to plan?”

A roar launches up out of me and I turn on him, keeping my body between Mather and Noam. “Why would we agree to this now?” I shout. “We have nothing left to lose!”

Noam’s smile doesn’t waver, but his eyes flick from pleased to threatening as a few muscles around his brow twitch. “There are only eight of you, Lady Meira. And you are in my domain. You can either marry my son willingly or by force. I have not waited this long and worked this hard to not control Winter, and it only needs to look official—whether you choose to become Bithai’s prisoners afterward is entirely up to you.”

I can’t tell whether I’m holding Mather back or he’s holding me back. I can’t feel anything else in the room, don’t know what Sir is doing or if that’s Alysson who is crying or anything outside of Noam’s awful sneer, and I regret for the umpteenth time this morning leaving my chakram in my room.

“But I digress.” Noam waves his hand like he’s shooing a bug out of a window. “I’ll give you a moment to collect yourselves, but then, Lady Meira, I do believe you have classes to attend, and King Mather and General William have meetings, do they not? The dukes from Cordell’s coastal provinces are so looking forward to meeting our new ally.”

Noam keeps babbling about what we need to be doing, about meetings staged to make everything look the part. Like he knows we’ll accept this fate, and the horrible thing is—we will. As Sir corrals us out the door, I see it in his eyes. The same defeat I saw when I first confronted him about the marriage arrangement. All these years of fighting, all these years of barely surviving under Angra’s attacks, and he’s giving up because one arrogant king made a mess of our lives?

The door to the study slams shut on us, separating the Winterian refugees from Noam’s men. Theron stayed within the study, and I realize maybe I should worry for him, but all I feel is a thudding emptiness when I face everyone else and see the same shock rendering them immobile.

I shake my head incredulously. “Angra’s coming for us, isn’t he?”

My question makes the veil of shock hang heavier, and no one so much as breathes in agreement. No one except Mather, who pulls his shoulders straighter, and when I slide my gaze up to him, the look he throws me is the single most terrifying emotion he’s ever shown. A violent mix of fear and brokenness and a slow smile that gets negated by the tears in his eyes.

“Not for us,” he amends. “For me.”

Sir snarls. “Mather …”

But Mather takes one step backward, and my hands go out to him like I already know what he’s going to say, like his words are an earthquake and my body shakes with the tremors.

“If this is where it’s going,” he starts, “if this is the fate Noam chose for us, I won’t let every last one of you die in the fray. I’m done putting all of you in danger for a cause we can only guess at. I’m done being a pawn.”

Mather’s eyes meet mine and my heart drops.

“I’ll fulfill Noam’s agreement,” he says. “I’ll make it so Angra couldn’t care less about the rest of you, and you’ll finally be able to free the Winterians. We don’t need magic, not if you can get Noam to fight off Angra. Not if—”

“Mather!” His name pops out of my throat, a scratching, clawing croak. “Noam won’t help us no matter what deal we fulfill—”

“So I shouldn’t at least try? With Angra no longer searching for you, imagine the good you could do! All this trouble, all this pain, for—what? Magic that may or may not come back? Magic we can’t even use, even if we got it back? No, I’m done. I’m—”

Sir’s fist comes out of nothing, a solid white rock that slams into Mather’s cheek. Mather crumples onto the floor, body caved over on his hands and knees, while the rest of us gape and stare and gasp ragged breaths. Sir punched Mather. I can’t feel anything beyond shock, disbelief, my eyes having trouble telling my mind what they saw.

Vicious red blotches paint Sir’s face as he crouches down and rips Mather’s head back so he can hiss into his face. “You are the king of Winter—you are not a coward,” he growls, and the anguish that leeches out of Sir’s voice shakes the same emotion into my body. “The only time you will ever face Angra is to run a sword through his chest, and if I hear you speak like this again, I will teach you the true meaning of the word sacrifice. We will figure this out—and it will not involve you handing yourself over to Angra.”

Mather gawks up at him, just as aghast as the rest of us. Most of what Sir said was right, except for one thing. Mather didn’t suggest fulfilling Noam’s agreement because he’s a coward—he suggested it because he’s our king, because he’s tired of our lives being like this, because he saw a way to end it all.

Sir grabs Mather’s arm and yanks him to his feet. Mather puts a hand to his face, covering the already purple bruise there, and eyes Sir with the wary look of someone who regrets what they just did.

I open my mouth to intercede when a Cordellan soldier bursts through the doors at the end of the entryway, the ones leading outside the palace. He barely gives us a passing glance as he flings himself at the door to Noam’s study, yanks it open, and topples to his knees inside. Noam, Theron, and the soldiers within whirl toward the open door, Noam’s face tight with rage.

“My king,” the soldier sputters, gasping for breath. “I bring grim news. It’s Spring. They’re—”

Noam stomps forward. “What is it, man? A messenger? Damn king hasn’t—”

“No, my king,” the soldier interrupts. “A Spring battalion crossed our southern border an hour ago—they’ve burned three farms and refuse to negotiate. They’re marching on us, my king. Angra’s men are marching on Bithai.”