UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

20

ONCE THE DOORS shut, all links to the surrounding city vanish, sealing the palace around us like a tomb.

The entry hall is a cave of gleaming obsidian with sconces throwing yellow light onto the reflective surface, a never-ending echo bouncing off walls that toy with it just for entertainment’s sake. The only breaks in the light are portraits of Spring’s past rulers that hang at perfectly spaced intervals on the walls. A woman, her long blond hair pulled over one shoulder in a tangle of curls, beams at the painter. A little boy with pale green eyes stares into the distance, his blond curls exploding out of his head in disorderly rebellion. The same two people are in at least a dozen portraits, posing in front of Spring’s cherry-blossom trees or rivers or plain blue backdrops. The riots of color in these paintings don’t belong here; this place should be nothing but darkness. Who are these people?

When I see the signature of the artist in the bottom corner of one painting, my body falls slack. Angra Manu. If Angra really painted these, then the outside of his palace makes more sense. He embraces art in a way that would make Ventralli proud.

I turn my gaze downward, staring at the black floor instead of at the bombardment of life and color and happiness painted by the king who has brought nothing but death to Winter.

The doors at the end of the hall groan as a soldier pulls them open. I’m not allowed even a moment to gather my wits before we enter the throne room, wide and dark and filled with the poetic collision of sunshine and shadow. A series of windows has been cut into the high ceiling, circles of sunlight that create a path to the dais at the other end of the room. On that dais, the largest beam pours directly onto a towering obsidian throne, the rock absorbing the light in a subtle yet daunting show of power.

But it isn’t the throne that sucks away the most light—it’s the figure slouched on it. The figure who shields his eyes as if the sun pains him, gripping a staff as tall as I am.

All those years of fearing him, and I’ve never seen Angra. He rarely, if ever, leaves his palace, never bothers with leading his army or getting his hands dirty. From this distance, I can see the blond curls cascading over his head, so very similar to the man who joined with the Decay in Hannah’s vision. They’re undeniably related, and it makes me wince. I still don’t want to believe that the vision was real.

We get to the middle of the room and stop. I’m sure Angra can hear my heart humming in my throat, could taste the stench of my fear as soon as we set foot in his palace. It’s so quiet here—there’s no distant shuffling of courtiers, no gentle hum of voices in the next room. This fake calm is more frightening than if Angra were raging in anger. He’s the eye of a storm, everything around him waiting with growing anticipation for his madness to break.

Herod steps forward. “My king,” he says, voice echoing through the empty hall.

Angra stays silent. Herod nods at the guards and I grunt as they chuck me forward, my armor clanking on the floor. I can’t suppress my cry, the feeble sound bouncing off the walls.

Herod laughs as I writhe on the obsidian. “I have brought you a token of Winter’s weakness.”

“The boy?”

Angra’s voice stabs at Herod’s mistake—I am not Mather, and no matter how much Herod might enjoy toying with me, he failed.

A low growl resonates in Herod’s throat. “No. The thief who stole half of the locket.”

Boots descend the dais and swish across the floor. I don’t move, hands around my torso, eyes closed, neck bent. Sir trained me for this. For Angra, for Spring.

They make decisions; they mold your future. The trick is to find a way to still be you through it all.

Theron’s words run through my head, his smile, his gentle surety. I cling to that image, to anything that will help me remember that I am Meira, and they cannot take that away from me.

Angra stops beside me. I can feel him there, a warm presence just beside my huddled body. He bends down, his staff making a heavy clunk as he adjusts it on the floor.

“She’s hurt,” he says. The booming echo is gone from his voice, reduced to a whisper that rolls over me.

I open my eyes and a desperate, throaty wail bubbles in my throat.

This man doesn’t just look like the king who bonded with the Decay in Hannah’s vision—this man is that king. The same translucent green eyes, the same pale skin, the same gleam on his face when he tips his head and adjusts his grip on his staff, black through and through, with a hollow ebony orb on its tip. This is the same king.

How is that possible? Could Hannah’s visions have been more recent than I thought? No, I felt how long ago it was. But Angra doesn’t look any older than the man in his twenties he was in Hannah’s vision.

I know Angra was the one who led the charge against Winter when it fell sixteen years ago, but this man couldn’t have been old enough to ransack our kingdom. Now that I think about it … I don’t know who was king before Angra. Sir’s lessons never touched on Spring’s history beyond our war with them. Is this mystery that cloaks him part of the Decay? He never leaves Spring. He never shows himself in public. It would be all-too easy to hide this power, this immortality, from the world.

I pinch my mouth shut to hold in the wail, my need to scream fighting me like a wild horse pinned inside a gate. If this is all true … what else is he capable of?

Angra stares at me, unconcerned. His pale green irises flicker and his yellow curls bounce when he moves—the same wild, untamed locks of the boy in the paintings. Was that him too? He painted portraits of himself—and a woman?

He tips his head, his mouth lifting as he surveys me. He looks young, calm, filled with something that terrifies me more than Herod’s malice—an ancient determination and patience. And around his neck, dangling above a black tunic, hangs the front half of Hannah’s locket.

I gasp. It’s here. So close. The silver heart etched with a snowflake, its shine muted and dull on Angra’s skin.

“Would you like to be healed?” he whispers suddenly.

I frown, tearing my eyes away from the locket. He wanted me to see it. He wanted me to know he has it just like he has me, dangling and useless. But I hear his question, and my ribs scream out Yes! while the rest of me quivers in the dark, waiting for this all to shatter around me.

Angra leans closer. Madness dances behind his eyes now as he revels in me writhing at his feet. “You are in pain. Don’t you want me to heal you?”

“Go heal the Winterian girl,” I manage. “The one your soldier whipped.”

Angra smiles. He takes pleasure in me fighting back too.

I don’t have a chance to add anything else. Angra’s fingers curl around his staff and I’m thrown into a world of searing red, everything collapsing behind a single shriek that echoes off the walls. It’s me. I’m screaming, arching on the ground in breathless pain. My chest caves in, every rib cracking and bending under an invisible force that crushes me, presses me into dust. I scream again and every bone pops back out, realigning and knitting back together. I can feel them healing, the bones itching and tingling, telling me exactly where they run through my torso.

It stops and I roll to the side, mouth open, unable to say anything, do anything. On top of the pain, more certainty makes me hum with fear. If Angra was just a monarch like all the others, and his staff was nothing more than a Royal Conduit, he wouldn’t be able to affect me, someone not of his kingdom’s bloodline. But he can use his magic to break me, to heal me—so he must have something helping him. Something more powerful.

Something like the Decay.

That thought is like the final blow of a fight, the one that makes me waver toward unconsciousness. Everything Hannah showed me—Angra’s true power—his agelessness—

It’s real.

“You still wish me to heal the girl?” Angra asks.

I shake my head, a spiraling migraine making the world shift.

Angra leans the staff down so I can peer into its black orb. “You are one of the few who escaped me,” he says. “You couldn’t have been more than an infant.”

He twists his hand and the pressure returns, collapsing on me like a boot pressing on a bug. I draw in a few quick breaths and focus on the light filtering through the ceiling. Focus, Meira. Don’t—

I’m able to bite back a scream as the first few ribs crack, but it falls out of my mouth as Angra snaps the rest. The scream turns into a pathetic whine as the pressure rises, ribs reshaping and knitting back together with agonizing slowness.

“How, exactly, did a child manage to evade me?”

My ribs heal again. Sweat trickles down my face, and words come in broken gasps. “Two … children … escaped … actually.”

He twists his hand again. Quick this time, every bone snapping at once and knitting together in less than a few seconds. Stars flash over my vision, darkness and swirling light.

Angra glares up at Herod. “Where is the boy?”

I choke on Herod’s pause. “My men are pursuing him.”

The hope in those words makes it impossible to breathe. As long as Mather lives, there’s still hope for Winter.

Angra grabs my hair, forcing me to stare up at him. “Your resistance is crumbling. It’s only a matter of time before I kill Hannah’s son myself.”

The hope in my chest flares against his threats. You’re wrong, Angra, because Mather is alive. There is still hope.

But it snuffs out as quickly as it came, as thoughts collide in my mind—Sir is dead, and this war is worse than we thought.

Angra beams. “I thought so.”

His hand trails down my horrible, traitorous face, giving away my emotions. As his fingers touch my skin, his image swirls. His face contorts, darkness pulls in, and the blackness of his throne room fades to a milky white. As it did when Hannah touched me, my mind’s eye pulls me into a memory not my own.

A field of snow stretches into the distance, frozen white perfection beneath a clear night sky. The moon, a sliver against the speckled black of night, sheds light on a small gathering of men and horses. One holds a lantern that casts light onto the black sun breastplates of Angra’s guards. And Angra himself, his appearance unchanged from how it is now, sits on a thick warhorse in front of his men. He wears a heavy, black cloak, and his staff sits in a holster on his saddle….

Angra tears his hand off my face. “What did you—”

I stare at him, mouth half open. A voice in the back of my mind urges me to reach out, and I grab Angra’s hand with a strength I didn’t think I still had. The image returns, stronger now, as though I’m standing next to Angra on one of Winter’s fields.

Hooves beat in the distance as three riders come toward us. They stop, the field around us empty but for snow and this clandestine meeting of Spring and Winter.

Hannah pulls her horse forward and dismounts. She wears nothing over her gown but a blood red cloak, the flow of scarlet on snow a shocking contrast. “Thank you for meeting me.”

Angra’s horse dances under the unspoken tension on the air. The guards behind Hannah hold weapons, ready to leap to their queen’s defense, while Angra’s men look furtively at their king for any sign to attack. But Angra just swings one leg over his saddle and dismounts.

“How could I resist, Highness? Especially after your enticing message.” Angra steps forward, black cloak swishing through the snow. “You said you had a deal I couldn’t refuse.”

Hannah folds her hands beneath her cloak and looks up, blue eyes shining in the weak moonlight. “I will lay down my life for my people.”

Angra’s face flashes with shock. “No riddles. What do you propose?”

The locket pulses white from Hannah’s neck before she speaks, her voice steady and sure. “I will let you destroy Winter’s conduit, and I will let you kill me.”

“If?” Angra’s tone is mocking.

“If Spring’s army never sets foot in Winter again.”

Angra sneers, making my skin crawl. “This doesn’t have to do with how few men you have left? I know that our last battle left Winter weakened, but I never thought it would drive you to such desperation. Do you plan to make good on your end now?”

Angra pulls a dagger out of his belt and shoves it against Hannah’s throat so quickly I barely see it happen. Her guards fly forward, swords out, and Angra’s men ready their weapons. But neither monarch moves, frozen knife to neck with each other.

Hannah waves a hand at the men behind her and they back up. “Yes,” she whispers, and a gasp ricochets through them. Yes? She’s going to let him kill her now? But Hannah’s face doesn’t betray any fear, even with Angra’s knife moments away from slashing through her throat. “Does this mean we are in agreement?”

“We are. But I wonder, Highness, how far your deal extends.” Curling the knife into his palm, he backs up. His eyes slide down Hannah’s body and linger on her stomach, his face radiating amusement. “You don’t know yet, do you?”

Hannah’s hands move beneath her cloak, clutching her stomach as her lips part in confusion. “We have an agreement, Angra. We can end this!”

Angra pulls himself back onto his horse. “We do have a deal.”

“Then kill me. Break my locket and kill me. End this!” Hannah is pleading now, her red cloak rippling around her as she steps toward Angra across the snow.

“Don’t worry, Your Highness.” Angra glares down at her, his green eyes flashing. “I agree to this deal. But I will destroy you when I see fit, when it causes you the most pain.”

Hannah’s face collapses. “What do you mean?”

Angra smirks. “You aren’t the last of your line.” And he’s gone, plunging his horse across the snow with his soldiers riding hard behind him.