UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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7

MY WHOLE BODY coils like a tightly wound spring as I rush back toward the horse pen. In the dark I can barely make out the five shapes moving around our horses, throwing saddles and bridles and cursing at each other to hurry.

“Meira!”

Sir’s voice slams into me, warped with panic, and a small part of me leaps with desperation, wanting to hide until whatever is scaring the adults goes away. He tears past me, and to keep up I have to pump every bit of energy into my legs as I sprint over the grass. Everyone else is close behind—Dendera, Finn, Greer, and Henn. Alysson is the only one not among us, the only non-fighter in our group.

The scouts don’t pause as we draw near, don’t whip out weapons or try to slow us down; they just hurl themselves with renewed vigor into freeing the horses. The Spring soldier nearest to me uses a knife to saw at the rope tying a mount to the fence. My body reacts as I lurch to a stop and my new chakram flies from my palm, glancing off the soldier’s neck in a quick, smooth hiss of motion before rebounding into my hand. The soldier jerks back like he smacked into a wall, the knife slipping from his fingers as he falls, knees clunking into the grass, mouth agape at the starry sky above him.

I leap over the fence and into the horse pen alongside everyone else, a wave of Winterian death. The soldier I killed lies in a heap next to where I land, and I can’t stop myself from looking at his face. He’s young. Of course he’d be young. Not all soldiers are withered in years, covered in the blood of all the people they’ve killed, ready to die themselves.

I swallow. There’s no room for emotions in war—another Sir-original phrase.

Two of the men turn from their potential escape to form a makeshift barrier between one of their comrades, almost mounted on a horse, and us. Expressions murderous, they take in the soldier I killed and reach for the swords at their waists. But Sir is running, gaining on them, and they don’t know it, but they’re already dead.

Sir kicks off of the fence and hurls himself into the air, curved knives in each hand. His blades flash in the night, graceful and deadly, and he arches like a snake preparing to strike. The armed soldiers haven’t even fully swung to face him when Sir lands on the first, sliding the knives through the soldier’s neck and into his torso in one long, deliberate move. The force of the landing throws that soldier into the next one, and when Sir rips the knives free from the body, he uses the motion to slice through the other soldier’s throat. The two men fall, gurgling as blood pulses through the wounds in their necks, while Sir pivots to the soldier they tried to protect, the one still fumbling to free the horse.

The man scrambles to face Sir, his eyes dropping to the bodies at his feet. “Please,” he whimpers and grabs at the horse, misses, falls to the ground between the two men Sir killed. “Please—I beg you—”

Sir towers over him. “Where is your weapon?” His voice sends tremors of warning across my skin, the first sensation I’ve felt since I killed the soldier.

The soldier cowers. “I don’t—”

Sir grabs a sword from the hand of a nearby dead man and thrusts it hilt first at the blubbering soldier, who hesitates. “Take it,” Sir growls.

The soldier takes the sword. The moment the blade is fully in his grip, Sir lunges, slamming his knives into the soldier’s chest. Cloudy eyes stare at me as the man’s mouth bobs up and down, begging for one last breath, just one—

One final dying moan, and he drops weightless alongside the other Spring soldiers.

Night makes the dead men look like nothing more than glistening bodies curled in sleep. When the sun comes, it will reveal the blood, the gore, streaks of red covering the grass inside the horse pen. A tangy iron stench hovers over the area, making my lungs burn. It should rain, a thundering, screaming storm, to wash all this away. The remnants of five lives—

I stop.

One, two, three, four.

Four. Not five. There were five soldiers, weren’t there?

I scan the area. Dendera and Mather straighten the saddles and other supplies the Spring soldiers tore through. Greer, Henn, and Finn poke through the corpses, taking weapons. Sir crouches over his kills, wiping the blood off his knives with one of the men’s shirts.

And just behind Sir, behind the horse that the last man had been trying to mount, a piece of rope dangles from the fence next to the open gate. Cut.

My arms tremble with dread before I even get his name out of my mouth. “Sir.”

He looks at me, sheathing his knives.

I point to the dangling rope and open gate. “There were five scouts.”

Sir turns and stares at the rope. His eyes flick beyond it and there, already a small speck on the horizon, is the last soldier barreling in a cloud of dust on one of our horses. The man is far enough out of range to be uncatchable. He’ll tell Angra where we are.

Anxiety pours into my stomach, filling me with the knowledge of what’s going to happen next. Sir pivots to face me, his eyes leaping from me to Dendera to Finn to everyone. No, don’t say it, don’t—

“We’re leaving. Now. Pack only what’s necessary,” Sir announces, already untying horses from the fence. “Convene north of the camp in five minutes.”

His words push into me like walking through a market only to smack into a cloud of putrid sewer air. “We’re running?” I squeak, holstering my chakram. “Can’t we just—”

Sir steps toward me, and even in the dark I can see his eyes are bloodshot. That’s all the emotion he ever shows, in his eyes. “I will not take chances, not when we’re finally so close. Start packing or mount a horse.”

He spins away, taking a few steps through the grass until he reaches Mather, grabs his arm, and hisses something that makes the expression on Mather’s face mimic the shocked, angry one on my own. Sir hurries to the rest, spitting the same orders at them—pack what you can, no time to waste. They separate, scurrying into camp to obey him.

Sir doesn’t see them as he talks. His eyes dart across the horizon, stoic, calm. A boulder in the ocean, standing strong against crashing waves. Herod may be big and dark, but Sir is big and light—just as towering, just as threatening, with strength built on the pure pull of revenge.

With him leading us, how did we ever lose to Angra?

“Meira.”

I flinch. Mather’s beside me now, my focus so fixed on Sir that I didn’t hear him approach. Mather smiles when I flinch, but it’s marred by the sweat streaked across his forehead, by the panic around us.

“You let me sneak up on you?” he guesses, trying for lightness.

I shrug. “I have to let you think you’re good at something.”

He nods, lips relaxing as he watches me with a calm, solemn stare. Like we’ve never had to abandon camp or had to run off into the night in divided groups until we all reconvene somewhere safe. We’ve done this at least a dozen times since we were small enough to remember, but he’s looking at me now like he’s never had to leave me before.

“Mather?” It comes out as a question.

He swings toward me, stops, pulls back, dancing around like he can’t gather up the courage to do something. My throat closes, shock choking me, not letting me dare hope that he’s going to do what I think—

Finally he sweeps in and lifts me against him. A tight, whole-body hug as his arms come around my back, holding me to his chest with my feet dangling in the air, his face in my neck.

“I’ll find a way to fix this,” he tells me, his words vibrating across my skin, tremors that shake my very foundation.

Slowly, carefully, I relax into him, my arms going around his neck. “I know,” I whisper. When he starts to put me down I cling more tightly, keeping my mouth to his ear. I have to say these words, but I can’t bring myself to look at him as they spill from my lips. “We all know, Mather. You’ll do everything you can for Winter. No one has ever thought less of you, and I think—I know—that Hannah would be proud that you’re her son.”

He doesn’t respond, just holds me there, panting into the space between us. I want to push my face down to his; I want to stay like this, lingering just beyond kissing, forever. The conflicting desires make my pulse accelerate until I’m sure he can feel its rhythm beating on his chest. I can feel his, the fast thump of his heart galloping against my stomach.

In a quick burst of motion he sets me down, slides one hand around the back of my neck, and plants a kiss on my jaw, his lips lingering on my skin, leaving permanent trails of lightning in my veins. His chest deflates, the tension on his face unwinding as he pulls back from me. I catch a glimmer in his eyes, the finest sheen of tears. He doesn’t say anything or agree with me or do more than give my fingers one final squeeze.

Then he’s gone. Hurrying into camp to pack or saddle his horse or whatever Sir ordered him to do.

I stand in the middle of the horse pen, one hand on my jaw. My eyes flick up, searching for Mather amidst the chaos.

What was that?

But I know what it was. Or at least, I know what I want it to be—what I’ve always wanted it to be. What I constantly have to tell myself can never, ever be. But why now, in the midst of leaving, when I can’t corner him and make him explain or figure out some way to ignore that it even happened? Because it did happen. My jaw feels like it’s been branded by his mouth, and no matter how many times I repeat, “He’s our future king” to myself, I can’t get the impression of Mather’s lips out of my skin.

I don’t want to get their impression out of my skin.

Sir slides in front of me, dragging two horses already saddled. “Pack your things.”

I yank my hand down. Mather’s words and his lips and his arms around me fade to the back of my mind, and I hold them there, anchors in the face of all this uncertainty.

“No,” I growl at Sir. No, we can’t just leave. We have to stay; we have to plan something better than running. “I can’t let them—”

In one swift motion, Sir grabs my arm and flings me onto the nearest saddled horse. He leaps onto his own and takes both my reins and his, shooting me a glare that tells me not to argue.

His glares have never stopped me before. “We can’t let them destroy this home too!”

Alysson and Dendera swing onto their own mounts as we trot out of the horse pen. We ease to a brief stop in front of the meeting tent, long enough for Finn, Greer, and Henn to throw passing nods at Sir that yes, everything will be destroyed before we leave. Sir flicks the reins and as we continue I catch the faintest crackle of fire from inside the tent, the pop of flames devouring anything of importance, maps and documents. They probably used the fire pit. We won’t be able to bring it with us. Angra will find it, the only part of our past we have, filled to the brim with ashes.

As I fumble with the pommel for something to hold on to other than a weapon, Sir’s fist around my reins falls, his hand unfolding just enough to cup mine. It’s so subtle I can’t tell if he’s trying to comfort me or making sure I don’t rip control of the horse away.

“It’s not your fault,” he grunts. “It’s no one’s fault.”

My throat closes and I just sit there, numb and small. It is my fault; I led the scouts here. And I know that staying is pointless—Angra will send far more than five men now, and with only eight of us, the odds are laughable. A death sentence. But I can’t just do nothing—doing nothing will kill me faster than facing Angra’s whole army on my own.

Sir pulls our horses to a stop when we reach the plains on the north side of camp. A heartbeat later we’re joined by every horse, every person, everything they were able to grab in the time Sir allowed. As for our livestock, I hope Angra will treat them better than he treats our people.

“Split up, two riders each. Once it’s safe, we convene in Cordell,” Sir announces. He points at Dendera, who sits on a horse beside Mather on his own mount. “Keep. Him. Alive.”

Dendera bows her head and stays that way until Sir jerks on his horse’s reins. It rears with a mighty whinny, filling all the horses with adrenaline. Over the roll of noise Sir eyes me and nods, beckoning me to follow. When he heaves out into the now-dark northwestern plains like one of Angra’s cannonballs, I trail a breath behind.

Everyone else follows, a brief stampede before we split off. I look back as Alysson gallops north with Finn, Greer and Henn head east, and Dendera and Mather go northeast.

Mather looks at me, his eyes grabbing mine with the same intensity as before. He urges his horse on as Dendera scans the air, then they’re gone, barreling into the night.

Sir pulls his horse back alongside me. The wind whips against my cheeks, drying the tears as they fall.

Not my fault. Sir said so, and Sir only tells the truth.

After an hour of all-out galloping, we slow. Sporadic groups of trees and shrubs are all we see, their dried, dead silhouettes splayed against the night. We keep going, riding until the sun rises. Until it sets again. Until the horses simply can’t go on any longer. Then we dismount, make sure they have a little water nearby, and leave them. Sir takes all their gear off first—the saddle, the reins, the blankets and small plated armor. He hides the useless parts in dried-up bushes, keeps what remains in his sack, and with a final pat on their flanks, we continue west for two days on foot, stopping only to sleep and scan the horizon for Angra’s men.

Sir keeps his supply of food rationed just enough to drive me mad with hunger. Small streams of muddy water run every so often, edible plants are even scarcer, and shade is nonexistent. There’s just sun, sky, yellowed grass, and dead, scraggy shrubs for hours.

I hate heat. I hate the sweat that drips between my shoulder blades, the way the sun’s rays bake every bare area of skin raw. But I hate silence more, and Sir won’t talk. Not just his usual quiet—he’s downright mute. He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t acknowledge me, for hours upon hours of endless walking.

Just when I think I’ll have to tackle him, he drops to his knees next to something in the grass. A stream, little more than an arm’s length wide. It’s the clearest water we’ve seen since we started, and the fog of heat lifts in a burst of relief when I sigh at the small spattering of half-alive green plants clustered around the banks. Tough vegetation that gets roasted in the sun, but it’s more edible than most of the Rania Plains’ delicacies, like crow.

Sir glances at me as he takes the pack from his shoulders. “We camp here tonight and head for Cordell tomorrow. No one’s following us. The sooner we get to safety, the better.”

Though the temptation of clean water sits a few paces away, I stay frozen. He’s talking to me. “Why are we going to a Rhythm Kingdom? I thought you hated King Noam?”

Sir turns to the water, his shoulders slumping a little, but he doesn’t respond.

“I can’t help until I know the plan. And like it or not, my help is all you have now.”

The bite in my voice startles me and I drop my arms. I move forward, hesitate, unsure what reaction will come. But when I step up next to him, all I see are the trails of dried blood that swirl off of his hands and into the water. He’s had Spring blood on him for days. Of course he has—when would he have been able to wash it off?

The face of the soldier I killed flashes through my mind. My fault. All the men who died at camp were my fault too.

Sir nods to his left. “Upstream,” he says, ignoring my snap.

I shrug out of my chakram’s holster and drop it in the grass before marching to the left, kicking my way through bits of undergrowth. Every part of me feels bloodied, dirty, like I’m coated head to toe in the guts of Angra’s soldiers. I drop to my knees and dunk my head into the water up to my shoulders. The coolness washes away a bit of the heat, flowing over me and chasing off my panic. My regrets.

I’ve killed before. I’ve seen Sir kill before. I’ve seen everyone at camp, even Mather, speckled with blood and limping from battle. I shouldn’t care that a few Spring soldiers have died; they’ve killed thousands of our people.

My lungs start to burn but I stay down, keep my breath trapped inside until the painful need for air is the only thing I feel. Nothing else. I don’t have room for anything else.

Fingers wrap around my arm. Before I can shake myself awake enough to realize who it is, I inhale. Water flows into my lungs, icy hot panic rushing into my chest along with the unwanted water, and I yank free of the stream, sputtering and heaving. Sir drags me into the grass, slamming his fist into my back in a few punches to get the rest of the water to pour out of my nose, a rush of earthy grime.

As soon as my lungs clear I launch to my feet, shaking dirt and water out of my eyes. “I’m—I’m fine. You startled me. I’m fine.”

But Sir doesn’t look convinced.

“None of this was your fault. And you’ve killed before,” he says. His creepily perceptive general senses finally work in my favor for once. “You’ll kill again. The trick is not to let it incapacitate you.”

“I don’t.” I curl my hand into a fist, dirt gritting between my fingers. The rest of me is calm, careful, forcing every bit of anger out in my clenched hand. “I don’t want it to get easy. Not even if it’s Angra himself. I want to feel it, always, so I’m never as awful as him.”

Or you. I don’t want to end up as hard as you.

I twitch at the thought, more guilt heaping atop the rest. He wasn’t always this way, I remind myself. Alysson told Mather and me about the night Jannuari fell to Angra’s men. The night twenty-five of us escaped, cloaked in a snowstorm created by Hannah’s last pull of magic before Angra broke her locket in half and killed her.

“William was the only reason we made it,” Alysson told us as we huddled near the fire one night, waiting for Sir to get back from a mission. “We could see the flashes of cannon fire and clouds of smoke over the city, and we wanted to race back to save our countrymen, but William kept us moving until we crossed the border, until we got away.” She paused then, stroking one hand down Mather’s cheek. “He was the one who carried you on his chest the whole ride out of Winter. Every time one of us begged him to go back and help save our kingdom, he’d put his hand on your little head and say, ‘Hannah entrusted us with the continuation of her line. This is how we will save Winter now.’ Even though a war raged behind us, even though we were caught in a chaotic blizzard to hide our escape, even though we wouldn’t reach safety for days, William was so gentle with you. A warrior with a tender heart.”

Sir had never told us that story himself, and after Alysson told it to us once, we never heard it again. But I’d watch Sir after that, looking for the tenderness that Alysson mentioned. Occasionally I could catch a flicker—a twinge around his eyes when Mather faltered in sparring, a twitch of his lips when I begged to learn how to fight. But that was all I ever saw of the general who once carried a baby for days to safety. Like all of his actual tenderness was gone, but every so often his muscles convulsed from the memory of it.

That’s how we all are, too hard for what we should be. We should be a family, not soldiers. But all that really connects us is stories, and memories, and spasms of what should be.

Sir nods. He’s clean now, every speck of blood gone except the stains on his clothes. Like it never happened. “Not wanting to forget how horrible it is to kill someone is part of what makes you a good soldier.”

“Did you just—” My fist relaxes. “You just called me a soldier. A good soldier.”

Sir’s lips shudder in his version of a smile. “Don’t let that incapacitate you either.”

The sun dries the water on my cheeks and starts to singe my skin again. This is a weirdly peaceful moment for Sir and me. I fight down the giddiness that threatens to ruin it.

“Should we hug or something?”

Sir rolls his eyes. “Get your weapon. We head for Cordell.”