Mather’s grip on the chakram made his desperate climb awkward, but a beat after his Thaw made it to the roof, he swung up himself.
Their surprise had worked—the four soldiers at the opposite end of the roof went down without more than a few startled yelps. One man remained, bellowing fury with his back to Mather.
The soldier lifted a sword above his head and ranforward. Mather slid out his own blade and dove, impaling the man through the back and yanking his sword free. The soldier collapsed, rolling to the side, revealing—
Meira.
She crouched, her arms up defensively. Her eyes shot from the soldier’s body to Mather, her brows furrowed, and he knew if he was having trouble catching up, she had to have been completely stunned.
Mather remembered their last interaction, the conversation that he regretted more than he could express. And while he had reconciled himself to loving her, she had told Mather she didn’t want him and had spent the past weeks with Theron. Nothing had changed for her—so although every nerve in Mather’s body ached to dive forward and scoop her into his arms, he stayed back, poised, ready,hers.
“Are you all right?” he asked, because he had to say something, had to break free of this moment before it consumed him whole.
She blinked, her confusion flowing off her face in a rush that left her gasping, trapped somewhere between screaming and crying. And before Mather could explain or ask anything more, she launched forward and knotted herself around his neck.
“You’re here,” she panted. “How are you here?”
The weapons clattered from his hands as he wrapped his arms around her, pressing her more firmly to his body. Ice above, he’d forgotten how she felt against him—she was sosmall yet so strong, all but choking him with her grip. He clung to her, drowning in the wayshehuggedhim, how she buried her face in his shoulder, her lungs filling on raspy inhales.
He let himself have this moment. He needed this, needed it to soothe away the event that had hollowed out a permanent abyss in his body.
Meira was alive. She was alive and safe, even if Alysson was not.
Mather leaned his forehead against Meira’s temple, exhaling long, inhaling even longer.
“You’re okay,” he said, or asked, just needing to feel the words in the air between them.
Meira nodded, holding against him the same way he held his forehead to her. Breathing, resting, using each other like nourishment in a famine.
“Are you?” She pulled back but didn’t unwind from him, so close to him,so close to him. “How did you—why are youhere?”
The question sobered her and she spun out of his arms, gaping at the Thaw who had hung blissfully quiet behind them. Phil met Mather’s eyes, a sly smile stretching his mouth. A waggled brow joined Phil’s smirk when Meira took Mather’s hand, held it absently like she needed some touch to keep her steady.
Mather didn’t care to return Phil’s teasing with anything but a smile of his own. He could breathe now, breathewhere he hadn’t in days, and the sensation made everything sharp and beautiful for a moment that he knew would be all-too fleeting.
“Who are you?” Meira asked the Thaw, her voice awed and dazed.
Mather stepped forward, weaving his fingers more firmly with hers. She analyzed each of the Thaw, quick, studious sweeps, and as she did, her shock hardened into something like determination. The dangerous expression her face had taken so often growing up, but now, it held a resolved twist, like she had gone from simply being stubborn and wild to channeling that energy into a goal.
And as she looked at the people before her, Mather knew what that goal was.
Winter.
“These are the Children of the Thaw,” he introduced. “And we have much to tell you, my queen.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Meira
WE SPRINT WITHall our might over Rintiero’s houses and shops. The multistory buildings and mismatched structures make our path staggered, interrupted by bursts of scrambling up taller buildings or sliding down shorter ones. But we’re moving, all of us, Mather and his Thaw behind me as I lead the way toward the palace, high above any possible blockades or soldiers in the streets.
Raelyn and her troop were gone by the time we returned to the square, nothing but bloodstains to show that the fight had occurred. She still has Ceridwen and Lekan—they have to be alive. They have to be, because I will not allow myself to believe that while I fled the soldiers, I let my friends get slaughtered.
Mather’s tale plays through my head as I run. How Noam gave the order for the Winterians to stop training our army; how Mather trained this small group in secret,building a defense for our kingdom despite Noam’s threat, despite my not even knowing my people needed it. My heart floods with a cool, violent emotion, one I could put a name to, but would undo me.
