Theron jolts back from me.
I try to wave it away. “It was just a dream—”
He snatches my hand midwave and holds it, every muscle in his body stiff.
“I don’t remember much about it,” he whispers, each word weighted by three months of keeping it inside. “Whole days just . . . gone. But I do remember Angra telling me what he planned to do with you. What he planned to let Herod—” Theron’s voice cracks. “Angra used magic on me in Abril, that much I do know. He shouldn’t have been able to—Royal Conduits can’t affect people not of their kingdom. And if magic like that exists, we need protection.”
My arms twitch to lean forward and wrap around him. But despite his pain, despite the memories throbbing in my mind of Angra’s torture, I can’t agree to what Theron wants.
“Then it’s even more important that the door stays closed. If it’s used wrong, it could aid the very magic you fear.”
Theron grimaces. He’s unconvinced, but Nessa rushes over to me.
“My queen, how are you feeling?”
She doesn’t ask what happened, or anything about themine shaft, and I assume Sir filled her in enough. Conall and Garrigan take up their places guarding my room when Sir says something about going to check on Finn and Greer. He doesn’t stay to make sure I’m okay; he simply tells Dendera to “ensure that the queen rests.”
No help from him—and no help from Theron either, who also leaves. I try to go after him, but Dendera shoves me onto the cot, scolding me to lie down. Theron doesn’t notice, vanishing without another word. What did I expect him to say, though? What could he do?
He could help me in this. He could stay, help me deal with . . . everything.
No—Theron is broken because of me. Because he came to saveme. I saw what he went through—or at least, what he might have gone through. Even if he doesn’t remember what happened, there’s no way to know whether or not what I sawdidn’thappen. He doesn’t need to help me; I need to helphim. I have other people who can—
Sudden awareness drowns every other thought.
Hannah never responded. The moment I reached out to her, my magic erupted.
I almost call out to her again, but my chest seizes, and I can’t tear my eyes away from the splinters of the door that Nessa brushes into the corner. Our connection was always mysterious—maybe the barrier severed it. The coldness inside of me throbs as if sensing my dilemma, knowing I’mmoments away from trying to rekindle my magic.
I’m afraid of it. But I can’t be afraid of my magic. Now that the chasm has been found . . .
I can’t be afraid of anything.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Mather
“BLOCK!”
Mather’s sword cut through the air a beat behind his command, but even as the word left his lips, he knew how this fight would end. His opponent would stumble on the barn’s uneven floor as uncertainty flashed through his eyes; then he would realize his mistake, overcorrect, and end up on his back with Mather’s wooden blade pressing into his collarbone.
Seconds later, the man blinked up at Mather from the floor. “I’m sorry, my lord,” he mumbled, and rolled to his feet, passing his practice sword to the next in line.
Mather exhaled, watching his breath collect in puffs of white in the afternoon air. At least his next opponent, a boy named Philip, was his age. A nice change from the older men, who stared at him with a mix of fear and desperate eagerness.
Of all the Winterians rescued from the Spring work camps, only six hundred had lived in Jannuari. Two hundred had come from western Winter, seven hundred from the center forests, and a mere one hundred and fifty from the southern Klaryn foothills. Of those who had formerly lived in Winter’s capital, little more than three-fourths of them had chosen to repopulate Jannuari. The rest couldn’t bear the sight of their war-shattered homes and had dispersed three months ago into the now-untamed wilds of a new and unknown Winter.
Sweet ice above, Mather couldn’t believe so much time had passed. How had it been three months since they’d returned to Jannuari? Three months since the battle in Abril where he had broken Angra’s conduit and the Spring king had died. Three months of freedom.
And less than a month since William and Meira and a contingent of others had departed for the southern mines. In hours—moments, heartbeats—they would return, along with Noam coming back from one of his too-short breaks to Bithai. The Cordellan king would amble back into Winter’s capital like the stuffed-up, overconfident ass he was, and swipe what riches the Winterians had been able to extract.
The rattle of armor jerked Mather’s attention to the door of the barn. A pair of Cordellan soldiers sauntered past on their patrol through Jannuari’s inhabited quarter,mocking grins spreading over their faces as they eyed the scene within.
Mather’s grip on his practice sword tightened. But he found he couldn’t hate the borrowed soldiers for laughing—what the Winterians were doingwaslaughable, training people so soon after years of imprisonment, expecting everything to instantly heal and fall into place. Most Winterians had only recently begun looking like people again instead of starved slaves. Making them fight when their eyes spoke of terror and memories still raw . . .
