“What is going on?” I shout. “Why do I need this? WHAT DO I DO?”
I’ll never forget the first blizzard in Winter. Days after we returned, the weather kicked up as if celebrating our return. Snowflakes cut through the air, clouds darkened the sky, the temperature plummeted even more. Every Winterian in Jannuari ran outside to greet the gale, absorbing the chill with stunned ecstasy.
Standing in the courtyard of the palace, arms to the sky, cold numbing all other senses and wind deadening all other noises, I closed my eyes. I had never, in all my life, felt soremarkably alone. But it was a perfect kind of alone, a delicate, dreamlike peace.
This feeling now, as I awaken, nearly drowning in my fear, blood roaring in my head—this is the exact opposite of that. Alone, but desolate and swirling deeper into oblivion.
I bolt upright, the canopy around my bed in the Yakimian palace jostling with my force.
“My queen?”
Nessa holds my hand in one of hers, the key lying on the quilt beside me, my fingers cramped from being pried open by her. I suck in air, lungs screaming like I held my breath for the entire dream. Or nightmare, more like, but I yank free of Nessa and scramble off the bed, eyes on the key, body shaking from head to toe.
“What happened—” I start to ask, but I know. I feel the knowledge all over, every muscle aching and drenched with it as I pace, my wrinkled gown swaying around my legs.
Nessa stands. “Henn said you collapsed in the library. Dendera fetched a doctor, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with you. You were so still, though, and I couldn’t believe it was nothing—nothingnatural, anyway. So they all left, and I said I’d watch you, and I saw your fist all clenched up. It was that key—it did something to you. What is it? It has to do with the magic chasm—”
“Nessa,” I stop her in a biting rush.
Hannah planned for me to die too—but couldn’t go through with it,for whatever reason.
I have no idea how to find the Order of the Lustrate. Not beyond these keys. There’s something more to them, something I don’t understand, and it terrifies me.
And if I tell Nessa any of this, it will give her even more fuel for nightmares. Theron already broke, and I can’t handle her hurting more too—
“I can’t tell you—”
“Why?” She ducks around the bed, closer to me, glaring, her cheeks red.
“Because this isn’t your fight.”
Her glare hardens. “Liar.”
That makes me start. Nessa, my Nessa, is mad at me.
“I know you’re hiding something,” she continues. “I’ve known since we got back to Winter. Everyone else was happy and you were miserable—we won the war, yet you looked like you did in the camp, scared and waiting for something to break. It’s the magic chasm, isn’t it? Something about it has you worried. Noam? Cordell? What is it?”
I shake my head, whether in response or because I cannot, will not, admit this to her.
“Stop keeping it from me! I grew up inmisery. I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m so fragile. I can handle the truth!”
The door connecting my room to the one beside us opens. Dendera, Henn, Conall, and Garrigan run in and freeze at the sight of Nessa shouting at me.
“You shouldn’t have to,” I tell her. “This shouldn’t be your life. I’ll make it better.”
“That isn’t your responsibility!”
“I’m the queen—of course it is!”
“No,it isn’t.” Nessa jabs a finger at me, every muscle in her face tight. “It’s your job to make sure we have food and houses; it isn’t your job to make every one of us happy. I deserve to know what’s going on. You aren’t the only one who loves Winter and wants to protect it.”
“But I’m Winter’s conduit, Nessa.” My voice breaks. “I’m the only one who can—”
“Stop it!” Nessa waves her arm around the room at everyone gathered here. “You are not theonlyone. This is my kingdom just as much as it is yours. This is my war too!”
“This is my war too, Sir! You have to let me fight. I can help, I know I can!”
My own voice echoes back at me from Nessa, and I can’t do more than blink at her. All the dozens of times I yelled at Sir, the exact same words.
