Snow Like Ashes (17 page)

“What else was I supposed to think?” I’m shouting now, my voice tearing at the barn’s rafters. I step back once, twice, knowing I’ll never be able to get far enough away from him. “You may be able to look beyond the reality of our situation and imagine some other outcome, but all I ever saw, all I ever
see
, is a reminder that our lives aren’t our own.”

“You think I don’t know that our lives aren’t our own?” Mather grabs the locket half in a fist. “I’m the
king
, Meira!”

I cup my hands over my ears and shake my head, blocking out anything else he might say, anything that might make me stop talking. “None of it matters. It doesn’t matter what I want or need or love, because Sir will always be there to remind me that Winter has to come first.”

Mather stops. His face relaxes, one small muscle, and around my hands cupped over my ears, I hear him echo one of the words I said.

“Love?”

No, I didn’t say that. I’m not that stupid.

A footstep makes me fly around. Behind all the other sounds, men grunting in the yard and swords clanging and arrows firing, it shouldn’t have mattered, shouldn’t have stuck out.

Theron stands in the doorway, body hardened like he caught us rolling around on the floor. “Is everything all right?”

I throw a hand up, mouth hanging open. Yes. No. It never was, it never will be.

Theron doesn’t wait for an answer. He turns to Mather, the gleam of sweat on his skin glinting in the sunlight behind him. “King Mather.” Theron steps forward. Steps back. Looks like he wants to run out to the training yard and start hacking at someone. “I heard you have skill with a blade?”

I frown. This can’t be good.

It isn’t. Mather pauses, maybe considering how furious Sir will be, but a moment later he flashes a tight grimace that makes me fear for Theron’s life.

“Don’t worry, Prince Theron. I’ll go easy on you.”

I pull at Mather’s arm but he shrugs out of reach and marches at Theron, ducking out of the way at the last second to move around him and into the training yard. Theron follows with his own hard stomping.

The yard again falls into a shocked silence when the three of us parade toward the sword rings. Mather ducks under the rope of one ring and rips a training sword out of a case, huffing around the perimeter like a penned bull.

“You can’t do this!” I grab Theron only because Mather’s already in the ring. Theron is my betrothed, after all. I should be worried for him.
More
worried for him. Right? “Don’t do this. You’re both—um—important.”

Theron’s mouth relaxes and I think he might back down. But a voice rings out, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from grabbing my chakram and slicing off one of the soldiers’ heads.

“Show him, my prince!” the soldier calls from the opposite side of the sword ring. “Show him how we fight in Cordell!”

Theron closes his eyes in a quick, almost pained grimace. When he opens them again he puts a hand over mine where I cup his arm. “If you want us to stop, we will.”

More men are cheering him on now. Shouting his name—“Theron!”—so loud and so confidently that I can see Mather deflating before me.

This is what Mather meant. What he wants for our people. Not just a poem murmured to two ridiculous trees or a map reminding them of their place in this world. Pride. Tradition. Something like the happiness on the soldiers’ faces when they returned to Bithai from Autumn, like the pride when they cheer now for their prince.

Mather paces back and forth, tearing up dirt under his boots. The louder they cheer the angrier he gets. “Come on, Cordell!” he shouts. His voice pounds through the hollering men, drawing their cries to chaotic levels. “Show me what you can do!”

I glare at him and his chin tips down, his intensity waning ever so slightly. But not enough. Not completely. He’s doing this.

And Theron is too. His men are begging him to. Crying out for him, for Cordell. “Prove our strength, my prince! Prove our power and might!”

No man can refuse to answer that call. And watching Mather across the ring, feeling just how alone and weak and small we are surrounded by people who have a kingdom and an identity—

I’d answer that call. However stupid or selfish or wrong, I’d answer it. I wheeze in that realization, one hand going to my chest as I suck down gulps of sweat-heavy air. I’d answer the call of my kingdom, of the Winterians, crying out for me to prove myself to them.

To prove that they really
do
come first, always, no matter what.

When Theron releases my hand and pulls out of my grip, I don’t say anything. I should. I should beg him to turn away from this and walk back inside the barn and ignore the cries of his people, but my own voice screams in my head, warping the Cordellans’ words back at me.

Prove yourself, Meira! Prove yourself to Winter. You want to matter to your kingdom, and you want your kingdom to matter to you?

Then prove it.

Do what you must. Not what you WANT. What you must.

Prove it!

One of Theron’s men hands him a practice sword. My eyes latch onto the movement as Theron hesitates, fingers twitching, and takes it.

The moment Theron touches the hilt, Mather dives. Silent and deadly, he flings his body in a graceful albeit slightly too aggressive flourish, swinging the sword wide at Theron’s head. Theron ducks, rolls to the opposite side of the ring, dust swirling as he rights himself and uses the momentum to swipe at Mather’s legs. Mather’s left knee buckles just long enough for Theron to get traction to stand—and then it’s madness.

It’s the kind of sword fight Sir has told stories about, with two opponents bent on chopping each other to pieces but both so equal that neither can get an upper hand. Theron beats Mather to one side of the ring—Mather kicks out Theron’s legs and drops him to the ground—Theron flips backward and slaps Mather’s blow aside—Mather uses that blow to catch Theron’s knee—

The soldiers’ cheers grow with each strike. I don’t even know who they’re cheering for anymore, just that they’re thrown into a frenzy by two royals beating the pulp out of each other. The higher their screams rise, the more my heart throbs, caught up in the fever of the sword fight and how I’m teetering on the edge of those two words still jabbing into me.

Prove it.

Mather wraps his sword around Theron’s and yanks it free, hurling it over the crowd. Panic flows into me, panic at it going too far, at the blinding insanity of the crowd, at the way the soldiers scream with anticipation and Mather slams his foot into Theron’s chest. Theron drops to the ground, the wind knocked out of him, and Mather closes in, his sword in both hands over his head, moments away from cracking down on Theron’s skull.

I’m under the rope and in the ring before I can breathe. “Surrender!” I scream as I tear toward them. “Theron, surrender!”

Neither of them hears me. Neither of them flinches or breathes or sees anything beyond this fight.

I stumble between them, my arms flailing out toward Mather as my legs brace over Theron. Mather’s sword shoots up through the air, rising and rising, cutting the breeze ahead of his final screaming threat as I reach for his arms, his sword, something to prevent this.

It stops. The entire area freezes as if Noam stiffened every Cordellan with his conduit.

I exhale, body still thrown out in one last feeble attempt to keep Mather from making a really, really big mistake, and the noise that silenced everyone comes again.

“MATHER!”

Sir. His white head bobs in and out of the tightly packed Cordellan soldiers, weaving his way to us through the throng.

“Golden leaves,” Theron hisses from the ground.

I don’t see Mather’s face. I don’t see much of anything when I turn and Theron looks up at me, blood speckling his chest, a few red-black splotches in the shape of Mather’s spiked boot.

“Medic!”

It’s Dominick. He drags a tiny man with an overflowing pouch of bandages, and they duck under the rope, instantly yanking Theron’s hand off his chest.

Dominick turns to the men still gaping at their prince and the foreign Season king. “Fun’s over. Back to training now!”

The men hurry away. It’s such a violent switch in priorities that my brain can’t catch up, stuck on Theron’s blood and Mather’s anger and the echo of the Cordellans’ shouts, of my own voice in my head, screaming at me to choose.

To choose Winter. To always choose Winter. Over Mather, over Theron, over . . . me.

A sword drops behind me, the metal clanking in a hollow ring on the dirt. I turn, the world spiraling even more.

“Meira.” Mather holds his hands out, staring at them like he’s covered in blood. “I didn’t mean to—I don’t know what—”

The whole training yard shakes when Sir leaps into the sword ring. He stomps forward, ready to rip into us with his own threats. But his eyes fall to Theron on the ground, Mather standing over his sword, and me in the middle of it all.

A wave of fury sweeps over Sir’s face when he returns his gaze to Mather. He doesn’t say anything, just takes two quick steps forward and grabs Mather’s arm, dragging him out of the sword ring as neither looks back. When they get a good distance away, far enough that I can’t hear what they say, Sir growls something that makes Mather shake his head once, twice, and shout something in return.

Fingers brush the back of my hand. Theron stands beside me, and he doesn’t smile or nod or do anything I expect him to do; he just stays there next to me, blood tingeing the bandage on his chest. A calm and steady reminder that I’m not alone.

“Are you all right?” I ask, nodding to the bandage.

Theron drops his gaze to the wound and shoots me a roguish grin. “It takes more than a boot to stop me.” He touches the fabric and purses his lips. “But I should probably cover it up. Just in case my father—”

His eyes go to Mather and Sir, still in a heated argument a few dozen paces away. When Theron looks back at me, he inhales and stands up straighter.

“No need to cause more trouble,” he says, and points toward the palace. “Care to come with me? I’ll wash up and show you around, if you like. Far less”—he pauses—“dangerous activities.”

My gaze darts from him to Sir and Mather and back again. Should I stay and talk with Sir? Should I go over and try to defend Mather?

I pull my shoulders back. “I’d love to.”

CHAPTER 14

THERON LEADS ME
up the servants’ passage to his chambers, winding through the bowels of the palace to avoid any run-ins with Noam. We walk up three flights of stairs and down unendingly long halls, all far less luxurious than the main walks of the palace—just simple green carpets and unpainted wood walls and milky white candles on brown tables.

Maids with baskets of linens and errand boys with messages tucked under their arms scurry past, performing the daily tasks that keep a palace functioning. Everyone we pass stops to drop a bow to Theron, their faces easing from the focus of work to the pleasure of seeing someone they know.

Theron nods to each of them. “Is your mother feeling better?” he asks a passing maid, who dips a curtsy as she says yes, quite, the doctor worked a miracle. “I hope your brother is enjoying his new post,” Theron says to an errand boy, who beams at the mention and says he is, my lord, he was made lieutenant.

I trail behind, eyebrows rising higher with each brief conversation. He knows all of them. Every single one. And not only that, but he seems genuinely interested in them, remembering not only dozens of faces but also the smallest details about how that back acre of farmland is doing, did the trade with Yakim go well last week, is your daughter settled with her new husband yet?

We stop in front of a door in the third-floor hall. Theron turns the knob, moving on like none of the interactions were anything out of the ordinary, and I cast a glance behind us. None of the servants seem to think anything is unusual either. Is he that familiar with them? I can’t imagine Noam allows his son to mingle with those “beneath” him.

“Are all royals in Cordell so”—I pause, searching for the right word—“attentive?”

Theron looks over my shoulder at a chatting group of maids. His eyes drift, just enough that I can tell his thoughts are on a not exactly pleasant memory, and he forces a smile to cover his tracks. “No one else sneaks around the back to get to their rooms as often as I do,” he jokes, and before I can ask more, he dives into the room, leaving me to follow.

Tucked beside a bureau, the door opens onto a sitting room just large enough to be spacious but not so large as to be extravagant. A dining table lies on the left while an array of chairs and couches cluster together around a fireplace on the right. The furniture sits atop a thickly woven green-and-gold rug, the colors mimicking the dark shades of the rest of the sitting room. A chandelier hangs over the dining table and paintings of Cordell’s lavender fields or vibrant green forests or rivers trickling through yellow prairies line the walls. It’s fine yet functional, a place I could picture both a strategic meeting taking place as well as a vicious card game.

“I’ll be just a moment,” Theron says as he shuts the door behind us and disappears into the bedroom on the right.

After a moment, the sounds of water splashing into a bowl drift out. I wander around the sitting room to distract myself from the fact that Theron’s bedroom door is open and he’s probably a bit more than shirtless now.

Sweet snow, I’ve never thought about a man being undressed so much in my life. Even at camp with Mather, I never thought about the fact that he’d be in the bathing tent after me, and he’d be, um . . . I mean, maybe I thought about it, but I never got quite so flustered. I press my hands to my cheeks and exhale.

I stop in the middle of the room, hands still on my face, and narrow my eyes. There’s a lot of stuff in here. A
lot
of stuff. More than furniture and decorations. I turn in a circle, surveying the tightly packed space. I was so distracted by thoughts of boy matters that I overlooked the slightly messy, slightly unkempt quality of Theron’s sitting room—all right, the
very
messy,
very
unkempt quality.