Winter had saved the woman’s life. She was a hero.
Her lip started to tremble, and her father’s face softened. He pulled her back against him again and kissed the top of her head.
“You’re not in trouble,” he said. “I hope that girl will get the help she needs now, and that she’ll thank you someday. I just need you to know … there are people in this palace, and on all of Luna, who see manipulation as the quickest way to solve every problem. While it might be useful at times, it’s rarely the only way, or the best way. And the person you would manipulate … they do deserve to have a choice. Do you understand?”
She nodded, but she was pretty sure that he didn’t understand.
She loved her father with all her heart, but he would never know what it was like to help someone with a mere thought. To give them happiness or to change how they saw the world.
She was going to use her gift to help people. To make Artemisia better.
Saving that servant had been only the beginning.
* * *
For the months that followed, Winter focused more on her studies than ever before. Her glamour became stronger. Her thoughts became sharper. She practiced on Jacin when she could, though after that first talk with her father, she made sure to always ask his permission.
She kept her eye out for the servant who was still alive because of her. Winter always reserved a special smile for her, and every time their paths crossed in the palace, she made sure to give her an extra boost of pleasant emotions.
She made sure the woman was proud of the great work she did here in the palace.
She fed her contentment from living in such a beautiful city.
She coaxed her into feeling loved and appreciated, safe and calm—a steady drip of every good emotion Winter could think to give her, so she might never feel tempted to end her life again.
A year passed, then two, then three—but Winter started to notice a change in what she had begun to think of as a quiet companionship between her and the servant. She noticed that when the woman saw Winter coming, she would often change directions before Winter could get close enough to alter her thoughts. She was avoiding her.
Winter couldn’t understand why.
Then one afternoon, during her weekly session with Master Gertman, he told Winter that she had become so strong in her gift and so far exceeded his expectations that she might be talented enough to someday become a thaumaturge. It was a great honor. A role reserved for only the most talented Lunars in their entire kingdom.
Winter preened like a peacock all afternoon. She bragged about it to Jacin, and was annoyed when he didn’t look nearly as impressed as she thought he ought to.
She went to bed that night with a pleased grin on her lips.
Hours later, she was awoken by the deafening sound of a gunshot coming from her father’s room.
She would have nightmares for years to come. Her father’s blood. The thaumaturge who had shot him, now lying dead, too, in the room’s corner. Winter still standing in her nightgown and the feel of disbelieving tears on her cheeks and how she was unable to move, like her toes had been stitched to the carpet.
It was Selene all over again. One moment the person she loved most in the whole world was there, and then they were gone. Selene, taken by fire and smoke. Her father, by a thaumaturge and a gun.
In the years to come, it would not be the blood or her father’s dead eyes or the guards rushing past her that Winter would most remember.
It was her stepmother. The queen. Wracked by such heartbroken sobs that Winter thought they might never stop echoing in her head. Those wails would haunt her nightmares all her life.
At nine years old, Winter had begun to realize that it wasn’t normal for a queen to be married to a guard. She had begun to understand that there was something strange about such a match, even embarrassing.
But hearing her stepmother’s cries that night, she had understood why Levana had chosen her father. She loved him. In spite of the rumors and the glares and the disapproving frowns, she had loved him.
From that night, Winter had started to fear the thaumaturges. They were not honorable members of the court. They were not her friends or her allies.
She would never be one of them, no matter how much praise her gift brought her.
* * *
Winter gasped awake, her stepmother’s sobs still echoing in her head, leftover remnants from the nightmare. She was drenched in cold sweat.
It had been years since her father’s murder, and months since she’d dreamed of it, but the shock and horror felt the same every time.
Not bothering to wait for her pulse to slow, Winter pushed herself from the bed. She fumbled around in her wardrobe for a pair of soft-soled slippers and pinned back her wild curls before slipping into the corridor.
If the guard who stood watch at her door was surprised to see her up in the middle of the night, he didn’t show it. It was not a rare occurrence. There had been a time when she sneaked down nearly every night to the palace wing where the guards and their families lived, back when the nightmare had plagued her in earnest. Those nights when she and Jacin would fix themselves mugs of melted cream-and-chocolate and watch stupid dramas on the holograph nodes. When he would pretend that he didn’t notice her crying as she pressed her face against his shoulder.
This night, though, she did not make it all the way to the guards’ private wing.
Rather, as she approached the main thoroughfare of the palace, she heard chatter bouncing off the windows. The clomp of booted feet. A pair of maids whispered sadly in an alcove, startling and curtsying when they noticed Winter in their midst.
She followed the commotion and found it centered in one of the libraries.
Thaumaturge Aimery Park stood near a window. He was wearing his crimson coat, even though it was the middle of the night. “Your Highness, what are you doing awake?”
Winter did not like Thaumaturge Park, though she was smart enough not to let it show. She couldn’t even pinpoint what it was about him that set her nerves to vibrating when he was nearby.
He always smiled when he saw her, but it was the smile of a vulture.
Not wanting to mention the nightmare, Winter answered him, “I thought I heard something.”
He nodded. “Something tragic has occurred, young princess. You do not need to see.”
He looked back out the window, and despite his warning, he didn’t stop Winter as she made her way to another window, where two guards were looking down toward the gardens.
Winter gasped.
A body was sprawled out in the fountain beneath the window. Blood filling the basin. Limbs turned at odd angles.
She knew, though it was too far to see for sure, that it was the servant woman. The one she’d saved years ago, when she was only a child. The one who Winter had been feeding happiness to for more than half her young life. At least, she thought she had.
Winter stumbled back.
“She was ill, Princess,” said Aimery. “It is terrible, but these things do happen.”
Unable to speak around the emotion clogging her throat, Winter turned and rushed from the room. Walking at first, then faster, faster. Behind her, she heard the familiar clomp of boots as her guard chased after her. Let him run. Let him chase.
She ran as fast as she could, arms pumping, feet barely touching the cool floor.
When she reached the wing where the guards lived, she passed Jacin’s father, Sir Garrison Clay, on his way to start his next shift. He was a palace guard, like Winter’s father had been. They had been in training together years before and had been friends from the start—which is how she’d known Jacin all her life too.
“Highness,” said Garrison, eyes widening when he saw her and took in what must have been a look of shock. “What’s wrong?”