“Winter?”
She halted.
The corridor was quiet here, though not completely deserted as women came and went from the washroom. Palace guards stood statue-like along the walls. She let her gaze travel over the lines of their faces, thinking maybe Jacin’s father, Garrison Clay, was among them—but no. She did not know any of these men.
Winter …
She shivered. Her breaths turned to tatters.
“Your Highness, are you all right?” asked one of the servants who stood nearby.
Ignoring her, Winter took off running in the direction of the voice.
It was him. It was him.
She skidded around a corner, away from the private wing of the royal family, where she’d last seen him alive, and toward the guard quarters. The place where her father had lived before Winter was born. Before Levana had claimed Evret Hayle as her husband and tied their fates together forever.
Winter …
His voice rumbling and warm, just how she remembered.
Winter …
She saw his open smile. Remembered how tall he was, how strong. How he could throw her into the air and catch her every time.
Winter … Winter …
“Winter!”
She gasped and spun around just as Jacin grabbed her elbow. She blinked the daze away. Looked back down the corridor, past the guard quarters, toward the servant halls.
Empty.
“What are you doing here?”
She met Jacin’s eyes again. He was looking at her gown, frowning. “Why aren’t you at the gala?”
“I heard him,” she said, taking Jacin’s hand into both of hers. Gripping so hard that part of her feared she would crush his fingers, but he didn’t even flinch.
“Who?”
“My father.” Her voice splintered. “He was here. He was calling to me and I … I followed him and … and…”
Her heart rate began to slow. Realization crept through the bewilderment at the same moment that Jacin’s confusion turned to concern.
Releasing him, she pressed a palm to her own forehead. No fever. She wasn’t ill.
Before she had time to be frightened of what it meant, he was holding her, telling her that it would be all right. He was there. He would always be there.
That was the first of the hallucinations.
They kept coming.
They got worse.
Hungry beasts crawled out of the shadows in the night, scratching at the floor beneath her bed.
Bodies hung from the chandeliers over the tables in the dining hall.
A necklace of jewels would tighten around her neck, strangling her.
Usually Jacin was there, as he’d been all her life. He would make light of it and force her to laugh about the absurdity of whatever trick her mind was playing. He would talk her through each episode with his steady rationality, leaving no room for her to doubt his words. He would hold her and let her cry, and it was during one of these embraces when Winter realized with all the force and clarity of a solar flare—
She was in love with him. She had always, always been in love with him.
* * *
“I brought you something,” said Jacin, smiling impishly when he spotted her. He was sprawled out on a bench in the gardens, his legs stretched out before him. It seemed he would never stop growing, even though his legs and arms no longer fit his body.
He was holding a white box that was emblazoned with the seal of Winter’s favorite candy maker.
Her eyes widened. “Petites?”
“Mom took me for new boots this morning and I made her stop for some.”
Winter hopped up onto the bench, sitting on its back so that her feet were tucked under Jacin’s knee. Though the biodomes of Luna were temperature- and climate-controlled, there was always an extra chill beside the lake, warranting the closeness. She did not hesitate, as soon as the box was open, to pop one of her favorite candies into her mouth. The sweet-sour burst of apples melted across her tongue.
“S’pose you wan’ one?” she said through her full mouth, pretending resentment as she held the box out for Jacin.
He smirked. “So generous, Your Highness.”
She wrinkled her nose at him and took another bite.
There had been a time—right after she’d realized how hopelessly in love with her best friend she was—when she had become awkward and reserved. When she had thought that she must become a lady when she was near him, as she was expected to be in the presence of any suitor … should she ever have a suitor. She smiled demurely when he made a joke and she touched him only timidly and she sat like a proper princess when they were together.
That time had lasted for about three hours, until Jacin had given her a strange look and asked what was wrong with her.
There was no point in pretending to be someone else now. Jacin knew every one of her secrets, every habit and every flaw. There would be no hiding them, and besides, those three hours had served only to make him uncomfortable, not enamored.
A cold voice cut through their candy devouring, shooting a tinge of anxiety along Winter’s spine.
“Winter.”
A single word, her own name, that brought more dread with it than a thousand threats.
Jacin jumped to his feet, swiping any candy bits off his mouth as he bowed to the queen.
Winter was slower to follow, but she, too, lowered into a curtsy as her tongue dug out bits of candy from between her teeth.
“Hello, Stepmother,” she said.
The queen’s glare was focused on Jacin. “You are dismissed, Jacin. Go find some way to be useful.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, still in his bow, and a second later he was marching away from them, back toward the palace. The stiffness to his stride made Winter curious if he was mirroring the strut of the guards or if Levana was controlling his limbs.
“Did you need something, Stepmother?”
Levana stared at her for a long time.
A very long time.
Winter could read nothing behind her glamour, her placid expression, her breathtaking beauty. She had heard some rumors lately that she, Winter, the gangly princess with the unruly hair, might someday surpass the queen’s beauty. She laughed every time she heard such nonsense, knowing that it could be only empty flattery.
Finally, one side of Levana’s lips curved upward. Maybe it was meant to be comforting, but it failed.
“Come with me, Winter.”
She turned and headed back toward the palace without waiting to see if Winter would follow, because of course she would.
“You are spending too much time with that boy,” Levana said as they stepped beneath the portico overhang and back into the bright-lit corridors of the palace. “You are getting older. You are no longer a child, and soon you will have suitors and perhaps even requests for marriage. You must be aware of propriety and expectations. That is your role in this family. That is the part you will play on behalf of the crown.”
Winter kept her eyes focused on the floor. Nothing the queen was saying was news to her, but she had never broached the subject so openly. She did know what was expected of her, and marrying the son of a palace guard wasn’t it. She ignored the fact that Levana herself had married a man from the working class when she’d been just a princess. Winter’s father. A lowly palace guard himself.
The sneers and derision from the court continued even to this day, thirteen years after their marriage and four years after her father’s death. It was a mistake that Winter would not be allowed to make for herself.