“A stubborn king.”
“Do you think so? What would you have me do instead?”
“Move court. Leave this dreary place behind and move south. You could finally finish the Summer Castle. I grew up near there, and I never understood why it was abandoned.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t do that. This is my home. To move away would be to admit defeat, to give in to Sybil’s curse and let her drive us away.”
“I’ve always thought that the North puts too much importance in Sybil. Maybe all you have to do to break the curse is take down her statue and stop revering her so highly. Or maybe this is no place for a king to rule at all, and she was doing you a favor by trying to drive you away.”
Nicholas laughed, but he stopped when he noticed that Mina wasn’t laughing with him. She’d meant it as a joke, but then she wondered if she might really believe it—maybe not about Nicholas, but about herself.
Nicholas lifted her chin. “What’s the matter?”
The truth came to her lips before she could stop it. “Sometimes I think Whitespring doesn’t want me here. Sometimes—” I think it knows what I am, she continued silently, and it has rejected me.
He took her hands and pulled her up from the throne and down from the dais to stand with him. One hand covering hers, he brought the other to her face, and he blinked in shock when his ungloved hand met her flesh, like he’d expected something else. The soft pads of his fingers brushed over the skin of her cheek, her jaw, her neck. Would he notice she had no pulse gently beating beneath her skin? She wanted to flinch away when his fingers reached her throat, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, so she kept still, letting him revel in the feel of something softer than air and warmer than memory.
His hand paused at last on her cheek, his thumb close to her lips. “Whitespring wants you here,” he said. “I want you here. Every time you shudder from the cold or wrap yourself more tightly in your furs, it reminds me that somewhere, the sun shines more brightly than it does here. You carry it in your skin.”
It was so easy to believe him. After all, didn’t she currently feel a million suns burning underneath her skin? Didn’t she feel them illuminating her from the inside out? Her heart was a mirror, reflecting the rays through her whole body and out from her eyes, desperate to throw its light over Nicholas as well. Unbidden, the truth struck her: If I could love anyone, it would be him.
“If it’s the sun you long for, why stay? Come to the South, to the hills where I was born, and I’ll show you the sun.”
His hand dropped from her cheek, and he shook his head. “Because I love the winter, too. The world here is frozen, and so it never changes, and so it is always what I expect it to be. There’s a comfort in that. And besides—” He gestured weakly to the queen’s throne and let his arm fall again in defeat. And though he didn’t say the words, Mina heard them clearly enough: And besides, how could I leave her?
Mina was struck with the childish urge to tip the chair over and give it a kick for good measure, but instead she said, “I understand. I wish I knew how to make the sun shine for you again.”
“Ah, only one person can do that.”
Mina bristled. “Lynet.”
The name drew out a smile, but it wasn’t for her. “What do I need the sun for, when I have Lynet?”
She’d taken him in the wrong direction. Mina needed to bring him back to her, away from Lynet, away from his dead wife. How can I make him happy again? she asked herself, but the reply was merciless: He doesn’t want to be happy. The times when he had reached out to her—at the picnic and under the juniper tree—had been when he’d seen Mina at her loneliest. If she wanted him to reach out to her again, she would have to give him a piece of her own sadness.
“I wish I’d grown up with a father who loved me as much as you love Lynet,” she said. Reminding him of her father was always a risk, but she knew a fragment of the truth would be more effective than a lie, no matter how artfully told.
And she was right. Her sadness drew him back to her. “Oh, Mina,” he said. “Is he cruel to you?”
Mina shook her head. “No, not cruel, but—” She faltered, biting her lip. “Nicholas, I—oh, I’m sorry, my lord, I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s fine,” he said, bringing his hand to her cheek again. “You may use my name.”
“Nicholas, you were right the other day—I am lonely. I have no one here, except … except for you.”
She wore an exquisite expression of pain and longing on her face, one that she’d practiced with Felix. She knew it was effective.
Nicholas was staring at her lips, and then he leaned forward, bringing his head down to hers—
The sound of the heavy door opening made Nicholas draw back like a guilty child. Mina glared at the intruder—Darian, the steward. The old man had lived at Whitespring far longer than anyone else had, and so he was in charge of running the place, perhaps even more so than Nicholas. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said. “There was no audience scheduled for the throne room, and yet I heard voices from within. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“Not at all,” Nicholas said, avoiding looking anywhere in Mina’s direction. “In fact … I … wanted to speak with you. Wait there.”
He turned to Mina. “I’ve enjoyed our talk today, and I hope you have as well. I trust you can find your way back to your rooms?”
“Yes, my lord,” Mina said quietly. “I won’t keep you any longer.”
He bowed his head to her in gratitude and hurried away with the steward, leaving Mina alone in the empty throne room.
* * *
Mina made a decision that night in the chapel. She went over the events of the day, the conversation in the throne room, thinking of the hidden truths she had told, the lies she had tried to wrap them in. There were lies she had to tell and truths she had to hide, but otherwise, she found herself longing for more moments like the ones they had shared—moments when she had revealed something true to him, something real.
If anyone could love me, it would be him.
She had tried to use pretense to win him, but in the end, she always slipped and let a little of the truth seep through—and when she did, he responded with warmth, with kindness. If he marries me, Mina decided, I’ll tell him the truth about my heart. I’ll tell him on my wedding night.
She waited for Felix, but she had something difficult to tell him tonight, and so she felt none of the usual excitement as he appeared in the chapel doorway.
“Thank you for telling me where to find him,” Mina said, offering him a smile when he was at her side.
“I wish I hadn’t,” Felix said. “I did exactly what you told me to, but I wish I had disobeyed you.” He shook his head. “I watch him for you, day after day, and when we meet, we only talk about him. Sometimes, when I’m watching him, I think I hate him.”
“Felix—”
“And you—” He placed his hand against her cheek, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. “I see how badly you want him. I saw it on your face today. And even though you’re happy, I—I feel something different.”
Mina removed his hand from her face and kissed his palm, rougher now and more callused than when she had first made it. “Are you angry with me?”
He thought a moment, trying to understand feelings that were for once his own. “No,” he said. “I feel … sadness. Loneliness. That’s the part I don’t understand—the less lonely you feel, the lonelier I become. That’s not the way it should be.”
She smiled sadly at him. “I wanted to say good-bye, Felix.”
“Good-bye?”
“I can’t see you like this anymore.”
“It’s because of him, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I want to be myself with him, or at least I want to try. You’re too big a secret to keep.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t tell—”
“I know,” she said. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head against his chest. Perhaps she was start
ing to reflect him now—she could feel his sadness. “I know, my darling, but I can’t be true to him and keep you at the same time. I don’t want to practice love anymore—I want to try to feel it. I’m sorry,” she said, pressing one last kiss to his lips. “But I have to send you back.”
He pulled back from her suddenly. “Send me back where?” he said, his voice harsh. “Into your mirror, where I can only watch you from a distance?”
Mina didn’t understand why he was reacting like this at first, but then she took in his huntsman’s uniform, his scuffed boots, and the small tear on his right sleeve. He had a fresh scar on the back of his hand. Mina had forgotten that he had experiences of his own now, a life beyond this chapel, beyond her use for him. He had become too human to be only a mirror; to turn him back into glass now would be a kind of murder.
“I’m sorry,” she said. He seemed new to her, and she wanted to touch him again, to understand the person he had become in the past three years. But she was afraid that if she did, she might not be able to leave him here, as she knew she must. He had no heart to offer her, and she wanted something more than glass. “I won’t send you back,” she assured him. “But you mustn’t try to see me again.”
Felix didn’t respond. He simply watched her with that endless gaze, and even when she turned her back on him and walked out of the chapel, she thought she could still feel the force of those unblinking, empty eyes.
13
LYNET
Lynet was beginning to regret her choice to sit outside the door and listen as Mina and Nicholas argued. But it was better to know than to sit in her room and wonder.
“You made a decision that concerns me,” Mina was saying, her voice low with rage, “without even telling me.”
“I didn’t tell you,” Nicholas answered, “because I knew you would tell Lynet. Despite my best efforts, you hold a considerable amount of influence over my daughter. I know you would have turned her against me, just as you’ve always tried to turn her against her mother.”
The silence that fell over them now was even worse than the arguing, and Lynet rested her forehead against her knees, bracing herself.
“You don’t know the first thing about your daughter,” Mina said. “She never cared about her mother, not from the beginning.”
Lynet lifted her head in surprise. No, she’s not supposed to tell him that. These were secrets that they had shared, secrets she could never tell her father.
“You’re just trying to hurt me now,” Nicholas said softly.
“No, she’s the one who’s always trying not to hurt you. She doesn’t want you to know how little she cares about Emilia. How could she? She never even knew her. She’s never missed her, never loved her, never wanted to be anything like her.”
“Mina—”
“Emilia isn’t even her mother—”
“That’s enough!” Nicholas roared. “And if you dare tell her…”
Lynet held her breath. Mina had already told one of her secrets—how could she be sure she wouldn’t tell all of them?
But Mina just gave a brittle laugh. “I’m not that cruel.”
“No? You’re your father’s daughter, aren’t you?”
Another silence. “It’s lucky for you, Nicholas, that I’m not,” Mina said, her voice so quiet that Lynet could barely make out the words.
Lynet heard footsteps approaching the door, so she quickly scurried down the hall, turning into another corridor where she would be safe from view.
And now where should she go first? To Mina? To her father? The cracks in her family that had been spreading for so many years were finally starting to break open, creating a rift that was becoming too wide for her to hold together anymore. Even if she mustered the courage to go speak to her father and tell him she had changed her mind, he would probably think it was Mina’s doing. But she had to believe that she could still apologize and explain herself to Mina and repair some of the damage that she had created.
A few minutes later, Lynet knocked softly at Mina’s door. There was no response. There was no light coming from under the door, either, but Lynet knew Mina couldn’t possibly be asleep already. She frowned at the door for a moment, and then she had an idea about where Mina might be.
She knew she was right when she saw a thin stream of light from under the chapel door. Inside, Mina was sitting under the central altar, a candle by her side. Bundled in her furs, her hair streaming down her back, she seemed very small.
“Mina?” Lynet said. She whispered it, but her voice echoed, and Mina jumped a little at the sound.
“Come sit by me,” Mina said.
Lynet treaded carefully, feeling like she shouldn’t make any noise, like she shouldn’t be there at all. She sat on the floor beside her stepmother. “Mina, I didn’t—”
But when Mina looked at her, waiting for whatever pitiful explanation she would offer, Lynet understood how pointless her words were now. She felt a flash of resentment toward her father, because she knew that it was for his sake that she had turned on Mina with her silence. She had done it because she knew it was an opportunity to make him happy, and it was so difficult to make him happy. But she had chosen her father’s happiness over Mina’s because she thought she could take her stepmother’s forgiveness for granted, and she knew that wasn’t fair at all. If she wanted to speak her feelings, she should have spoken before, in front of her father. Anything she said now would only add to the insult of her earlier silence.
In the end, it was Mina who spoke. “It’s the way of things, I suppose,” she said. “I think I suspected something like this might happen once I noticed how much you’d grown. As long as you were still a child, I was young, I was safe … but now that you’re older, there’s no use for me anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Lynet said at once.
Mina gave her a sad smile. “You’ll see too, one day. Once you grow older, someone else will be waiting to take your place, someone younger and prettier than you. I knew that day was approaching for me. I knew even when you were still a child. So why am I so surprised to learn that I’m being thrown aside? Why am I always so surprised?”
Lynet reached for her hand. “I would never throw you aside!”
Mina raised an eyebrow. “No? You say that now, but time could change your mind. And what about your father’s commands? He doesn’t want me close to you.” Mina took hold of Lynet’s hand now, grasping her tightly by the wrist. “Are you bold enough to defy your father, wolf cub?”
Mina’s grip was tight, but more alarming was the desperation in her voice, the pleading in her eyes. Lynet had never thought she would ever see Mina like this, but then, she had never seen Mina on the brink of losing something so important to her.
Lynet met her stepmother’s gaze but tried not to let it swallow her whole. “What do you want me to do?”
Mina’s grip relaxed now. “Tell him the truth—that you don’t want the South.”
Lynet swallowed. “I don’t know if I can change his mind, even if I speak to him.”
“You can if you find the right words to say. Your father doesn’t want you to be unhappy. He loves you. How hard can it be to persuade him to do what you want?”
Lynet finally tore her wrist away. How hard could it be? Lynet knew well enough that her father had certain expectations for her, and that he wouldn’t give them up easily. “Mina, I don’t know.…”
“Do you want to rule the South?”
“I … no, I don’t.”
The light of the candle flashed in Mina’s eyes. “Then we both want the same thing. Didn’t I promise you that I would never let anyone turn you into your mother? If you let your father groom you for the throne while he’s still alive, that is exactly what he will do.”
The familiar restlessness was coming over her as she heard the truth in her stepmother’s words. This was her choice, then—she couldn’t make both her father and her stepmother happy, but if she chose her father, then there was the possibility that she would
lose herself, lose everything that made her feel like her own person. The answer seemed obvious, and yet she still hesitated.
Mina’s voice pierced through the silence. “What are you afraid of, Lynet?”
“I’m not afraid,” Lynet said, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. “I’ll do it. I’ll talk to him.”
Mina wrapped her arms around Lynet and pulled her close. Lynet found being ensconced in Mina’s furs almost unbearably warm, but she clung to her stepmother, searching for comfort even as she tried to give it. After all those years of trying not to hear Mina and her father fighting and trying not to notice the way the Pigeons talked about her, only now did Lynet allow herself to acknowledge that perhaps her beautiful, self-assured stepmother was as uncertain as she was. No wonder, then, that Mina was so desperate not to lose her last connection to her home—it was a piece of her, as surely as Mina was a piece of Lynet. And so maybe for once, Lynet could help Mina the way Mina had always helped her. She would tell her father she wasn’t ready for his offer, and he would concede, even if he didn’t understand, and Mina would be happy, and maybe they could all go back to the way they were before.
“Thank you, wolf cub,” Mina said before she pulled away.
Lynet felt a fierce need to protect her stepmother, to earn the pet name Mina had given her so long ago. If she couldn’t tell her father what she wanted for her own sake, at least she could do it for Mina’s. “Nothing will come between us,” Lynet said. “I promise.” She took Mina’s hand and pressed it gently.
Mina returned the gesture, but there was still doubt in her eyes, in the corners of her weary smile, and she mouthed something low and nearly inaudible as she started to stand. Lynet couldn’t make out the words exactly, but she thought she heard Mina say, I hope you’re right.
* * *
Lynet awoke on the morning of her birthday to the barking of the dogs, excited for the hunt. She climbed out of bed and went to her window, craning her neck to see the dogs gathered at the castle gates, along with the rest of the hunting party on their horses. Her father was there, as well as the head huntsman, the one with the empty eyes. Lynet quickly pulled her head back inside the window; she didn’t want either of them to see her.
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