“I never should have let her go,” Sir growls. “How did you lose her, Finn?”
The tent flap rustles into place behind me, and the men turn as one, their words dying in their mouths as five shocked faces stare up at me. Five faces with eyes in various shades of blue; five faces aged by war and death and sixteen years of nomadic living. A few of them still have bandages from their last mission tied around their limbs.
“Don’t work yourselves into a panic, gentlemen—I’m alive,” I announce, forcing arrogance to cover just how exhausted I am. I make sure I bump Finn with the most gunk-covered part of my cloak when I squeeze between him and Henn. The locket box tears from my palm like a block of ice that stuck to my skin and clunks against a stack of maps on the table.
Silence. Shocked, stunned, I-have-to-be-dreaming silence. My chest cools with the softest, most delicate tingle of pride. Like placing the locket half on the table completed this mission, and now that it’s done, now that I succeeded, I’ve finally proven what I’ve wanted for so long. This. That I can help Winter. That I can use what I’m good at—thinking on my feet, ranged-fighting, stealth—to help my kingdom.
I step back, pride urging a dopey grin across my face. Staring at me is the usual lineup: Sir, Finn, Henn, Greer—and Mather.
My smile fades, pulled away by a dull thudding in my chest. Mather is the only one whose attention didn’t get sucked to the box the moment I placed it on the table. His jewel-blue eyes are unreadable as he stares at me, his face locked in an expression that’s either joy or horror. I choose to think it’s joy.
“Meira.”
I flinch and turn to face Sir, who stands, lifting the box.
“Yes?”
He doesn’t look at me, just flicks the lock and lifts the lid, his face gray with dreamlike surprise. I can’t see the locket half from here, but I know what he’s looking at. Sixteen years of fighting, of hoping that once we reunite our conduit’s two halves, we’ll be closer to getting our kingdom back.
“You …” Sir looks up at me. Back at the box’s contents. Back at me.
I’ve rendered Sir speechless. Oddly, that small victory makes me feel lighter than getting the locket half and surviving Spring did.
Sir starts to ask something but takes a deep breath, coughing as he inhales the stench emanating off of me. “Alysson!” he wheezes. “For the love of all that is cold, will you draw Meira a bath?”
I laugh as Alysson hurries in behind me. She reaches for me, twitches when she realizes what she’ll be touching, and settles for simply ushering me out of the tent with a wave.
“And when you’re done, Meira,” Sir calls, “you’re going to tell me everything.”
“Yes, Sir,” I reply, not bothering to hide my gleaming smile.
As I leave, Sir’s voice trickles after me. “Snow above. She actually did it.”
It’s not praise, but it makes me smile just the same. Yes, I did do it.
It takes five buckets of water, two bars of soap, and a small fire to get rid of the sewer gunk. Once the last of my ruined outfit is crackling away in the flames, Alysson departs to care for my stolen horse. I pull on a clean, white shirt and thick, black pants—sweet snow above, clean clothes—and leave my wet hair to dry in the wind as I trek back to the meeting tent.
I take a deep breath, gathering my remaining strength to face Sir, and plunge inside. The giant oak table has been pushed aside to make room for a cluster of pillows, their threadbare brown fabric stretched taut over stuffing of wool and prairie grass. Two bowls—one holding steaming vegetables, the other cradling a handful of frozen berries—wait inside the pillow ring. The cushions surround something else that makes my breath catch on the velvetiness of the warm air: a circular iron fire pit, far enough back so as not to set the pillows aflame but close enough to let the earthy smell of burning coal absorb into the fabric.
Steam rises off wild turnips and onions, twisting into an aroma of savory sweetness. But it’s the berry bowl that makes my stomach do a little dance of excitement as I drop onto a pillow. I haven’t had frozen berries since my last birthday, seven months ago, and seeing the bowl of frosted black and red orbs makes more than hunger twirl through me. Alysson makes them for special occasions, or tries to, when enough ice can be found to freeze the berries solid. They’re a Winterian delicacy, something all the other refugees eat in revered solemnity.
Speaking of Winterian delicacies …
The coals shift, sending up a cloud of warmth. Sweat breaks out across my forehead and my nose tingles with the smell of the heat. It isn’t for warmth that we have this fire pit—I think I speak for every Winterian when I say we’d rather be frozen solid than near any kind of spark—it’s for memory. It’s for the same reason I have a fistful of slowly melting berries in my palm.