Mather drops his gaze to the fire pit, the orange glow pulsing in his azure eyes. “William showed me the locket half,” he breathes.
My hand tenses around the fork, and I open my mouth to say something, but all I can think of are the same illusion-shattering questions I asked him before I left. Things that make our veil of happiness evaporate like drops of water on a bed of hot coals. So I just stay quiet, and in the silence he looks up at me, one corner of his mouth cocked curiously.
“It’s strange to think that the last time any Winterian saw it, it was around my mother’s neck.” His eyes focus on something beside my head, something hovering in the patched-together memories everyone has told him too. Memories of his mother, Queen Hannah Dynam. Memories of how Angra himself marched into the Jannuari palace, killed her, and broke the conduit in two.
I recognize that look. Mather’s face takes on the same aura of disappointment whenever he misses a target in practice, or when Sir beats him at sparring, or when I asked him how he’d use magic if he could. Disappointment in himself, in his inability to do what he set out to do, even when it’s far out of his control. He runs a hand over his face to brush it off, and there’s that emotionless veil again, hiding his true feelings behind a smile.
I shake my head slowly. “You’re insane.”
His eyebrows pinch in the suggestion of a smile. “Am I?”
“Yes.” I stab another turnip and leave the fork there, hovering vertically in the air. “We got the locket half. You shouldn’t be feeling anything other than happiness right now, real happiness, not your fake smiles, Mr. Heir of Winter.”
Mather’s face grows solemn. He pauses, his hands open in his lap like he’s holding all of his worries. “I didn’t feel anything,” he murmurs, a slow, absent thought. “When I saw the locket half. It was the only thing I’ve ever seen of my mother’s. I should have felt something.”
I fight to steady my breathing, and my eyes drop for a beat to the fire pit. Wasn’t I just worrying about these same things? I forget sometimes how similar Mather is to me—how we’re both young enough to feel separated from Winter in the same ways. Mather’s lack of feeling is a bit more pressing, though. After all, he’s Winter’s king.
But I don’t have any way to reassure him, any wise words to soothe his fears—if I did, I’d be able to fix my own problems too. “It’s just half of a necklace right now,” I try. “Maybe you’ll feel something when it’s a whole conduit again.”
Mather shrugs. “I’m not supposed to have any connection to it though, remember? I’m just her son.” His face flashes with shame and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry. You’re right; this is supposed to be a happy day. You got the locket half. Thank you.” He leans forward, his eyes intent. “Really, Meira, thank you.”
My face spasms with confusion, but I can’t do anything to smooth it out. I didn’t know he’d put so much weight on the locket half, that he wanted so badly to have a connection to his mother. I don’t remember my parents or even know who they were, but it never occurred to me that Mather would hurt so badly for people he’d never met either. Does he miss his father too? Hannah’s husband, Duncan, was a Winterian lord before he became king. Does Mather wish he knew him if only to talk to someone in the same situation—king of a female-blooded kingdom?
A heaviness settles in my stomach, filling me with a choking mix of guilt and anxiety—wanting to help Mather, but knowing it’s as out of my power as using Winter’s conduit is out of his.
Thankfully at that moment, the tent flaps part around Sir. He takes in the absent food, my wet hair. I hold my breath, remembering why I’m really here—to tell Sir what happened.
Sir sits next to me, silent. He doesn’t reprimand me for being so casual with our future king, doesn’t berate me up and down for my informality and poo-covered entrance.
Uh-oh.
He withdraws the box from his pocket. “So,” he begins. “Would you care to explain?”
Suddenly I feel like the misbehaving child who first begged Sir to let me help out with the resistance. The child who waved swords around like awkward steel wings and showed absolutely no promise in fighting until I tried ranged weapons like my chakram, and it turned out I could be deadly too. The child he always sees when he looks at me.
The chakram. My heart drops. Snow above, I have to tell Sir I lost another throwing disc. With the decline in Primoria’s iron production due to the disuse of Winter’s mines, weapons have become expensive. And being a Winterian refugee isn’t exactly a lucrative career.