The question tumbles out of my mouth like a smooth stone in a stream, its edges worn clean by how often I roll it around my head. We never talk about Winter’s conduit, the locket that King Angra Manu of Spring broke when he destroyed our kingdom sixteen years ago, unless it relates to a mission. It’s always “We got word that one of the locket halves will be in this place at this time”; never “Even if we get our female-blooded conduit put back together, how will we know if the magic works when our only heir is male?”
Mather shifts, batting at the grass with his sword as if he’s waging a personal war against the prairie. “It doesn’t matter what I would do with it—it’s not like I can use it.”
“Of course it matters.” I frown. “Having good intentions—”
But he shoots me an exasperated stare before I can even finish. “No, it doesn’t,” he counters. The more he says, the faster the words come, pouring out of him in a way that makes me think he needs to talk about it too. “No matter what I want to do, no matter how well I lead or how hard I train, I won’t be able to force life into frozen fields, or cure plagues, or feed strength into soldiers like if I could use the conduit. The Winterians would probably rather have a cruel queen than a king with good intentions, because with a queen, they at least have a chance that the magic can be used for them. It doesn’t matter what I would do with magic, because leaders are valued for the wrong things.”
Mather pants, his face tight as he hears everything he said, all his worries and weaknesses laid bare. I bite the inside of my cheek, trying not to stare at the way he winces to himself and smacks the grass again. I shouldn’t have pushed it, but something deep in me always throbs with the need to say more, to learn as much as I can about a kingdom I’ve never even seen.
“Sorry,” I breathe, and rub my neck. “Bringing up a sensitive subject while you’re armed wasn’t smart on my part.”
He shrugs, but he doesn’t look convinced. “No, we should talk about it.”
“Tell that to everyone else,” I grunt. “They just run off on missions and come back bleeding and say, ‘We’ll get it next time, and then we’ll get the other half, then we’ll raise allies and overthrow Spring and save everyone.’ As if it’s all so easy. If it’s so easy, why don’t we talk about it more?”
“It hurts too much,” Mather says. Just that simple.
That makes me stop. I meet his eyes, a long, careful gaze. “Someday it won’t hurt.”
The promise we always make each other—before going on missions, whenever people come back bleeding and hurt, whenever things go badly and we’re huddling together in terror. We’ll be better … someday.
Mather sheathes his blade and pauses, his hand on the hilt, before taking two steps toward me and cupping his palm around my shoulder. As I start, my eyes jerking up to his, he realizes what he’s doing and pulls his hand back.
“Someday,” he agrees, voice clipped. The way he clenches and unclenches the hand that touched me makes my stomach flip over in a spiral of thrill. “For now, all we need to worry about is getting our locket back so we gain standing as a kingdom again and can get allies to fight Spring with us. Oh, and we need to make sure you’re able to do more than lie down during a sword fight.”
I mock-laugh. “Hilarious, Your Highness.”
Mather’s face convulses, and I know it’s from the title I used. The title I have to use. Those two words, Your Highness, are the wedge that keeps us the proper distance apart—me, an orphaned soldier-in-training, and him, our future king. No matter our dire circumstances, no matter our shared upbringing, no matter the chill his smile sends over my body, he’s still him, and I’m still me, and yes, he needs to have a female heir someday, but with a proper lady, a duchess or a princess—not the girl who spars with him.
Mather draws his sword again as I hunt through the prairie grass for my discarded blade, refocusing on the task at hand, rather than on the way his eyes follow me through the tall, yellow stalks. Camp stands a few paces ahead of us, the wide prairie lands camouflaging our pale brown-and-yellow tents. That and the fact that the Rania Plains aren’t friendly to travelers who stray from the main roads has kept us safe for the last five years in this pathetic home—or as close to home as we have right now.
I pause in my search, staring at the camp with a growing weight on my shoulders. Far enough from Spring not to be discovered, close enough to be able to stage quick scouting missions, it’s just a smattering of five tents, plus one pen for horses and another for our two cows. Otherwise the Rania Plains are barren, dry, and hot, even by the sweltering standards of the Summer Kingdom, and as such they sit empty, a territory none of the eight kingdoms of Primoria wants to claim.