“No,” I snap. “No. I mean, yes, you are an idiot sometimes, but don’t you dare apologize. You don’t need to feel guilty for letting me go to Lynia—I’d do it again, no matter how close I came to being captured.”
Mather’s face falls and I flinch at what I said. Captured. He turns to the sun, unreadable thoughts whirring across his face. I never could tell if his ability to push away his emotions was something Sir drilled into him or whether it was Mather’s natural gift. Either way, when we were younger and I’d talk him into stealing weapons or painting the meeting tent with ink, Mather was able to keep a straight face when Sir asked if we were the culprits. I mean, of course we were—we were the only seven-year-olds in camp and were covered in thick black ink. But Mather always held strong in his unwavering lie, repeating with a freakishly believable certainty that he and I were innocent.
Until I burst into tears and admitted the whole thing to Sir. But Mather never got mad at me for pulling him into mischief or for breaking during Sir’s interrogations. He’d just smile, throw his arm around me, and say something encouraging.
Mather has always been a king, every moment of his life.
I shake my head. “I wasn’t that close to being captured,” I amend. “Herod just—I’m fine. Really.”
But Mather’s eyes dart over every part of my face, and when he finally meets my gaze, he lifts one of his hands, his callused fingers coming to rest on my cheek. A spurt of pain lances across my face when he touches the bruise there, but I don’t move, needing to feel his fingers on my skin more than I care about the pain.
“No one who faces Herod is fine,” he whispers.
A cooling breeze blows at me as night replaces the roaring heat of the plains. I inhale the mustiness and try not to move as Mather pulls his fingers off my cheek, his eyes shooting once again over my face, as if he’s hunting for more injuries. His gaze stops on my lips, hovers there, and I all but choke on the space between needing to know why and forcing the wedge to pull us apart.
“He stole my chakram, though,” I say, grabbing at anything to lighten the mood.
Mather finally smiles. It takes up every part of his face, from his eyes down to his lips, and lights up the air around us like a candle in a cave.
But almost immediately it falls, the light snuffing out. “William values you, you know.”
I spin away, plucking blades of grass and tossing them into the air. Mather doesn’t pick up on my sudden distance—or maybe he does, but knows I need to hear what he’s saying.
“William was one of Winter’s highest-ranking generals.” Mather waves his hand through the air, brushing at a few of the blades I freed. “And he feels like he failed. He sees you as someone who should be flitting carefree through Jannuari’s streets and dancing at balls, not scaling towers and killing soldiers. Just try to be considerate—”
I turn to him, my face hot. “Considerate to the man who can’t even manage a pat on the back when I push us one massive step closer to freeing our kingdom?”
Mather tips his head. “Try to understand that he feels guilty for needing you to help free our kingdom at all. It’s not that you didn’t do a fantastic job—you did, and everyone’s gathered around the fire right now swapping stories about you.”
I grin, if only a little. “I am pretty amazing.”
Mather smiles back. “I bet you would’ve survived even without the lapis lazuli.”
I laugh and run my fingers over my pocket where the small stone pushes into my hip. I keep forgetting it’s there, like I’ve already accepted it as part of myself. “You’re giving credit for my success to a rock?”
He shrugs. “No one has gotten the locket half before. It can’t be a coincidence, and I expect you to heap appropriate amounts of praise on me for giving it to you in the first place.”
“You’ve had it with you on locket missions before. Why didn’t it ever help you?”
Mather exhales and suddenly he’s just watching me and I’m watching him and all trace of humor is gone.
“You’re right. I guess it wasn’t the stone; it was how amazing you are,” he says.
Coolness balls in my stomach against the heat that rises to my face. Sitting there, the dying light playing on his strong features, his words lingering between us … Mather is the steadiest force I’ve ever known. Angra has every right to fear him.
With half of the locket in our grasp, we’re so much closer to Mather being who he’s always been meant to be—and I need to see him as that man. I bite my lip. Sir has mentioned a few times that Mather will soon need to wed. And he’ll be expected to have a female heir, and I will cheer for him and his beautiful new family, and pretend it doesn’t kill me to not be enough for him.