Page 32 of Winter's Fate

“It’s Laena,” she replied, buying herself a moment. “Please. Call me Laena.”

He nodded, gazing into the flames, the orange light dancing across his face. She wasn’t sure exactly what made her continue. Fatigue perhaps. But despite his reputation for eviscerating magic users, she found she could not help but trust him.

“He’s gone,” she said. “Ben, that is. The stablehand. He left.”

Callum turned his head to look down at her, his expression unreadable in the firelight. And yet… she could tell somehow that he had not already known this. He had not been probing for the truth with his promise to return her to her love. If anything, she thought he looked stricken with shock.

Well, ithadbeen rather a shocking day.

“Before you think it, Katrina has nothing to fear from me,” she continued. “I’m happy with my cottage life.” If the words sounded a bit hollow, even to her own ears, it was only to be expected after the dramatic events of the day.

She could have let him go on thinking that Ben was still in her life. But she didn’t feel equal to the deception. Why bother?

The silence stretched on, and she found herself concocting responses he might give. Everything from “Well, what did you expect?” to “It’s only what you deserve.” She knew, because they were the responses she concocted for herself every day.

And in the back of her mind—that whisper she could never quite quell: “Did you not see it coming?”

She had. Mages, but she most definitely had.

By the time she realized she needed to leave the palace, that her powers would only grow and put her country in danger, her only comfort had been in the fact that Ben would be with her. She had known that Kat went riding every Sunday, and she’d arranged for a tryst at that very time, setting the stage for the discovery.

She could trust her sister to play her part well enough, to grasp for the throne. And still, Laena might have remained. While Ben could not have been her king, there were council members who had begged her to keep him as a lover, stating all too plainly that it had been done before.

It was the magic that had forced her hand and forced her to leave.

It was Kat who had banned her from Riles for five years.

But Laena had truly cared for Ben, and she’d thought she would be able to trust him with so much more. Though she hadn’t shared the truth of her magic with him, she’d been on the verge of it when that morning had arrived, and she’d woken to find him gone.

If Callum were to berate her, it would be no more than she deserved.

He shook his head, and she could feel it coming. The judgment. The hatred. He would not try to stand close to her again, not show her the full width of his smile.

It was just as well. She ought to make him keep his distance. She ought to keep hers.

Callum was still shaking his head, as if words could notadequately express his disdain. “Then he’s a fucking fool,” he said.

Laena opened her mouth, closed it again. Not disdain for her. Disdain… forBen?

Before she could begin to come up with a response, he said, “The storm was something unnatural.”

Laena stared. Was he… had he changed the subject? Why? For her comfort, or because he didn’t want to have to state any of the truths that ran through her mind on a daily basis?

But no. He didn’t seem the type to say anything he did not mean. If she’d spent her life trading in court politics and deceptions, he was the soldier who said what he meant, and that was that.

“Do you still have the crystal?” he asked.

She nodded but didn’t extract the wretched thing from the pouch at her waist. It was there, snug in its pocket, along with her blade.

One dagger, one shimmerling, and one evil crystal. That was what remained. “Do you think the crystal and the storm are related?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Might be. Though the crystal does not smell of heart-tithe, and the storm did.”

She nodded slowly, remembering the strange scents on the air after the shipwreck. “I don’t recall giving you leave to smell my crystal,” she said.

At that, he threw his head back and laughed. The unbridled amusement startled her into silence for a brief moment, and then she couldn’t help but smile herself. She hadn’t meant to prompt quite that response, though she found herself wondering how she might prompt it again.

“Do you know where we are?” she asked, when he’d finally composed himself.

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