Page 68 of Winter's Fate

Thaddeus knew how to help.

The fact that Laena may well have suspected more than Hawk’s magic, that she had stopped short of suggesting he could be involved in all of it—the assassination attempts, the kidnapping—did not stop him. Hawk had not smelled of a heart-tithe, nor had Callum seen him hurt anyone to work his magic. Hehad to believe the king was like Laena. That his magic was benign.

At this point, he had no choice.

An hour he rode, and another, and yet another, and as he skirted around the hundredth hill—it felt like the thousandth—finally, finally Inasvale came into view. Distant still, its shape little more than an elevated smudge against the horizon, but in view. In reach.

Callum felt for Laena’s breath. It was as shallow as ever, her skin hot to the touch, but at least he did not think she was any worse. “Hold on,” he said. “You have to hold on.”

He refused to entertain the possibility of losing her.

Inasvale disappeared around the next bend in the road, and Callum rode harder, as though keeping the city in his sight would bring him to it faster.

When he rounded the next bend, the road was blocked.

A carriage, a dozen soldiers, a pair of horses. And a queen.

Laena’s sister stood in the road, her soldiers fanned out around her, more like a decoration than a shield. The regent hovered a few steps behind her, his expression cold.

She would have traveled a long way to get here, likely directly from a ship, no doubt from Etra itself. Yet her pink gown looked crisp and fresh, her golden curls smooth as they brushed against her shoulders. She’d taken the time to see to her toilet, clearly; the scent of her perfume reached him even from this distance.

They must have missed her arrival by mere hours.

“My sister may not be queen, but she still cannot be arrested by a foreign kingdom,” Katrina said as his horse approached her. “Even for the working of magic.”

Callum stopped, his heart thrumming in his chest. “How do you know she?—”

“I have spies among your people. As your king does among mine, I assume.”

He could not deny it. Hawk had recently spoken of his spies and their certainty that Silerith was keeping to itself, as it always did. If he had ears in Silerith, he certainly had them in Etra, too.

There was no way Callum could make it past all these men without unseating himself. Not while protecting Laena. And he had to protect Laena. It was the only thought he could muster.

“Your Highness,” he said, his voice rough. “I do not mean to arrest your sister. Only to bring her to safety. Please. I’m sure you must have questions. But you must allow me to pass.”

Katrina looked to Declan. But if the regent had an opinion on this interaction, he didn’t offer it. Callum wanted to shake the man, to demand that he speak so Callum could be on his way. Katrina turned back to him, concern in her eyes. “Leave her here and ride ahead. It will be faster.”

Callum hesitated. He had no wish to leave Laena. He didn’t believe Katrina would keep her safe.

But Laena did, he realized. Laena trusted her sister enough to accept her fool’s errand of a mission. Enough to leave the life she’d built for herself and reenter the lion’s den.

Katrina raised an eyebrow. “Do you not trust me to care for her until your return?”

Callum cleared his throat. He did not. But Laena would. Laenawould. “I do not think anyone can care for her, Your Highness. Save perhaps for my brother.”

Katrina gave a pointed look at her sister. “Then I think you had best hurry.”

Callum shovedthe door to Thaddeus’s room so hard that it crashed into a table, knocking several books to the floor. Hawk was seated in a chair by the window, a book open on the table before him and another in his lap. For once, his hair was asdisheveled as his brother’s, and his blinking surprise channeled Thaddeus so strongly that, in another context, Callum might have laughed. The poisonkeeper was on the floor with three volumes spread before him.

And in another context, the sight of the brothers working together might have squeezed something in Callum’s chest. With affection, with loneliness. He’d been included in their number once.

Today, in this moment, only Laena mattered.

Hawk rose, snapping his book shut. He was arranging his face into an expression of official rage, the angry king replacing the relaxed brother. “Callum. What?—”

“You,” Callum said. “You have magic.”

And there it was:fear. Now that Callum knew to look for it, he wondered that he’d never seen it in the frozen expression before: the tightening around the eyes, the way the color bleached from Hawk’s face, his lips parting just slightly to allow a shaky breath to enter. As if he thought Callum would produce cuffs and haul him away to the dungeons.

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