Page 75 of Winter's Fate

Her choices had brought her here. And if she wanted to save Etra, she knew what she would need to do. It might have been the magic, but she had the feeling—she knew, without knowing how—that King Hawk very likely knew it, too.

There was a knock at the door, and Thaddeus stuck his head in. “You’re awake. Good. The king would like to see you.”

CHAPTER 32

Vunmore was a city of balconies and bridges, of stone carved like lacework. Positioned at the base of a dormant volcano and the meeting point of two rivers—or their fork, depending on which direction you chose to face—it almost felt as if the city had to be this beautiful to compete with its natural surroundings.

It had been the city of the mages long ago, their headquarters. Callum forgot that, sometimes.

Laena walked beside him in silence, her thoughts clearly elsewhere, and annoyance rippled through him. Hawk might have given her another day or two before summoning her like this. She’d nearly died. Even now, Callum could not stop darting glances at her, to make sure she was well.

“I’m fine, Captain,” Laena said, offering him the hint of a smile, though she did it without looking his way. She was entirely focused on the corridor ahead of them, and the grotesquely large double doors that awaited them at the end. Hawk might have met them in the library or the study, but he’d insisted on the formality of the throne room.

Laena might be walking and breathing and smiling—sort of—but she still didn’t seem fine. He couldn’t quite put a finger on the reason for his unease. She seemed almost careful, as if she wasn’t sure whether her legs would support her next step. And no wonder; she must still be feeling weak, after all she had endured.

Their conversation had started out as normal, teasing. Even affectionate. Enough to make him hope for a renewal of what had started between them at the camp.

He was a fool. It had started the moment he laid eyes on her in Riles.

But since leaving the room, she’d been acting as if she knew something he didn’t. She was concerned about the state of her magic, whether it had burned out. But he feared there was something more, something she wasn’t telling him. Was Thaddeus’s cure working? Or was she still in pain?

As they reached the doors, he could take it no longer. He stepped in front of her, taking her hands and drawing her toward a nearby window alcove. Stained glass painted the stone with abstract ripples of red and blue light. The shape of the window appeared elongated as the late afternoon sun passed.

Laena was looking at him with a question in her green eyes, her brow furrowed ever so slightly. Her curls were bound in a plait, though more than a few tendrils refused to be restrained. They floated around her face, brushing at the bandage on her cheek as if to assure themselves that she was safe.

“I must know if you are well,” he said.

Laena met his gaze steadily, raising a hand to his cheek. “I’m well.” She gave him a pat, gentle.And sad, he thought. “Or I will be, if you’ll agree to stop fussing.”

He bent over her, pressing his lips to hers. “I will not.” He dragged his lips along her jaw. She tipped her head back, gasping as he nipped at her ear. He wanted nothing more than to take her back to her room, to delay this meeting another night.

Demons. He’d need more than a night. He needed all of them.

But the king was waiting. And Laena knew it, too. As he stepped back, she made a noble attempt to return his smile.

She drew in a breath, lifted a shaking hand to pat her hair. He wanted to free it from that restrictive plait, feel those silky curly against his hands, his chest.

“Callum,” she said. “I think?—”

The enormous doors opened, and a pair of guards stepped out of the throne room. “His Majesty is ready for you,” the first one said.

If the man noticed Laena’s flushed cheeks, or Callum’s glare, he didn’t let on. These were Hawk’s personal guards; they knew how to be discreet.

Though they would very likely report whatever they’d seen to Hawk. It was likely nothing he didn’t already know, after their activities at the camp—tent walls were hardly known to be soundproof—though the attack might have pushed the information out of his informants’ minds. At least briefly.

What did it matter, if the king knew? If he could, if Laena would allow it, Callum would tell the world.

Callum gestured for her to enter ahead of him. She patted her hair one more time, then tipped her chin in the air and strode into the throne room. He could have cheered at those purposeful strides, the power in every step as she made her way toward the front of the room. Her skirts swished around her ankles, her footsteps sure and strong.

It was a ridiculously long walk. And she didn’t look down once.

Hawk wasn’t seated on the throne. As was often his custom when he met Callum and Thaddeus here—when he had done, during his father’s reign—he’d seated himself on the bottom step of the dais, his hands propped behind him, his legsstretched out. Slanted stripes of sunlight fell across him, illuminating his hair with patches of molten gold.

And Callum suddenly understood his reason for meeting them here in the throne room rather than his library or a parlor or any of the other hundreds of appropriate rooms in this palace. He was making a point of meeting Callum as he once had, ushering his once-disgraced captain back into his trust. He was meeting Laena as an equal.

The thought should have been relieving. Instead, it only added to his sense of unease.

When Laena reached the front of the room, she did not curtsy. She merely faced Hawk, her hands relaxed at her sides, and met his gaze head on.

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