They didn’t see it as such. None of them did. But their required tasks, whether old or young, remained the same: cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, clothes-making, laundry … There was honor in such tasks—pride and good work to be found in them. But not when every single one of the females here was expected to do it. And if they shirked those duties, either one of the half-dozen camp-mothers or whatever males controlled their lives would punish them.

So it had been, as long as I’d known this place, for my mother’s people. The world had been reborn during the war months before, the wall blasted to nothingness, and yet some things did not alter. Especially here, where change was slower than the melting glaciers scattered amongst these mountains. Traditions going back thousands of years, left mostly unchallenged.

Until us. Until now.

Drawing my attention away from the bustling camp beyond the edge of the chalk-lined training rings where we stood, I schooled my face into neutrality as Cassian squared off against Devlon.

“The girls are busy with preparations for the Solstice,” the camp-lord was saying, his arms crossed over his barrel chest. “The wives need all the help they can get, if all’s to be ready in time. They can practice next week.”

I’d lost count of how many variations of this conversation we’d had during the decades Cassian had been pushing Devlon on this.

The wind whipped Cassian’s dark hair, but his face remained hard as granite as he said to the warrior who had begrudgingly trained us, “The girls can help their mothers after training is done for the day. We’ll cut practice down to two hours. The rest of the day will be enough to assist in the preparations.”

Devlon slid his hazel eyes to where I lingered a few feet away. “Is it an order?”

I held that gaze. And despite my crown, my power, I tried not to fall back into the trembling child I’d been five centuries ago, that first day Devlon had towered over me and then hurled me into the sparring ring. “If Cassian says it’s an order, then it is.”

It had occurred to me, during the years we’d been waging this same battle with Devlon and the Illyrians, that I could simply rip into his mind, all their minds, and make them agree. Yet there were some lines I could not, would not cross. And Cassian would never forgive me.

Devlon grunted, his breath a curl of steam. “An hour.”

“Two hours,” Cassian countered, wings flaring slightly as he held a hard line that I’d been called in this morning to help him maintain.

It had to be bad, then, if my brother had asked me to come. Really damn bad. Perhaps we needed a permanent presence out here, until the Illyrians remembered things like consequences.

But the war had impacted us all, and with the rebuilding, with the human territories crawling out to meet us, with other Fae kingdoms looking toward a wall-less world and wondering what shit they could get away with … We didn’t have the resources to station someone out here. Not yet. Perhaps next summer, if the climate elsewhere was calm enough.

Devlon’s cronies loitered in the nearest sparring ring, sizing up Cassian and me, the same way they had our entire lives. We’d slaughtered enough of them in the Blood Rite all those centuries ago that they still kept back, but … It had been the Illyrians who had bled and fought this summer. Who had suffered the most losses as they took on the brunt of Hybern and the Cauldron.

That any of the warriors survived was a testament to their skill and Cassian’s leadership, but with the Illyrians isolated and idle up here, that loss was starting to shape itself into something ugly. Dangerous.

None of us had forgotten that during Amarantha’s reign, a few of the war-bands had gleefully bowed to her. And I knew none of the Illyrians had forgotten that we’d spent those first few months after her downfall hunting down those rogue groups. And ending them.

Yes, a presence here was needed. But later.

Devlon pushed, crossing his muscled arms. “The boys need a nice Solstice after all they endured. Let the girls give one to them.”

The bastard certainly knew what weapons to wield, both physical and verbal.

“Two hours in the ring each morning,” Cassian said with that same hard tone that even I knew not to push unless I wanted a flat-out brawl. He didn’t break Devlon’s gaze. “The boys can help decorate, clean, and cook. They’ve got two hands.”

“Some do,” Devlon said. “Some came home without one.”

I felt, more than saw, the wound strike deep in Cassian.

It was the cost of leading my armies: each injury, death, scar—he took them all as his own personal failings. And being around these warriors, seeing those missing limbs and brutal injuries still healing or that would never heal …

“They practice for ninety minutes,” I said, soothing the dark power that began to roil in my veins, seeking a path into the world, and slid my chilled hands into my pockets. Cassian, wisely, pretended to look outraged, his wings spreading wide. Devlon opened his mouth, but I cut him off before he could shout something truly stupid. “An hour and a half every morning, then they do the housework, the males pitching in whenever they can.” I glanced toward the permanent tents and small stone and wood houses scattered along the wide pass and up into the tree-crusted peaks behind us. “Do not forget that a great number of the females, Devlon, also suffered losses. Perhaps not a hand, but their husbands and sons and brothers were out on those battlefields. Everyone helps prepare for the holiday, and everyone gets to train.”

I jerked my chin at Cassian, indicating for him to follow me to the house across the camp that we now kept as our semi-permanent base of operations. There wasn’t a surface inside where I hadn’t taken Feyre—the kitchen table being my particular favorite, thanks to those raw initial days after we’d first mated, when I could barely stand to be near her and not be buried inside her.

How long ago, how distant, those days seemed. Another lifetime ago.

I needed a holiday.

Snow and ice crunched under our boots as we aimed for the narrow, two-level stone house by the tree line.

Not a holiday to rest, not to visit anywhere, but just to spend more than a handful of hours in the same bed as my mate.

To get more than a few hours to sleep and bury myself in her. It seemed to be one or the other these days. Which was utterly unacceptable. And had turned me about twenty kinds of foolish.

Last week had been so stupidly busy and I’d been so desperate for the feel and taste of her that I’d taken her during the flight down from the House of Wind to the town house. High above Velaris—for all to see, if it weren’t for the cloaking I had thrown into place. It’d required some careful maneuvering, and I’d planned for months now on actually making a moment of it, but with her against me like that, alone in the skies, all it had taken was one look into those blue-gray eyes and I was unfastening her pants.

A moment later, I’d been inside her, and had nearly sent us crashing into the rooftops like an Illyrian whelp. Feyre had just laughed.

I’d climaxed at the husky sound of it.

It had not been my finest moment, and I had no doubt I’d sink to lower levels before the Winter Solstice bought us a day’s reprieve.

I choked my rising desire until it was nothing but a vague roaring in the back of my mind, and didn’t speak until Cassian and I were nearly through the wooden front door.