Tycho has gone still beside Noah. I can read the emotions as they cross his face, as easily as words on a page.

I would have ridden at your side.

But you do not think I am strong enough to offer a show of strength.

Tycho recovers quickly, then lays down his cards. “I believe I will crash too.” He uncurls from the ground.

Grey is no fool. “Tycho.”

Tycho stops. Waits. The firelight flickers off his eyes.

“This is not a slight,” says Grey.

“I know.” He slips into the shadows effortlessly.

Grey watches him go, then sighs. “Silver hell.” I think he might go after Tycho, but he puts out a hand. “I’ll take his cards.”

We play in silence for the longest time, the fire crackling beside us.

“Tycho is young,” Grey says eventually, his voice very quiet, “and small for his age—”

“Like I said, he would follow you off a cliff,” says Noah.

Grey sighs again.

“Tycho would have kept riding today,” I say. Even I know Jake was right. I might not agree with his means, but I could see Grey’s exhaustion all morning. He still looks sleepy, his eyes heavy-lidded.

“Jake is a good choice,” says Iisak, his voice bringing a cold breeze to make the fire gutter. “Karis Luran respects strength.”

Grey glances at me. “What else does she respect?”

I blush and look down at my cards. “Strength and virility. She says she chose my father because he had the most kills in battle. He is quite a powerful general in the northern part of Syhl Shallow.” I don’t like to think about his prowess on the battlefield, to wonder if I would have been a disappointment to both a father and a mother. It’s bad enough to be a disappointment to one.

“He does not rule at her side?”

“Oh, no. He has no place in the palace. I do not even know him. She merely chose him to father her firstborn. She chose another when she desired to have another child.”

No one says anything, and I look up from my cards to discover I have everyone’s attention.

“You don’t marry in Syhl Shallow?” says Noah.

“Oh. Some do. But the queen can choose her … her mate.” My cheeks turn pink. “A queen needs no king to stand at her side.”

“But she was willing to marry your sister to Rhen,” says Grey.

“She’ll marry Nolla Verin to you, too, if you’ll claim the throne.”

Grey says nothing, and I don’t have the courage to look at him. I remember his quiet voice in the inn last night. I am not refusing blindly.

My cheeks feel warm again, my blush fed by his silence. I can feel the weight of his eyes.

“In truth,” I say, “I do not understand following the lineage of kings, when it is the woman who bears the child. And what should birth order have to do with whether someone is fit to rule?”

Grey plays a card. “Here, we believe in fate. That is why the firstborn is considered heir. Because fate delivered that child into the world first.” He glances at me. “And the mother may bear the child, but she did not put it there herself.”

“So fate chooses your heir,” I say. “You leave such a thing up to chance?”

“How is that any different from leaving the choice up to one individual?” He flips a card onto the pile and misses by a few inches.

I study him more closely. “Grey—are you unwell?”

Noah chuckles. “At least Jake had the sense to go lie down.”

Grey clenches his eyes shut. “I told you I had no head for spirits.”

My eyebrows go way up. Now I understand the slow drawl of his words. “You’re drunk?”

He rubs at his eyes. “Perhaps a bit.”

Noah’s still smiling. “Jake’s pretty smooth.” He looks at Iisak. “What about your people? Do you have a king or a queen?”

“We have one ruler,” the scraver says, and the breeze that sweeps among us is so cold that it makes me shiver. “Though I have been gone so long I no longer know who holds power.” His eyes shift to me. “Your mother may know.”

“What will she demand of you?” I say. “For breaking the treaty.”

“Likely more than I will be willing to give.”

I think of my mother, and I know he is not wrong. When he asked for the right to accompany us into Syhl Shallow, he said Mother holds something of great value to him.

Iisak lays another card on the pile. Frost tips the corners, melting into the leaves below. “I will pay whatever price she demands and return home.”

I can’t tell if the note in his voice is longing or disappointment—or both. “What does she have?” I say quietly.

“Something quite dear to me.” He pauses. “I did not want to leave the ice forests. The scravers are not great in number, and our females can only bear one child in their lifetime. When the magesmiths were destroyed, we were left vulnerable. The treaty with Syhl Shallow gave us some protection. To break it puts all at risk.”

“It must have been very dear,” says Grey, “for you to risk all you did.”

“I did not intend to be gone this long.” Iisak smiles ruefully, baring the edges of his fangs. “I did not intend to be captured.”

“I saw you fight in Blind Hollow,” says Noah. “How did someone capture you?”

“A bit of misplaced trust and a well-timed arrow.” He lifts his arm to trace a black stripe that must be a scar. The line disappears under his wing. He glances at me. “I will be very grateful for an intercession with your mother, Princess.”

“Of course.” My cheeks warm, and I frown. “Though you should know that my mother rarely accepts my counsel. I may not be any ally at all, Iisak.”

“Protecting her child should carry weight,” he says.

I give a humorless laugh. “One would think.”

“I would be greatly in your debt.”

“I will do all I can,” I say, and mean it.

Grey looks at me. “Your mother is a fool if she does not accept your counsel. I do not know your sister, but I find it hard to believe her wisdom and compassion surpasses yours.”

Like earlier, his voice is a little too intent, his words a little too honest.

“My mother does not value compassion,” I say.

“Then she is a fool.”

I laugh softly. “You said that already.”

“Rhen should have listened to you. Negotiated with you. You would care for the people of Emberfall.”

“Yes,” I say somberly. “I would.”

“He was a fool as well.”

Across the fire, Noah laughs under his breath. “You should get some more sleep, Grey.”

Grey hasn’t looked away from me. “You escaped through the fireplace.”

I smile. “Yes. I did.”

His eyes are so serious. “You stopped to help Tycho.”

“I remember.”

He’s not smiling. “You risked yourself, Lia Mara.” He pauses. “You could have been discovered.”

I inhale to answer, to say that I couldn’t have left that boy hanging and bleeding along the wall any more than I could have let my mother kill the trapper’s daughter hiding in the woods. But Grey’s hand lifts to trace the spill of hair that hangs along my face, and my breath catches.