A thick silence descended upon them, echoing the quiet snowfall that had begun as they spoke. Audric studied her, his expression half-hidden beneath the hood of his cloak.

A few paces away, Evyline cleared her throat. “I wonder, my lord prince, if we should begin making our way toward Nazastal. Queen Obritsa encouraged us to make haste.”

“Indeed we should, Evyline, thank you,” said Audric, turning away from Rielle to adjust his furs. “Lead, and we shall follow.”

They proceeded west through the snow, Rielle’s heart a blazing nest of contradictions too scrambled to unravel. The snow melted away at each step of her boots, leaving a steaming, half-frozen path behind her.

You’re alarming your guard, Ludivine said after a moment. Fara, in particular, is worried you might combust.

Then she would do well to leave a wide berth between us, wouldn’t she? Rielle said sharply, concentrating on the sizzling snap of her footfalls, and not on the awful, heavy silence of Audric at her side.

• • •

They stopped only for a short night in the town of Nazastal, long enough to acquire horses for the next leg of the journey and rest their aching muscles at the rather ramshackle inn—the proprietor of which nearly fainted when he realized that Prince Audric the Lightbringer had just walked through his doors.

The night at the inn passed quietly, and when they left at dawn, the snow had stopped. By midmorning, the expanse of fresh white cast harsh blades of sunlight back up at the sky, but even that did nothing for the bitter cold.

Rielle huddled in her furs, squinting bleakly at the brilliant white ground—until a shadow passed over her, drawing a familiar shape across the snow.

She threw back her hood and raised her arm to shield her face, and when that same shape swooped down between the narrow, shivering pines, she cried out, fumbling to dismount her own shabby horse.

Atheria.

Riva’s mount, at the head of their caravan, reared up and shied away from Atheria’s approach. The other horses followed suit, tossing their heads, rattled by the presence of a godsbeast.

But Rielle cared nothing for their alarm. The beasts could run away into the mountains and never return, for all she cared. It seemed suddenly unthinkable that she was only a few moments ago riding the back of so small and simple a creature.

She ran through the snow toward Atheria’s looming dark shape. The chavaile landed on a small swell in the forest floor, padded by several inches of snow. She shook her wings clean before folding them neatly against her body, and Rielle nearly ran at her, nearly threw her arms around her great gray neck.

But a few paces away, she stopped and held out her arms. “Can I, my sweet one?”

Atheria watched her, very still. Her tail flicked once, sharply.

“Careful, my lady,” Evyline said.

“She won’t hurt me.” Rielle took the last few steps slowly. The very air around the godsbeast seemed clearer, honed by her existence. “Even though I hurt her, she won’t hurt me. Isn’t that right, Atheria?”

Two steps away, the puffs of air from Atheria’s nostrils warming her front, Rielle hesitated only once more.

Then the chavaile lowered her head with a tired, rumbling whicker. She nudged Rielle’s shoulder with her velvet muzzle, and the tiny, tender touch left Rielle in tears. She wrapped her arms as far around Atheria’s neck as she could and pressed her face against her dark mane.

“I’m sorry,” Rielle whispered. “Dear Atheria, I’m so sorry for doing that terrible thing to you. I lost my mind, standing there before the Gate. It frightened me. Do you understand that? Will you forgive me for it?”

Atheria shifted from left to right, then huffed out a sharp breath against her back.

Rielle laughed through her tears, tightening her arms around Atheria’s neck. The chavaile smelled of snow, musky and wild, and Rielle wondered where her beastly friend had gone these past long weeks, and if she would ever know.

“Well, then,” came Audric’s voice after a moment, warm and delighted. “There you are, Atheria. You’ve come back to us after all.”

Atheria pushed her head into Audric’s palm and closed her eyes. Her long, thick lashes brushed against Rielle’s cheek like the fall of soft rain.

Over the slope of Atheria’s nose, Rielle met Audric’s gaze. “Can we go home now?”

He smiled at her, and though she knew the worry would return to his face once this small joy had faded, she was glad to see it gone for now.

“If Atheria will carry us there,” he replied, stroking the chavaile’s forehead, “we’ll fly home at once.”

For answer, Atheria extended her wings to the sky.

• • •

The flight home took only days, rather than weeks, and once back in Âme de la Terre, before visiting Tal or reporting to the Archon, Rielle left Marzana’s shield in her room, under Evyline’s guard. She donned a plain gray hood and slipped out into the city by the half-light of nightfall.

Trying for discretion, unfortunately, was not a thing achievable with Atheria nearby, her long wings dragging against the clean cobbled streets and children chasing after her at a respectful distance. As Sun Queen, Rielle should perhaps have spoken to the children and given them some sort of blessing, sent them running back to their parents with words of wisdom on their tongues.

But she was tired, sore from days aboard even gentle Atheria’s broad back. Now that they had arrived home, an awful dread returned to her, a restlessness that settled thickly against her bones. Echoes of the villager’s malformed flesh knit themselves across her knuckles and along her palms. She had not heard from Corien since that night in the snow. Each time she remembered how his body, hard and eager, had pressed against her, how his mouth had burned against her skin, she felt the loss of him anew.

I see you, he had said. And I am not afraid.

And she believed him. More completely than she was sure of anything else, she believed him—and was glad for it.

She knocked sharply on the door to Garver Randell’s shop, ignoring the whispers and murmurs of the citizens gathered at the front gate. When the door opened, she hurried inside.

“Please close the door, Simon,” she said, retreating into the shop’s shadows. “And lock it, if you would be so kind.”

“Yes, my lady.” The boy hesitated, peering outside. “Should I allow the chavaile to come inside?”

“You absolutely should not,” said Garver Randell, entering from the back room with his arms full of rags. “You should, instead, come fold these rags and stir our supper, before it burns against the sides of the pot, and I’m forced to send you once again to Odo’s for sandwiches.”