Snow Like Ashes(41)

Mather curls his fingers on the map, tugging against the drawing of the locket. The back half of the real one sits around his neck. Next to the palm-sized picture, it looks sad. Empty.

“Noam may like to pretend Cordell is the only kingdom in the world,” he continues, his voice getting progressively harder, “but part of what makes his men so passionately Cordellan is this map. This reminder that they could be Rhythm or Season, Yakimian, Ventrallan, Summerian—but they’re not. They’re Cordellan. And that fact is what pushes them to fight for their land.” Mather smiles in a sad way that isn’t really a smile. “I want Winter to have that.”

He pulls back from the map and steps toward me, close, closer still, until he’s barely a hand’s width away. We’re alone, all the other soldiers out in the training yard.

“I didn’t want this,” he whispers, the words cutting between us. “I want Winter free, but I don’t want—I don’t want him. For you. I don’t want you to think that you’re worthless, that this is the only place for you, because it’s not, Meira—it never could be, not with everything you are.”

My pulse thuds against my ribs, anxiety and anger rolling through me, and I can’t bring myself to look into his eyes. Just stop talking. Just please stop talking, you giant, stupid—

“I don’t know what else to do.” Mather’s breath blows across my face. “Before we left camp, Sir took me aside and told me what I was going to do. It hollowed me out in a way I’d never felt. It was the first time I truly understood how much we have to sacrifice to overthrow Angra, how much our lives don’t matter in the bigger task at hand. I always thought we would find a way to . . . to overcome this. To be together, and I swear to you”—Mather takes my chin in his thumb and finger and pulls me to look at him—“I swear to you, I will find a way to fix this. I told you I’d restore balance, and I will.”

“No.”

The word hangs in the air. I blink, confused, but I know I’d say it again. Why? I’ve wanted him to say this forever, haven’t I? Why would I feel anything but Yes! in the wake of his words?

Mather squints at me. “I will. I can. I won’t let Angra destroy even more of our lives. No matter what William says, there has to be another way—”

“No!”

I shove back from him, a part of me tearing off and staying in his hands. Each word hurts. It piles on top of Sir’s words last night, churning together in some great wave of confusion. And all I know is that Mather’s hope for another solution is a taunting, all-consuming temptation that I can’t afford to feel; already I can taste the first waves of relief cresting over his words. But there is no other way. No other hope. Sir spent fourteen years trying to find another path to take. Letting myself believe that Mather might be able to save me, only for me to end up still in this marriage game . . .

I don’t think I’d survive it.

“I’m doing this, Mather,” I say, my voice thin and weary. “For our kingdom, for our people. For you. We need Cordell. We need this.”

Mather pulls back like I slapped him. Redness creeps up his neck, sweat glistening on his forehead. “You want to marry Theron?”

My eyes narrow. “What?”

“You want to marry Theron,” he says again, and everything in his body sags. “You don’t—”

Want me.

His unspoken words drape over me, weighing me down and down until I think I might crumple onto the straw-covered floor.

“You’re an idiot,” I spit, though I hear how loudly I didn’t refute his accusation. “This doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s about allies and saving our kingdom. You have to stop—nothing’s changed; nothing’s different between us. It’s just as impossible as it always was, and this is how it has to be.”

“I’ll find a way around it,” Mather returns. He steps toward me, I step back, a weird dance through the barn. “I was always going to find a way. I told you before we left—I told you I would fix this!”

“How was I supposed to know that’s what you meant? All I ever got was Sir’s voice hammering into my head that you were too important to waste on me!”

“I never felt that! You’ve always been everything to me. I didn’t know how to handle how much I needed you growing up—snow, I still don’t, all right? I’m trying, though. Do you think I’m that arrogant? That I let William make me believe I was too good for you?”

“What else was I supposed to think?” I’m shouting now, my voice tearing at the barn’s rafters. I step back once, twice, knowing I’ll never be able to get far enough away from him. “You may be able to look beyond the reality of our situation and imagine some other outcome, but all I ever saw, all I ever see, is a reminder that our lives aren’t our own.”

“You think I don’t know that our lives aren’t our own?” Mather grabs the locket half in a fist. “I’m the king, Meira!”

I cup my hands over my ears and shake my head, blocking out anything else he might say, anything that might make me stop talking. “None of it matters. It doesn’t matter what I want or need or love, because Sir will always be there to remind me that Winter has to come first.”