Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(65)

And carried on the wind, the faint weeping of women and children, some in the keep, some tending to husbands and fathers, some scattered, disorganized, moaning, and lost.

Battles are brief, she knows, but the aftermath . . .

She and Byrne are brought before the prince.

“Do you not recognize your own princess? Let her go,” William says when Isbe and Byrne enter his study.

Dimly, she registers Byrne’s gasp as she rushes toward William, not caring what she may stumble over or bump into on the way. But to her surprise, Byrne stops her, gently taking her arms.

“Miss. Highness. He isn’t well.”

Isbe pauses. “What?” And then dread floods her. “What happened? William?”

“I’m fine,” says the prince. His velvet voice is just a few feet away, and she reaches out to him, confused. “It’s just . . .” He sighs, and she feels another tremor of uncertainty.

“What happened?” she repeats.

“My legs.”

Isbe sucks in a breath and falls to her knees before him, resting her head on his lap. “No.”

“It was them or me,” he says, in that rustling way that suggests an almost laugh. He brushes hair out of her face and thumbs a tear she hadn’t realized was there from the corner of her eye.

“What are we to do?” She is not asking about his recovery, but about Deluce.

“We drove them back, but the solution was only temporary. They will return to finish what they started. And . . . I received a letter.” He clears his throat, his voice dropping low. “From my brother Edward.”

Isbe startles. “But—”

William lets out a sigh. “He is alive. But as I’ve said before, my relationship with my brothers was always . . . complicated. I have only just learned that my middle brother, Edward, plotted the death of our elder brother, Philip. He staged his own death to make it look like a double murder, in part to stoke tensions between Deluce and Aubin. You see, he did it all . . .” He pauses, obviously having difficulty admitting the truth. “He did it all for the favor of Queen Malfleur.”

Isbe shakes her head. It can’t be true. She can’t imagine anyone betraying his own brother, but especially not a brother like William.

“There is no fleet coming,” William goes on. “Edward has commandeered the military and cut off the flow of supplies. Aubin is now cooperating with LaMorte.”

Now anger replaces disbelief. “But we must write back to him, urge him to understand the grave mistake he has made—”

“Isabelle.” Wiliam’s voice sounds like it is going to break, and something in her snaps.

“No. No, William, this is not over.” Now it’s her voice that’s breaking.

“At dawn, we evacuate everyone we can. There will be several ships waiting to bring safe passage to Aubin. You will be on one of them, and so will I.”

“So we’re just giving up?”

“We’re saving as many lives as possible.”

A storm churns in her chest. “No.”

“Isabelle,” he says more gently. “We’re at the end.”

We’re at the end. He said it to her once before, in the wine caves. The night he proposed to her for a second time. The night he touched her and awoke something in her that she thought wasn’t possible. She hadn’t ever allowed herself to love, or to want love—because she thought it would make the not having only more painful. She always hated that terrible wish—any wish at all. Wishes give her a physical pang, like a shock, a dizzying reminder of their futility, like the one she felt earlier, when she wished to see Aurora again.

And then . . . William cracked her open anyway; made a fine, nearly invisible fissure in her shell that would change everything. She let him. She let love in. She agreed to step up, to take on the mantle. To rule by his side.

And now, this is what it all comes to.

We are at the end. The last time he said it, they had really only just been at the very beginning. But this time it’s different.

“I’m not leaving Deluce,” she says, rising. “You may flee with the others if you wish. You may bring them to safety. But I will stay.”

“I can’t leave you behind,” he protests.

“You can,” she says, and when she says it, the fissure in her heart grows deeper, and something even harder to get to begins to shake and crumble. Maybe something like her spirit, or her soul. She bends down to him in his chair, and takes his face in her hands. So strong, so determined, so stubborn. She loves every single thing about him. She kisses him, her lips taking in the salt of tears that have trickled down his face. “You can,” she says again, pulling away. “And you will.”

He is silent for a moment, and then says only, “Your sister needs to speak to you. She and Wren say it is urgent.”

“My sister?” She feels a wave of shock and rocks backward, away from his touch. “Aurora is here?” She steps back, dizzy with the thought of it. “But she said—” Her voice drops off in William’s silence. Realization splashes over her like hot water. Aurora never went off to make a life with Heath. “She lied.”

In that moment, something else occurs, a kind of tingly pleasure pulsing through her. It’s almost—almost—as though her desperate wish when she disembarked her ship has come true. Of course that’s impossible. Nothing ever comes of wishing.