Chapter 10
Ten
Hanna
When the two of us walked back into the apartments, Dare leapt to his feet as if he might strangle Kaelan.
“Where have you been?” Dare demanded. “We need to talk about what happened out there, and you’ve been—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Thorne cut in, before Kaelan could say whatever cutting thing had come to his lips, because his mouth was taking on a distinctly cruel smile. “We need to talk about the Shadow Weaver.”
“Hanna might need rest.” Kaelan said, looking at me.
“I’m all right,” I promised.
Dare looked between us with an expression of exasperated wonder. It was not like Kaelan to defer to me.
To be fair, I shared Dare’s bewilderment.
“Were you in control of the Shadow Weaver at all?” Thorne demanded.
“Not really,” I admitted.
It was terrible to admit, but I couldn’t lie to the three of them.
“But with practice, with training, maybe I could use the shadows without her possessing me.”
“Or maybe she’ll just take over your body and walk off with it,” Dare said darkly.
There was nothing I could say to reassure him that wouldn’t happen. I worried about it too.
Thorne leaned against the fireplace, studying the dancing flames. “What do you intend, Hanna? Will you stay here or go back to the Ice Kingdom?”
“Don’t you have an opinion on what I should do?” I asked.
He raised his head, and the flames were reflected in his eyes. “Of course I do. But I’m asking what you’ll do.”
I chewed my lip. “The goddess’s possession could be a strength or a weakness. We don’t know yet.”
Dare’s expression was thoughtful.
“The strategic reality is the Snake Queen just proved she can strike the Isle. Honor has to defend her kingdom, which means she can’t commit forces to help us against Edric. Not anymore.”
“We knew that might happen,” Kaelan said.
“Knowing it and living it are different things.” Dare’s green eyes found mine. “We were hoping to gain allies. Instead, we’ve made Honor’s position worse. The Snake Queen is testing her defenses, and we’re the reason why.”
The guilt twisted in my chest. “She and Edric must have made an allegiance. Making sure Edric only faces us.”
“And now Edric will know that we have a powerful weapon—if we’re willing to use it. Willing to risk you.”
“So I should stay.” My voice came out flat.
Kaelan shifted beside me.
I turned to look at him. Really look at him.
His jaw was tight. His hands were curled into fists on his thighs. And his eyes—those ice-blue eyes that usually held such cold certainty—were afraid.
“You want me to stay,” I said quietly.
“I want you safe.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He closed his eyes. “Yes. Part of me wants you to stay. Wants you here where my father can’t reach you, where the war can’t touch you, where I don’t have to watch you fight something that might destroy you.”
The words landed like stones in still water.
This was the moment. The test we kept coming back to, over and over.
“What do you want to do, Hanna?” Thorne’s voice cut through the tension, simple and direct.
“I wanted to ask Honor for help,” I admitted. “Her dragons, her magic, her resources. I thought—” My throat tightened at the image. “I thought my sister would ride to war with me.”
“Our kingdoms will need to align ultimately to defeat the Snake Queen. We can overthrow Edric.” Kaelan spoke with such confidence but I knew he was afraid we’d be defeated. “Only together do we have a chance at destroying the Snake Queen.”
“I know.” I watched the sun break over the horizon, painting the water gold. “I know all the strategic arguments for why Honor cares about the outcome of this war too. But she won’t leave her kingdom in danger to fight for ours.”
I didn’t want to ask her for help and be denied. It would devastate both of us.
“If you come home with us,” Dare said, “I fear we’ll need those shadow powers, and the goddess will be able to gain control of you.”
I met his gaze evenly. “I fear that too.”
Trying to hide from reality was not going to help us.
“And if you stay,” Thorne said bluntly, “I worry we’ll all be destroyed. We’re stronger together.”
My heart swelled.
Finally, Kaelan said, “If you come back with us, we do this together. No secrets about what the goddess is doing. No pretending you’re fine when you’re not.”
“I won’t.” That was why I was being so painfully honest now. It was the only way for us to survive, even though it felt painfully vulnerable.
Dare nodded. “So we’re agreed. We go back to the Ice Kingdom. The four of us. We end Edric. And we do it without asking Honor’s people to bleed for our war.”
“Agreed,” Thorne rumbled.
“Agreed,” I said.
Kaelan was quiet for a moment, his gaze on the sunrise. Then he said, “Agreed. But Hanna—”
“If you’re about to tell me you hate this plan, I already know.”
He looked at me, and something in his expression softened. “I was going to say thank you. For being in the fight with us.”
Something loosened in my chest. “Where else would I be?”
Dare made a sound that might have been approval or amusement. “Very touching. Now, can we talk about how we’re going to handle Honor?”
“Carefully,” Thorne said.
“Obviously carefully.” Dare rolled his eyes. “But specifically. Because she’s going to have arguments prepared. Branok and Lynx will back her up. Jaik will probably suggest locking Hanna in a tower for her own good.”
“He wouldn’t—” I started.
“He absolutely would,” Kaelan said. “He loves you. He’s terrified of what the goddess can do to you. That combination makes people dangerously protective.”
“Oh, I agree he would. But he’d lock me in a dungeon, not a tower. So what do we tell them?”
“We sneak out,” Dare said, at the same time as Thorne spoke.
“We tell them the truth,” Thorne said.
The two of them eyed each other.
“We should go tonight,” Dare said. “Don’t give her the chance to change her mind.”
“You don’t know my sister,” I said, afraid that perhaps I was wrong, perhaps I didn’t know her as well as I thought. “She won’t stop me. Because she knows what she would’ve done for all of them.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Kaelan muttered. “Quite the collection of assholes.”
But I had the feeling they were growing on him anyway. He was just being spiteful out of habit.
“Let me go talk to her,” I said.
Kaelan looked skeptical, but he nodded, and I hoped Honor wouldn’t let us both down.
I was almost to my sister’s study when the children found me.
Lysander, at eleven, walked in front. Kasia was beside him, her small hand clutching in Briden’s. These children I’d watched grow up, children I’d told stories to and taught to swim and loved with the fierce, uncomplicated affection reserved for family.
“Aunt Hanna.” Lysander’s voice was steady. Every inch the prince, already, and it made something twist in my heart. There was something inherently fucked-up about growing in the shadow of the throne. “Are you leaving?”
The question punched through my carefully prepared arguments, the strategic reasoning I’d been rehearsing for Honor.
“Yes,” I said, because I wouldn’t lie to them. “I’m going back to the Ice Kingdom.”
“To fight the bad king,” Kasia said. Not a question.
“To fight the bad king,” I confirmed.
A shadow detached from the wall. Zehr, appearing without sound, his bone crown catching the hallway light. He met my eyes briefly with what felt like a question and an assurance all at once. “I need to move them.”
He didn’t tell me where, and I didn’t ask.
The fewer details I had about where the children would be hidden, the better.
Gods, it hurt to deliberately not know where they’d be safe.
“Wait.” Kasia pulled free from Briden’s hand and ran to me, throwing her arms around my waist. “Please don’t go.”
The words shattered something in my chest.
“We need you here,” she continued, her face pressed against my stomach. “If you leave—”
“If I leave, you’ll still be safe,” I said, feeling wrenched that she even wanted me after everything. “Your mother will protect you. Zehr will protect you. All your papas—”
“But we want you.” She pulled back to look up at me, tears tracking down her cheeks. “What if you don’t come back? What if you come back different? What if the goddess—”
She couldn’t finish. Gods, they knew?
Lysander stepped closer. He was trying so hard to be brave, to be the man he was learning to become, but I saw the fear underneath.
“We don’t just want you here because of your shadows. We’re afraid if you go, you won’t come back as yourself.”
The truth of it hit like a physical blow.
Because they were right to be afraid.
I knelt again, gathering Kasia close, then reaching for Briden and Lysander. They weren’t as grown yet as they thought they were, in the way of boys that age. For a moment, I let myself be the shield they wanted me to be.
“I can’t promise you much,” I admitted, and Kasia’s grip on my fingers tightened.
“But I can promise this.” I pulled back enough to look at each of them. “I love you. All of you. And I’m going to fight like hell to come back to you. I’m going to do everything I can to stay myself. That’s what I can promise.”
Lysander’s jaw tightened. He was old enough to understand what I wasn’t saying. Sometimes love and effort weren’t enough. Sometimes people left and didn’t come back, or came back wrong.
But he nodded. “We’ll be here, Aunt Hanna. When you come home to us.”
Zehr moved then, his shadows already reaching for the children. “Time to go.”
They let him take them. One by one, they disappeared into darkness and shadow-travel, Zehr’s magic carrying them to whatever safe house or hidden location he’d prepared.
Kasia was last. She looked back at me one more time, her small face wet with tears.
Then she was gone.
I stood alone in the empty corridor, my hands shaking, my heart breaking.
“Weakness,” the goddess whispered. “You’re weak for them.”
“Shut up,” I said aloud.
I couldn’t afford to break. Not yet. Not when I still had to face Honor.
The library doors were closed when I reached them. I could hear voices inside—low, urgent, strategic. I took a breath, steadied myself, and pushed them open.
Maps covered every surface. Messengers stood against the walls, exhausted and dirt-stained. Jaik and Damyn were bent over a coastal map with Honor between them, their expressions grim.
The library had become a command center under siege.
Honor looked up when I entered. Her eyes went to mine, and I saw her clock my expression: the tear tracks I hadn’t bothered to wipe away, the set of my shoulders, the choice I’d already made.
“Hanna,” she said.
I crossed to the table. The map was marked for the attack we’d just experienced, here at the summer palace. But it wasn’t the only place marked.
“The Snake Queen is escalating,” I said.
“Yes.” Honor’s eyes roamed the map, but I was sure she had memorized it already. “Three more sightings in the past day. Small strikes, testing our defenses. She’s looking for weaknesses.”
“She’s trying to keep you here. Trying to make sure you can’t commit forces elsewhere.”
“Correct.” Her voice was terse.
I jerked my head up, expecting she was angry at me, but it was grief on her face instead.
It hurt us both that she couldn’t help me.
“You’re leaving,” she said quietly.
I’d expected a fight.
“I’m leaving.”
She reached for my hands, held them between hers. “Don’t let anything take you away from me.”
“I’ll try,” I said, because I couldn’t promise more than that.
She kissed my forehead, the way she used to when I was small. Then she stepped back, squared her shoulders, and became the queen again.
“Let’s get you a ship and get you home to your kingdom.”