Page 165

I sighed. “Fine. Someone get me water. Or perhaps I should go flop in the snow and lie there until morning.”

The snow had fallen all day. Perhaps it would continue to do so and bury me. At least then, I wouldn’t have to deal with the many thoughts running amok in my head.

“Water.” Arie stood up and rushed from the room.

Caelo set his own horn in a holder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Did I want to talk about how I was in love with my aunt? How she was born of a family line my father despised? How he’d kill her in an instant if he learned? The skin on the back of my neck tightened at the thought. By the dead gods, I needed to get Neve out of Winter’s Realm.

But would she want to go? She was a Falk, with as much right—or more—to claim this land.

No, I didn’t wish to talk about those matters.

“I’d rather not.”

“Fine.” Caelo rose from the settee he’d spread out across. “I need to piss, anyway.”

He left, leaving me with Luccan and Thantrel. I eyed them suspiciously, a question arising.

“Did you two know?”

Luccan gaped. “That she’s a Falk? Of course not! You think we’d hide that from you?”

I’d hidden things from them. Like that my father believed their family might have the Ice Scepter.

“We didn’t know,” Thantrel echoed. “Father never tells us things like that. To protect us.”

“Also because you don’t need to know everything.” Lord Riis entered the room as if he owned it, which I supposed he did as this was his ancestral home. “Sons, I’d like to speak with Prince Vale. Alone.”

“Arie went to get him water,” Luccan said even as he rose from the armchair he’d occupied for hours.

“It can wait for what I wish to say.”

Luccan nodded, but Thantrel eyed his father with skepticism. “Where did you go? No one has seen you since this morning.”

“Another thing you do not need to know. Now, leave us.”

My friends left, and I remained looking up at Lord Riis. “Well?”

“I see you haven’t taken these revelations well.”

I snorted. “One could say that.”

“Well, I’m not sure if what I’m about to tell you will make your night better or worse.”

“How could it get worse?”

Lord Riis gave a half smile. “In my experience, it canalwaysget worse. Though the other side of the coin is true too—it canalwaysget better. That this news, while it might be a shock, will have an upside.”

I gestured to the chair Thantrel had occupied. “Out with it then.”

“Kind of you to offer me a chair that has been in myfamily for centuries.” The Lord of Tongues took the seat. Once settled, he leaned back, the picture of relaxation, though the slight tightness in his jaw said otherwise.

“I spoke with Neve after you left?—”

“Isolde,” I grumbled. “Shouldn’t we call her Isolde?”

“For now, she wishes to go by Neve. Though I take it as a good sign that you care enough to even bring up her birth name.”