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Hale’s arms tightened around her in silent acknowledgement.

She heard his voice through the rumbling in his chest, “I love you too.”

He stroked a hand softly across her tousled, black hair, circling her back. With gentle, caring strokes, he moved as though massaging the pain out of her body.

He loved her.

She pulled back again to look at him. Her Fated mate was so handsome. The moment she met him, she had thought he was the most gorgeous male she had ever seen. Looking into those shining gray eyes made it hard to breathe.

She knew they were Fated mates, but to hear him say it, the last little barrier surrounding her heart crumbled. She loved him. She loved him, and it was terrifying. The Northern King had taken everything she ever loved from her.

Remy looked out over the mist-covered hills. Frost covered the grass. She heard the faint bleating of sheep as the sun warred with the clouds, its strong rays banishing the mist.

“I wasn’t in the castle that night,” Remy said into the fog. She felt Hale’s eyes shift to her. “I was meant to be at that banquet. I was meant to put on a pretty dress and parade around to the courtiers and have the Northern King and his soldiers compliment my clothes and my features and make some inane comment about how I make an excellent princess, perhaps one day I would even make a good queen, and try to bargain my hand to Renwick.”

Hale growled at her side.

“The council had been gossiping about it for weeks before the Northern Court’s arrival. My father knew Vostemur was ambitious—he thought that meant he’d try to secure a High Mountain bride for his son, not . . .”

She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not slaughter all their people.

“I was six,” Remy continued, sniffing, “and so stubborn.”

“I see some things never change.” Hale laughed. Remy elbowed him.

“I knew all the secret ways to sneak out of the castle, all the low windows I could climb out of. The servants indulged me. I remember their laughs and how they rolled their eyes at me. I thought I was so sneaky, but they all knew what I was doing and let me do it, anyway.” She laughed.

“I was on my way to the red witch temple—it was a short walk through the valley, sitting on the foothills of Mount Lyconides.”

“I remember it well,” Hale said. Remy stole a glance at him, lost in his own memories.

“I forget you had been to the Castle of Yexshire yourself. Of course you had.” She sighed.

They had probably met each other before, though she had no memory of it. King Norwood would have seized every opportunity to get Hale before the High Mountain Court, presenting him as their future son-in-law.

“You were at the temple when it happened?” Hale asked, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his legs.

“No, I had just left the castle. I dressed as a human child to fool the guards. I had thought nothing of all the extra soldiers outside. I thought that the Northern King was just overly cautious . . . I did not know they were there for battle. I just thought it was strange.” Remy took a deep, slow breath. “I was nearing the tree-lined path to the temple when Baba Morganna . . . well, she was just Morganna then, she came running through the forest. A few breaths later, the screaming began.”

“Her first Sight?” Hale recounted from the story Remy had told them around the fire weeks ago in the Western Court.

“Yes,” Remy said. “She had Seen the doors locking, the fires starting—heard the screaming before it happened and ran to warn the guards. Instead she ran into me. She stopped to save me—if she had kept going . . .”

“Don’t,” Hale warned, his voice the only thing holding her to this moment and keeping her from being sucked into the depths of that horrible memory. “Don’t play that losing game. She would not have been able to save them. It was all she could do to save you.”

Remy bobbed her head. Guilt still twisted a knot in her gut. She had thought she was the only one spared that night. Now she knew Rua had made it out of there too.

“She bade me to run. She practically dragged me into the woods through the snow. I tried to turn back: I saw the fires blazing and heard the screams. The smoke was so thick, even from that far. The smell . . .” Remy swallowed a hard lump in her throat. “I could hear the skirmish of our guards with theirs. I heard the swords clashing. I heard so many people die.”

Hale put a steadying hand on Remy’s back as she willed the tears welling in her eyes not to spill over again. She wanted to curse those tears. She had never shed so many in her life.

“So many people fled into the woods . . . but they had expected that. Soldiers were stationed at the other side, waiting to cut down whoever ran forth. A few more red witches had found us, and we all ran together. Our only option was to go up and over the saddle of the northern mountain, Eulotrogus. It was a straight climb.”

“You were six.” Hale shook his head.

“The witches’ magic helped me,” Remy replied. “They practically levitated my body up and over. But the soldiers chased us—they knew we would go that way. They were torturing blue witches for their visions even then.” Remy let the anger wash out of her in a heavy breath. “There were so many of those soldiers chasing us. Baba Morganna turned back. I watched as her magic crushed the top of that peak: she brought down the summit of Eulotrogus with magic alone, and I watched as the rocks tumbled into the saddle and blocked the pass.”

“They say her magic felled a hundred soldiers, the rocks falling perfectly all around her so that only she survived,” Hale whispered. “No one knew a High Mountain Princess was with those fleeing witches.”