Page 6

Chapter 6

Frost

Caspian made it to the hotel in record time without once breaking the speed limit—at least, it felt that way to me. His driving was smooth and effortless, even though his car had a stick shift.

I’d never bothered learning to drive stick, since I hadn’t needed to. Mother had people drive me most everywhere—yes, I knew that it was so she could control where I went and when—and on the odd occasion I’d been forced to use the skill myself, it had been in one of the Moonstriker Tower cars, and they were all automatic.

So watching him drive was . . . well, it was different. I had always felt ungainly and awkward when in the driver’s seat, but he was the opposite of that. He didn’t break a single law—stopped fully at every light and stop sign, used his turn indicator well in advance of every turn or lane change, but it was all so smooth that it felt as though he were a professional driver. It was like the car was an extension of himself, and after a while, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Well, not until I noticed Kit scowling at us and Ember holding back laughter.

I wasn’t sure why Kit was angry—maybe it came back to how he hated to be ignored. And Ember, well, she was regularly amused, but rarely at anything that boded well for me.

So I turned my eyes to the front of the car and pretended to focus on the traffic in front of us. “There’s just the one more town between us and Sunrunner lands, right?”

“Right,” Caspian agreed. “Independence. So named because they didn’t actually want to be part of either family’s lands. We didn’t much care, but the Dawnchaser eventually convinced them around.”

“Convinced,” Kit scoffed. “You mean charged them ridiculous fees for all imported food until they were forced to give in or starve to death.”

I remembered the story well, from school, but apparently Caspian wasn’t aware of it, since he just blinked into the rearview mirror, apparently shocked by the notion. “Seriously? That’s shitty. They should have asked us for help.”

Kit scoffed, but I wondered, if Caspian had been Lord Sunrunner at the time, if Independence might still indeed be independent. Everything I’d heard of his father told me that Dane Sunrunner was just like the Sunrunner of that previous era: completely uninterested in the plight of people who weren’t himself.

Caspian felt different than that, though.

He felt different from nearly anyone else I’d ever met. It felt like . . . like everything he said was simple and true, and I didn’t have to search through his words for patterns that meant he was actually saying something other than what he appeared to be saying.

He was the only person other than Kit or Rain I’d ever felt that way about, even for a minute.

Not so bad for a person , Vex agreed. Pretty, too. Shiny. You like him.

I refrained from groaning aloud, but only barely, and tried to be as definitive as possible in my response. That doesn’t matter .

Vex was unimpressed, as usual. It should matter .

You know what happens when I like someone, Vex. They never like me back, not really. They like the idea of being with a prince, or they like the perceived entry into Mother’s good graces. And if it’s not one of those things, then Mother never likes them. It never works .

His only answer to that was a grieved sigh, and I couldn’t blame him.

Of course, most of his annoyance was probably because he disliked Mother. More than Kit, more than her worst political enemy, Vex despised my mother. Everything she did annoyed him, every word she said was a personal slight.

Sometimes I wasn’t sure how it hadn’t rubbed off on me over the years. I’d bonded Vex when I was six, after all; quite young for a bonding. Mother hadn’t approved of the match either. She’d never said why, but she’d scowled at him when I’d picked him up from the case, and suggested maybe I should wait to see if I bonded “a better choice” later.

I’d tried. I’d put him back, much to both of our unhappiness. He’d been annoyed with me for years over that, even though it had been less than a day before I’d sneaked back into the aquamarine room in the tower and snatched him back up, unable to sleep without his comforting song.

Still annoyed with you , he grumbled. You always cave to her nagging. She’s always wrong, and you always give in. You’re better than that. Smarter than her. Stronger than her. So why give in?

I didn’t . . . I wasn’t smarter than Mother. She was quite possibly the smartest person in the world. Sure, it had been an ugly realization when I’d figured out that she wasn’t, in fact, perfect, but I had survived it. No one was perfect, after all. It was inappropriate of me to expect that of anyone.

And if I was so much stronger than her, then why did I give in to her at all?

Because she trained you to. Taught you she’s always right and you’re her little servant.

Had I mentioned that Vex wasn’t a fan of Mother?

As smoothly as if he was just turning another corner, Caspian pulled into a parking space in front of the hotel. I hadn’t even realized he’d gotten off the highway, but there we were, and it had barely been an hour and a half. I certainly couldn’t drive that well.

“Finally,” Ember grumbled. “I’ll go check in. You guys get whatever you need out of the car.” She unbuckled the bag from the middle of the backseat as she climbed out, hefting it over her shoulder with a grunt. “This one’s all that I need.”

It made sense, as it had been the only bag she’d brought along. Most of them were Kit’s, oddly enough, and not even his personal belongings. More like survival supplies. Rations and ropes and climbing gear and stuff that hadn’t made the least bit of sense to me. I was pretty sure there was an entire bag of granola bars somewhere in the trunk, and Kit didn’t even like granola bars. He’d always called them “breakfast cereal, but worse” when we were kids.

Still, I went to the trunk with him and Caspian, and we took a few moments to pull out the bags the three of us needed for overnight. Caspian’s was all the way in the back of the trunk, so we had to move everything to get to it.

It was odd, but Kit didn’t even seem a little bit embarrassed by the weird excess of stuff.

On the other hand, I’d known Kit my whole life, and my brother had always been strangely prescient about disasters. He was always prepared, so to some degree, this felt like standard Kit. Like we were going to be grateful for that bag of granola bars all too soon.

Ember came back out of the hotel with a wide smile on her face, brandishing two keys above her head. She tossed one to me, then went to wrap herself around one of Kit’s arms, grinning up at him. “You’re with me, Kitty Kat.”

His eyes narrowed, and he glared at her a moment, considering.

Was Kit . . . Oh. OH.

Suddenly it all made sense. Kit wanted to room with Caspian. He . . . liked Caspian. That explained why he’d been odd to him. Well, sort of. The Kit of my childhood, Winter, had always been good at flirting. Even better at picking people up to take them home for rounds of meaningless sex. He’d never been awkward and kind of mean to people he was attracted to.

Maybe I should trade with him and room with Ember, to give him a better chance at forging a connection.

Or maybe I should talk to him first. Tell him that if this was him trying to flirt with Caspian, it wasn’t working. If anything, Caspian seemed a little nervous around him. I might be wrong, but I didn’t think that translated to attraction, for most people. Given how straightforward Caspian had been so far, I thought that would hold true for this as well. Kit was making him nervous, not interested.

Strange, how something inside me twisted at the thought of it all.

I didn’t want Kit to seduce Caspian.

Yes, he’d always been a one night and then moving on sort of person, but that wasn’t better. It was bound to leave Caspian feeling used and sad, and the thought of my brother making Caspian sad, well . . . I’d never wanted to punch my brother before. Not even a little. Not even when he’d abandoned us.

So maybe it was horrible and selfish of me, but no. I wasn’t going to help Kit pick up Caspian. Maybe no one would ever be interested in me, but that didn’t mean I had to help everyone other than me find love.

If Kit wanted someone, he could find them himself.

Childishly, I wanted to tell him I’d seen Caspian first and he had to stay away.

I knew Kit, though. If I said that, he would do it, and that wasn’t fair of me if they wanted each other.

I put it all out of my head for the moment, adjusted the strap of my bag over my shoulder and turned to Caspian, trying to ignore all the strange, unfamiliar, roiling emotions inside me. “Ready to go?”

He grinned back, soft and easy. “You got it, gorgeous.”

Gorgeous.

Me?

That was . . . new.

Behind me, Kit hissed in annoyance.

Well, maybe . . . maybe I wouldn’t have to tell Kit I wanted Caspian for myself even if I couldn’t have him.

Maybe . . . maybe I could have him.

Resolutely, I drew myself up and headed into the building, alongside the most attractive man I’d met in my life. Caspian followed along, his gait easy and casual, despite my much longer legs. I wasn’t sure how he did that, making it look like he wasn’t hurrying to keep up. Maybe he just naturally walked fast. Or maybe he made everything look effortless.

He also seemed to watch everywhere, all around us, as we walked, his head swiveling one way and then the other, gaze drawn by every noise.

I sighed as we slowed in front of the elevator bank, pressing the button. “I’m sorry about my brother. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s forgotten how to flirt in the last ten years.”

The elevator door promptly slid open, since it had already been sitting on the ground floor.

Caspian snorted as he slid into the elevator, reaching out an arm to hold the door open for me, then heading for the back of it and putting his back to the wall. “Your brother is not flirting with me. Not even a little bit.”

I frowned, nodding with frustration. “I know. I don’t understand what’s wrong with him. He used to know what he was doing.”

He turned to me, a disbelieving smile on his face, head cocked at an angle. “You really don’t see it, do you? How are you such a freaking nice guy?”

What? Nice? What did being nice have to do with anything? I blinked at him, struck silent by the sheer confusion of the situation. Mother always said that a wise man would prefer to stay silent and look foolish, whereas a foolish man would open his mouth and remove all doubt. So I did my best to keep quiet whenever I didn’t know what was going on.

Honestly, it meant I was quiet a lot.

“He doesn’t like me flirting with you, so he keeps looking over my shoulder, making sure I know he’s got his eye on me so I don’t try anything with you.” He smiled then, a different smile than the slightly tense one he’d been using for the last two days. This one was a little lopsided, higher on one side than the other, and showed off the dimple on the left side of his face. It was . . . well, just like Caspian, it was beautiful. “Ember’s a bro, though. Putting you in the front seat and then having us room together. Trying to get us both laid.”

Ember was . . .

“Really?” I burst out, stunned.

Ember had never done anything like that before in my entire life. Maybe she really liked Caspian.

Maybe none of the others have ever been good enough to bother helping you with , Vex suggested. I like this one. His stone is pretty, too .

His stone being the tiger’s eye on his bracelet. It was beautiful, a little darker and redder than most stones of its type. Like Caspian’s unusual red-purple eyes.

Caspian ducked his head and his smile went all shy. It seemed impossible, but he got more and more beautiful as the moments passed.

“I mean, like I said, you’re gorgeous. And maybe the nicest guy I’ve ever met. I’d be nuts if I didn’t flirt with you.”

Me, gorgeous. And nice? Never in my entire life had I had anyone heap such comments on me. Smart, certainly—people called me smart all the time, because it was the single thing I had going for me. I’d also heard determined. Dogged, even, from one professor in college, though that one hadn’t much felt like a compliment.

Yes, keep this one , Vex decided in my head. He’s clever, for a human. Not like your mother at all .

I couldn’t hold back a nervous laugh, but it didn’t make Caspian run away. No, in fact, he took a side-step to get closer to me, and wrapped his index finger around mine, sort of like an odd prelude to hand-holding. “But if it’ll make your brother happier, I’m fine spending some time getting to know you before I climb you like Mount Slate.”

Oh my gods.

Definitely cleverer than your mother , Vex reiterated. This one finally knows what you’re worth.

At least I wasn’t going to have to compete with Kit for Caspian’s affections. No, the whole thing was just Kit being overprotective, just as he’d done throughout our childhood. Odd, what a relief that was.

Because you were going to fight him for the pretty Sunrunner , Vex said, and I couldn’t argue the point.