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Laena practically fled into the hall, leaving Hawk behind to make his wedding plans. She didn’t know what story he planned to tell his people, how he’d explain away her history with Ben. She didn’t even know how the king would have learned of Ben’s faithlessness. Katrina, most likely. He did say she’d been baiting him.

It was a good thing, truly. She could leave the details to the king, to his ready smile, his easy charm. He would work out what to tell his people about the foreign queen, and what had become of her famed lover. Perhaps he’d even tell some portion of the truth. A novel thought, indeed.

And with any luck, Hawk would rope Callum into staying behind to listen to him scheme until she’d had a chance to escape.

“Laena.”

His voice scraped through the empty corridor, digging a jab into her gut. No, she couldn’t expect Callum to allow her to flee in peace. There was nothing in his nature that gave up without a fight.

She would have felt his presence even had he not called out to her, even had she not recognized the firm confidence of his gait. She’d have felt the prickle of his presence. The depth of his dismay.

It wasn’t fair—he deserved an explanation—yet she quickened her pace, as if she could hope to escape facing him. Or put it off, at the very least. But he fell easily into step beside her, his pace measured where she was practically running, her skirts twisting a frenzy around her legs.

“What the hell was that?” Callum’s voice was a rasp, with an unmistakable edge of anger, and it resonated in the empty hall. “You’ll marry him? Truly?”

He wanted her to stop walking. She could feel it in the way he lagged behind her by a step, the way he curled his fingers toward his palms as if to stop himself from reaching out to her. He’d saved her, in so many ways. And now she was betraying him.

“I failed Etra.” She didn’t quite mean to admit it, hadn’t intended to say the words out loud. But with Callum, she was finished pretending. She owed him that much, and more. Far more. “I gave up my crown and I left my people. And look at the result.”

“Laena.”

“And now there’s a path.” She’d begun speaking, so she might as well barrel on. Might as well spill the whole truth before it poisoned her from within. “There’s a path for me to make it right, to fix what I ruined. I have to take it.”

She couldn’t allow her determination to falter. She wouldn’t. She cared for him, truly she did. But abandoned or not, the weight of the crown remained heavy on her brow, on her conscience. There was no room for mistakes when she carried such dire responsibility upon her shoulders. She’d been a fool to ever think otherwise.

Callum did reach for her now, fingers closing around her elbow and forcing her to slow. She might have pulled away—she knew him well enough to know that he would let her go—but she couldn’t quite bring herself to sacrifice this last touch, this last moment with him.

The hallway was deserted, with no one to see, though she knew well what hidden eyes a palace could hold. Anyone could be watching, from a shadowed alcove or a lofted perch.

And Callum knew it, too. He guided her toward the nearest door, one of several that dotted the corridor, now that she noticed them. She’d have walked by without seeing it at all, which she supposed was the point of the gray paint.

The door opened into a simple sitting room, with a liquor cabinet pushed against one wall, a cold hearth on the other. The only other furniture in the room was a round table with two wooden chairs, and a scrap of a rug by the entrance. Laena wondered what Hawk could possibly use a room like this for. Refreshments for the nobility who attended long presentations in the throne room? It hardly seemed large enough, or impressive enough.

Callum shut the door behind them. He was still holding her elbow, his fingers a gentle pressure through the fabric of her dress. “It’s a guards’ room,” he said, noting her confusion. “For meals and breaks.”

That made sense… mostly. She glanced at the liquor cabinet, a question on her lips, and he grimaced. “I am, occasionally, one of the guards.”

Ah. She licked her lips, her chest tight as she forced herself to look up, to meet his gaze. Whatever he wanted to say to her, she would listen. He deserved that much.

“You shouldn’t have given up your crown,” he said quietly. “On that, we can agree.”

Of all the charges he might have leveled at her, that wasn’t the one she’d imagined. From their very first meeting, he’d shown so little inclination to judge her. Had he always felt this way about her abdication? Or had he realized it during the battle with Katrina, when he’d seen how terrible her power had become? How dearly Laena’s abandonment was going to cost her country?

But Callum wasn’t finished. He held to her arm like a lifeline. “Marrying Hawk won’t make it right. Embracing your power, embracing what it is that you want, that’s how you’ll save your people, Laena. By first saving yourself. And then by taking your own damn crown back.”

Because he had so much experience in such matters. She hadn’t thought him so naive. “A pretty sentiment.”

“A true one.”

She flung her free hand to the side, as if she might use it to point into the past and force him to see. To understand. “Putting myself first is what led to this disaster to begin with.”

He moved closer, releasing her elbow only to let his hand trail up her arm, his stormy eyes trained on her face. “Certainly,” he said, his tone bitter. “But only if you buy into the story they tell about you. The story Katrina tells about how you gave up your crown to fuck some stablehand?—”

“Fuck you.” Anger spiked through the cracks of her resolve, quick and hot, his crassness erasing any hesitation she might have felt in letting it show. She might have slapped him across the face, but it felt like she’d been frozen in place. Like a victim of her own power.

His fingertips reached her collarbone, his touch dragging electric sensation along the swooped collar of her gown and up, up, until he cradled the side of her neck, his thumb tracing light circles on her throat. “You are running away. Again.”

Her breaths were coming too fast for rational thought. She couldn’t stop herself from leaning into his touch. Every thought, every nerve, was obsessed with the slow circles of his thumb. Of where they might descend next. “I suppose you claim to have no stake in the choice,” she breathed.

He dipped his chin toward her. “I claim no such thing.” His breath was hot on her lips, voice rough in her ear as he backed her toward the wall. He crushed her against it, a soft rumble in the back of his throat as he pressed his body to hers. “I am in ruins, my lady.”

Ruins .

His mouth was on hers before she could gasp, before she could decide whether she had the strength to protest. Even had she wanted to, her body betrayed her, returning his kiss with a vigor that she could not repress. He tasted of whiskey and woodsmoke, enveloping her in the scent of leather, and she could not stop her lips from parting in response to him, allowing him to taste her, her tongue tangling with his as he pushed further into her mouth.

She clutched the back of his neck, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth and reveling in his answering moan.

“You will martyr yourself, and me with you.” His voice was husky, edged with need, his lips on her neck, hands in her hair. The dress was still between them, and his jacket, his shirt, his pants. But the way he pressed against her, the intimacy of it as he dragged his body along her every curve, they might as well have been skin to skin. “I don’t want to let you do it.”

Laena let her head fall back. “It’s not up to you,” she said.

He stilled, as if her words had broken some spell, his lips still grazing her throat. “You’re right. It isn’t.” His voice was a rumble against her skin, resonating all the way to her bones. “But your power matters. Your desires matter. You needn’t run from them to save the world.”

She wanted him to be right. She wanted this to last forever.

But he wasn’t. It couldn’t .

“To save Etra from Kat?” She had to choke out the words. They sounded too near to a sob. “From the mages? I have no choice.”

Not with her power still drained. Not with that strange new darkness coiling in her gut. She owed Callum her life, it was true, but that life belonged to Etra. She’d been a fool to forget that.

There was no other answer she could possibly give, and Callum seemed to know it. Without preamble, he broke their embrace. She wanted to weep with the loss of him.

He backed away from her, still breathing hard, hands raised as if in surrender. “Then I wish you all the best, my lady.”

He didn’t turn away until he reached the door, where he finally broke their gaze. In a single, easy movement, he swiped a bottle of whiskey from the top of the liquor cabinet and slipped out of the room.

The door shut behind him with a final click, leaving her to the silence.

Laena and Callum’s story will continue with Winter’s Power — coming later in 2025.