“It’s going to get a lot colder,” he told her.
Roa turned away from him.
“Suit yourself,” he said, lying back down.
Dax was right, though. Roa had grown up with this desert. She knew, far better than he, just how cold it became. Far too cold to sleep. Soon she was shivering. Then hugging her knees to her chest. When her teeth started chattering, Roa sat up, listening carefully to Dax’s breathing. She waited until it was deep and even—until she was sure he was asleep. Then, very carefully, she crawled in beside him.
Dax stirred. Half-asleep, he murmured “My star, your feet are ice.”
My star?It sounded like a term of endearment.
The thought made Roa freeze.Oh no.
He thought she was someone else. One of the other girls he let into his bed.
Panicking, Roa pushed at the stitching of the wool liningin an attempt to put space between them. But there was no space. There was just Dax and the heat radiating off him like a crackling fire.
His arm slid around her waist, drawing her into him. “Take my warmth.”
Roa went rigid, expecting him to want something in return. Waiting for him to demand the thing she owed him, the thing other women happily gave him.
But he didn’t.
A hundred heartbeats passed. Deciding it was safe, Roa slowly pressed her cold feet against his warm ones. He flinched but didn’t retreat. Instead, he took each of her feet between his, rubbing them one after another, trying to warm them.
Roa tried not to think about how gently his breath caressed her neck. Tried not to think about the way their bodies fit.
Most of all, she tried not to think about how, in the days leading up to the revolt, she’d glimpsed a different Dax. A king she might come to respect, even if she couldn’t love him. But that king had vanished the moment a crown settled on his head, leaving Roa alone.
Or perhaps she’d only imagined that king—decisive, thoughtful, brave—in order to convince herself she could, in fact, do everything she had done: marry the enemy and leave behind everything she’d ever loved.
Either way, just for tonight, she let herself pretend it wasthatDax at her back—the kingly one.
Just for tonight, Roa let herself fall asleep in his arms.
The White Harvest
One fateful summer, the fields of the scrublands turned white.
In the beginning, it was just one field belonging to one man. When picked, the wheat kernels crumbled into silvery-pale dust. The man’s neighbors shook their heads and scratched their beards. No one had ever seen such a blight. They gave him portions from their own harvests, secretly glad their own crops hadn’t been struck.
“Next year will be a better year,” said the tax collectors from Firgaard, who took a portion of the wheat his neighbors gave him.
But the following year, the blight spread.
This time, it struck all the wheat fields. It was an eerie sight, all that white where there should have been gold. Like a sea of snow. Farmers who hadn’t planted wheat helped those who had by giving away portions of their own harvests, secretly glad their barley and flax hadn’t been hit.
“It can’t stay forever,” said the tax collectors as they rode off with scrublander tithes. “By next year, the blight will be over.”
The following summer, it raced from field to field, all across the scrublands, indiscriminately diminishing their food source by half. Farmers tried to salvage what they could. But the small portion of grain untouched by the blight was taken by the king.
By the fourth year, most scrublanders couldn’t feed themselves, never mind their families. They begged Firgaard for help, asking them to forgive their tithes.
Firgaard refused.
So the next time a tax collector came, it was his corpse that returned to the capital. Furious, the king sent his commandant and a legion of soldats to the five Great Houses, intending to punish their insubordination.
The scrublanders chased the king’s army out.
