Page 53 of Wings of Starlight

“In the moments it comes easiest?” Clarion sighed, leaning back onto the palms of her hands. She tipped her head back toward the sky and watched the light slowly drain. “Fear. During the Nightmare attack in Autumn, it came to me in an instant.”

Milori leaned forward, intrigued. “And when it slips away from you?”

Where exactly was he going with this?

“I remember myself. I remember to master my fear. To control my will and shape it. Drawing on my power, I think, is easy. It’s molding it into anything useful…” She trailed off at his expression, caught somewhere between incredulous and concerned. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

“It’s nothing.” He hesitated. “It’s only that it seems to me that trying to suppress your fear is hindering you. In fact, you seem to access your power easiest when you’re trying to protect others—when you’re afraid for others but brave enough to act.”

He was giving her another meaningful look—one that seemed to say, Thatis the kind of queen you will be.Clarion averted her eyes. He had an inconvenient knack for challenging her worst opinions of herself. He made her sound almost noble.

“Maybe.” She frowned. “But that’s what Elvina told me I should do. She said that our power is easiest to access when your mind is clear.”

“Perhaps she conceptualizes it differently than you do.” Milori held out a hand. In an instant, the very air before him began to sparkle. Delicate ice crystals glimmered in the sunset, swirling and coalescing into an orb of ice in his palm. “No one taught me to do this. That is the case for most winter fairies. I don’t say that to confirm what you fear, but…Forgive me for speaking out of turn, but it’s possible that advice might have done you more harm than good. You already know how to harness your magic. All fairies do. What would happen if you let go of what she told you?”

Stubborn resistance flared to life within her. Elvina wouldn’t have misled her. At least, not intentionally. All Clarion’s life, Elvina had been the image of a perfect queen—everything she knew she should model herself after. Naturally, that extended to the way she wielded her magic. But Milori’s assessment made a terrible kind of sense. Every time Clarion tried to control whatever spark of magic she’d clawed from the wellspring of starlight within her, the walls in her mind slammed down. It baffled her that someone who had known her for such a brief period of time had pierced to the heart of her.

Think of it as a time to be awake to what you want—and who you want to become.

“I’m not sure how.”

“It will come to you,” he said. “Youweremade for this.”

His reassurance made that voice within her—that nasty self-doubt that had plagued her for weeks—settle and fall quiet. “Encouraging,” she replied. “But hardly practical.”

Milori considered it for a moment. “You said your magic comes to you most easily when you’re afraid. Maybe it’s not fear—but when you’re fully immersed in a moment, whether it’s positive or negative.”

“You’re suggesting I stop thinking so much?”

He smiled that wry little smile again. With a curl of his fingers, the orb of ice in his hand shattered into a fine dusting of frost. It sparkled against his skin until the wind carried it away. “Something like that.”

It wasn’t a terrible theory. “You want me to try now?”

“If you’d like,” he said.

Why not? She had nowhere else she wanted to be.

Clarion closed her eyes and tried to—No, she could nottry. That rather defeated the purpose, when the entire point of the exercise was to simply be. And yet, it was so difficult to be fully present when she could feel Milori there. Self-consciousness would make this entirely impossible. She opened her eyes again, prepared to tell him she couldn’t manage it, when the sight of him silenced her every protest.

He was gazing at her like she was something to marvel at. His expression went soft and unguarded when he noticed her staring back at him, as though he hadn’t expected to be caught but did not mind it overmuch. There was no mistaking the wide-open yearning in his eyes. He had looked at her like this once before, she realized: the very first time she’d crossed into Winter. She wondered exactly how long he had wanted to kiss her—and felt very foolish, indeed, for being so oblivious.

And yet, Milori sat as if frozen.

Snow fell only an inch away from her in a glittering, tantalizing whirl. This close to the border—to him—her breath was a soft plume of white in the air. Clarion shifted closer, until the cold washed over one shoulder, then the shell of her ear. It was a strange sensation: half of her safe in the warm seasons, half of her nipped with cold. Carefully, almost reverently, she let her fingertips trace the line of his jaw and tipped his face toward hers. The space she held between them was a question—one he answered readily. His hand came to cradle the side of her neck, and although his touch chilled her skin, warmth flooded through her.

Clarion leaned fully into Winter and kissed him.

As his lips moved against hers, something bubbled up within her like spring water until it spilled over completely.Happiness,she thought, far purer than any she had ever felt—and magic. She felt it trilling in her bones and weaving through her fingertips, eager to apply itself. This time, it did not feel like something she had to master. It felt like a river—like a deep and inexhaustible well. It flowed forth until her entire body radiated a soft golden light.

Milori drew back, just barely. His forehead rested against hers as they shared the same tremulous breath. Her eyes fluttered open, and she would have sworn that the stars above them shone brighter. Their brilliance was reflected in the pale gray of his eyes—and sparkled all around them, as though the constellations had been drawn down to earth. Pixie dust glimmered on her eyelashes and the sleeves of her gown. It danced joyfully through the air and gathered in Milori’s hair like snowfall, painting all the world in gold.

Hadshedone this?

When he spoke, his voice was low and full of wonder. “You’re incredible.”

For perhaps the first time, she believed it.

Afew days before the Coronation Ball, Elvina summoned Clarion to her study. Clarion’s first thought wasShe knows.