Page 145 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Krig opened his arms like he was welcoming an old friend. “Ah, Malik, join us.”

Unlike every other time, there was not an ounce of playfulness in Malik’s eyes as he made his way to me. “How godly of you to just send a shadow down here.”

I blinked.

He could see him?

It wasn’t a hallucination.

Krig shrugged an easy shoulder. “I’m not meant to meddle, aren’t I?”

“Then why are you?”

“Believe me, if this was me meddling, you would know.” After our silence, he glanced at where Malik was holding me, at his hand laced with mine. “It’s fascinating how chaos manages to find itself all glued back together in some shape or form. Life and death, hand in hand. Utterly terrifying, but stunning nonetheless.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“No one can give me back what I want. But I can give you what you want.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it would mean keeping the memory of the woman I loved alive. When the land began to die under your father’s rule, everything began dying with it. No prayer to me would have brought it back. No matter the faith Isjordians would cultivate. No matter how powerful I am. Winter became something one thrives in when it has a heart. Without a heart, ice is just ice. Prayer and power cannot revive something once it has died. But when you shared your power with the land, not only did the land began healing, but—”

“The heartbeat that I hear. Is that why I hear it?”

His smile was filled with tears. “Is my darling’s heart strong?”

“Yes,” I whispered, feeling my own heart sink at his bittersweet sadness.

The cold god nodded, looking around as if trying to feel for it. The look of pure grief on his face told me that he couldn’t. “To keep alive the earth where winter falls, someone has to feed it life. Now, you’re this land’s beating heart. Without it, it will die again.”

“It will not, my brother and sister—”

“No golden eyes,” he interrupted me. “You and your brother do not have them. Your brother because he is the swift summer breeze, and you…you because you’re soft autumn rain. There was already a hearth of warmth inside you, Thora. Untouched by the cruelties you endured. Untainted by the attempts made by those who wished to taint it. It’s resilient—your heart—it’s resilient to change. You never let anyone change it,” he said, glancing at Malik and smirking before continuing, “Your sister might be more like me then she will ever be like the idiot she agreed to aid,” he said, and a crack of lightning flashed over the grey skies. Krig chuckled, shaking his head. “But the hearth inside her is made of blistering frost. The coldest. The cruellest. The strongest. Unbalanced, and she would become the ruination of all. Lucky for this realm, her lover loves her eyes and the blistering frost behind. Perfect chaos, as one would call it. But you—you didn’t need that reminder. Not until someone tried to take a part of your heart. For which I am sorry. I know very well how it feels.”

“What is it that you want me to do?”

“What is it that you want to do, Thora? This land is now an extension of yours. A piece of you. Attached like an organ. I’ve got plenty more euphemisms, but I think you caught the gist.”

“Detach it,” Malik snipped.

Krig’s brows flew up. “Detach it?”

“Sever. Separate. Disjoin. Do I need to go on?”

I wrapped my hand around his arm. “Malik—”

“I’m fucking tired of you three being tossed around like some godly game of ball. He wants to save this land, he can save it himself.”

Krig shook his head. “It isn’t a matter of just saving the land. The land is you, and you are the land. If one suffers, both will. If one dies, both will.”

“What about my magic?”

He tapped a finger right over his heart. “Right where it has always been. It will never leave you for your heart is an infinite portal of it. As I said, you’re the pure essence of chaos. Brilliant chaos. Almost if I’d melded you myself. Whatever restraint you find in your magic, you’ve put it there yourself.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Then go back in time, find out how and what you put before that gate to stop it.” He stepped back, his body beginning to fade. “Find what you want to do, Thora. Decide. Then let me know, too. If I should mourn my darling heart one more time.”