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When I was almost at a jog, he swept around in front of me, and I barrelled into his chest. He had stopped me between two towering evergreens, which plunged us into shadows and darkened his features, making him seem every bit like the Celtic warrior he now was. Branches weighed down by the recent flurry creaked, and the pattering of falling snow echoed around the empty forest. Nature was the ruler of these woods.

“Safe? Are you fucking insane?” I rasped, my voice beginning to crack with what had happened to my throat the night before, or perhaps an emotion I didn’t want to entertain. He was talking as if the ten years I’d spent hidden behind city walls had been a gift. As if Ember and Thorn had been safe. As if any of us had survived that kingdom untouched. “Tell me you didn’t…”

When he didn’t answer, my gaze dipped to his hand that was about to reach out for me, and I stepped back. He was my best friend and my greatest deceiver.

“Feather.” My nickname sounded so wrong on his lips. Why wasn’t he using my real name or making up an alias? But it was his insinuation that we had been ‘safe’ in Craven City that heated my blood and clenched my fists.

“What does safe mean to you? That I was being hidden and given a role to keep me happy?” I lifted my chin as rage flared out of me in puffs of freezing fog.

A long shiver ran through me, and I couldn’t meet his eyes. I couldn’t. Because with each falling snowflake, I was beginning to understand what a fool I’d been. I hadn’t been finding small scraps of power where I could. I had been contained by a man I adored. For all those years, I had thought I was making a difference, contributing to getting Annatalia back. When in reality I had been played like a puppet so that I, we, were kept out of the way. Until he went missing, and our mission notes became far more dangerous as others, such as Morlan, started truly ‘using’ us for the rebellion. And that was when an interesting thing happened—we’d grown up. We tested our limits, and we found the courage to plan our escape. To create our own mission to save Annatalia.

“Red and Rose were on the marriage list. Did you know that? You told me that we would all fail the medical. I failed the medical… Why didn’t they?”

“I was in the mines…” He tilted his face to the sky and let flakes land on his cheeks. He still held that ungodly beauty he’d always had, but now it was darker… more intense. Older and scarred.

“I’m sorry…” I was sorry for all of us. Everyone who had lost in the Kingdoms’ War and had continued to lose even more ever since.

Someone muttered something, and both our heads snapped towards the sound. Aster straightened, and his mask of indifference—the one he wore when they called him Lord—slipped back into place.

“She’s waiting, and she’s not happy,” the warrior said.

Aster gave the huge Celt a firm nod and strode down the path. I hesitated, and he called back, “Nowhere to go, little rebel. Storm is coming in, and it’s a Yule night. Better just follow.” He smirked at the warrior as he passed. The dig was for his benefit—keeping up the pretense that he was once my leader and I was only a lowly rebel.

I would find a way out of this place as soon as I had eaten and slept and let Thorn know that Aster was not the man we’d known.

The path wound deeper into the forest, and out of the corner of my eye, darkness wove through the trees. Wherever the cabin that they had first taken me to was, it wasn’t the main Ruckus settlement. It was some sort of outpost.

When I caught up to Aster, he was standing in front of an old, ruined archway in the middle of the forest. Maybe it had once been a temple or the entryway to a magnificent stone house, erected by mages or witches skilled in the magical art of its construction. But these towering buildings were rare nowadays and mainly owned by the Kings.

Running from it on the right-hand side was a high wall which crumbled into the snow a little further down. Beyond the arch lay only more freezing forest.

“Why don’t we just go around?” I asked.

Aster reached out and pressed one hand to the stone, and with the other he reached for me. His large, warm hand enveloped mine, and his thumb rubbed a tiny circle over my wrist. It was such a small action that I doubted anyone would have noticed it, but it meant everything to me.

“We need to be connected to walk through.” He lifted our joined hands.

“Wait,” he told the warrior.

The freezing wind whipped around my shoulders, and I hugged myself with my free arm, wanting to press into Aster but not daring to. He held out his arm, and his bracelets glowed green as the arch filled with a silver cloud and then rippled like water.

“When you are presented to Bronwen, try to hold your sharp tongue.”

I gave him a wry look; we both knew that was impossible. “Probably best not to be thinking of my tongue.”

His eyes widened, and he almost stifled the smile that was about to break free.

The ancient arch popped with a white-blue heat, and then the view morphed into the lands beyond it.

He nudged me over the threshold. Earthworld magic prickled over my skin, but as soon as we were on the other side, the magical arch closed again. With a swift pounce, he was on me, pressing my spine into the cold, hard stone.

“This isn’t the time to play.” His breath feathered over my cheek, and my whole body hummed with his closeness. I suppressed the urge to arch my back and press our lips together just to see what he would do. Just to see if his lips still felt the same.

“No? Are games only for you?” I whispered back, our lips inches apart. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.” His gaze swept slowly over my face, down to my neck, and then lower to my chest, and my cheeks heated. “They take in rebels… Lots live here.” His free hand found my hip. “It’s safe here.”

This was what the old Aster felt like, and the sadistic part of me wanted to know if this newly tortured man still held some of the old one inside him.