Page 176 of Embers in the Snow

“Don’t be.” I lead her away, back into the antechamber. Things are going to have to be sorted out, matters of the emperor’s death dealt with. The empire will be thrust into chaos and infighting if I don’t take control.

But all of that can wait.

I stare out the window at the pond, teeming with golden fish.

My father’s last words ring in my head.

Check in the middle of the pond...

Come to think of it, there’s something there, under the water. I can’t make it out clearly, because it’s half-hidden beneath a swathe of floating winterlilies.

I see a rectangular shadow.

It looks like a metal chest of some sort…

Hiding in plain sight. How had I not noticed it before?

“Corvan.” But all of a sudden, Finley is saying my name, her stern tone, cutting through the noise of my thoughts. “Hold on for a moment. Before you go saving the world, look at me.”

She reaches up and wipes something away from my cheek with the pad of her thumb.

A tear.

“Hells.”I shake my head in surprise.

She gives me a smile; a wry, secret, understanding little smile. “Don’t cry, do you?”

“No,” I growl. “I don’t.” I look up at the bronze statue of my mother; at her beautiful, otherworldly features. I can only cling fiercely to my memories of her.

Suddenly, it makes sense that father had her likeness captured like this—like a goddess.

In death, she’s perfection.

It’s so twisted I can barely make sense of it.

He was like that, too.

A walking contradiction.

If only things had turned out differently…

I’d rather have her alive and imperfect than dead and immortalized. Every year, on the first day of spring, there’s a national day to honor her.

I feel sick from the hypocrisy of it all.

“Corvan.”

And then Finley’s there, drawing me into her embrace, pulling me back from the madness of it all.

My tears are flowing again. They feel strange; viscous. I’d almost forgotten what this feels like. But it doesn’t matter, because she’s kissing me, and somehow, she knows exactly what I need right now.

She always does.

52

FINLEY

Corvan’s tears are startling.

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