She almost wished he had. What small gains she’d made with the ladies of the court began to reverse as the nobles interpreted Wynter’s absence to mean that the new queen had fallen out of favor. The watchful eyes of the courtiers grew sly and knowing. Polite dinner conversation gave way to subtle innuendo, and titters muffled behind fans, all observed and encouraged by Reika Villani as she held court at the far end of the banquet hall in cold triumph.

Khamsin feared she might fry them all—including her husband—with a lightning bolt if she lost her temper, so she began finding excuses to be away from the palace.

She and Krysti became an inseparable pair. At her insistence, Bron selected a pony for the boy, and the two of them continued Kham’s riding lessons together. Once they were both comfortable in the saddle, no place within four hours’ ride of Gildenheim was safe from them. Khamsin, Krysti, and their armored guard soon became a common sight in the villages and mountains of the Craig.

And the villagers, despite their wishes to the contrary, soon became the focus of Kham’s determined efforts to win them over. With the threat of Mount Gerd looming over her future, she was determined to do everything in her power to ensure that mercy, not death, awaited her.

Befriending Winterfolk, however, turned out to be even harder than winning over the ladies of the court. Winterfolk were wary of strangers, their villages small and closely knit. They were disinclined to be friendly to start with, and Kham’s relation to the hated Summer King made them even more standoffish. The first time she rode into Skala-Holt, one of the larger villages nestled at the foot of Mount Fjarmir near the pass that led to Frostvatn on the western coast, many of the villagers actually snatched their children up off the street and hustled them inside as if Khamsin might cast an evil eye upon them, or some such nonsense.

Still, she persevered. Taking unabashed advantage of her rank—hoping the villagers would fear Wynter’s wrath too much to snub his queen—she squeezed an introduction out of each person she met. Corbin, the beefy white-haired tanner of Brindlewood; Leise, the curt-bordering-on-hostile pubkeeper in Skala-Holt and her neighbors Derik and Starra Freijel, who raised sheep and spun wool on a stretch of land at the base of Mount Fjarmir: Khamsin committed their faces and many others to memory and made a point of greeting them by name when next they met. Not that it helped. The Winterfolk remained unwelcoming and taciturn.

“This is useless,” she complained after yet another day of cold shoulders and unwelcoming villagers. “They’ll never see me as anything but a Summerlander.”

“Winterfolk warm slowly to outsiders,” Krysti said. “If you want them to accept you, you might start by accepting them.”

“What do you mean? I’m riding out to meet them. I’m being as nice as I know how. What else can I do?”

“Well, you might try dressing more like us for starters.” Krysti nodded at the bright, jewel-toned clothing Khamsin had refused to give up.

“But I like my clothes. They remind me of home.” The bright colors and rich fabrics made her feel warm, happy. And, yes, defiant. She clung to her Summerland colors as a form of rebellious independence, a symbol of her determination never to be cowed by these harsh, distant people and their cold gray-and-white world.

“I’m just saying, if you dress and act like a foreigner, you shouldn’t be surprised when they treat you like one.”

Khamsin frowned. She’d watched the Summer court enough to realize the wisdom in Krysti’s advice. In fashion, manners, interests, behavior, many of Summerlea’s courtiers strove for a sense of personal distinction, but few of them strayed far from acceptable conventions. People were like the flocks of birds she’d watched from her mother’s Sky Garden. What one did, the rest followed.

“I’ll think about it.” That was the most she was willing to concede for the moment. She rebelled against rules and conformity and other people’s expectations of her. She always had. If she gave that up—gave up her individuality, her fierce independence—what would be left of Khamsin?

“Even though it may not seem like it, you are making progress,” Krysti assured her as they rode away from the Freijels’ sheep farm. “That was the first time Mr. Freijel offered to water your horse.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” She glanced back over her shoulder, at the small, stone cottage built into the side of the mountain. Smoke curled from the chimney. Fat, fluffy sheep wandered the hillside, snuffling at the snow in search of grass. Derik Freijel had already turned away to continue his work, but his wife Starra was still standing on the stoop watching Khamsin and Krysti ride away. Kham raised a hand to wave. Starra did not respond in kind. She merely tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind her ears and ducked inside the family’s stone-and-sod home.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t read much into that offer to water my horse,” Kham said with a grimace. “He was probably just taking pity on the horse.”

Krysti glanced back at the small farm and sighed. “Give them time. Even a mountain wears down from the wind.”

“But only after a few millennia of effort,” she pointed out. “I don’t have that much time.” She’d been here almost two months already and was no closer to winning over her new people than the day she arrived. Like it or not, her way was not working. She needed to change tactics. “Come on. Let’s get back to Gildenheim. I need to speak to Vinca about bringing that seamstress back in.”