A frisson of alarm skated up her spine. This was getting bad. Very bad.

“For Wyrn’s sake, Khamsin,” she muttered, “get away from the sky before you kill someone.”

She fled back indoors. In order to break the connection between the storm and her gift, she needed to go someplace deep, surrounded by rock and earth. She waved off the guards standing beside the door to her chambers and made her way downstairs to the kitchens. There, scores of servants bustled about in organized chaos, stirring soups, roasting meats, plating dishes. One look at her swirling silver eyes, however, and they cleared a path without a word.

She ran through their midst and down the stairs to the large, musty wine cellar that had been carved deep, deep into the mountain. Torches burned in sconces along the wall, the only source of light. During her tour with Mistress Vinca, she’d been frightened when her visit to the wine cellar had cut her off from her gift, but if she didn’t separate herself from the storm soon, people would die.

When she reached the heavy wooden door leading to the cellar, however, she found it closed and locked. With a scream of frustration, she yanked on the door and pounded the unyielding wooden planks.

“Your Grace? May I be of assistance?”

She whirled around so fast the Steward of Wines, who must have followed her into the cellars, jumped back in fright.

“Forgive me, ma’am. I didn’t mean to startle you.” His voice shook. He was afraid of her.

He should be.

“Open this door.”

“I beg your par—”

“Open it!”

He jumped again. “Of course.” He drew the ring of keys from his side. They rattled noisily in his shaking hands. The man skirted gingerly around her and bent to put the key in the lock. Finally, after dropping the keys twice, the steward successfully inserted the right key in the lock and turned. The tumblers clicked. The door opened.

“Give me the keys.” She held out an imperious hand.

The steward hesitated. “Madam, if you’ll just tell me what you’re looking for—”

“Give . . . me . . . the keys. Now.”

He handed them over.

“Leave me.” Kham didn’t wait to see if he obeyed. She snatched the torch off the wall and ran down the long corridor, deep into the cold, shadowy recesses of the wine cellar.

The air was damp, chill, and musty. The flame of her torch was the only light. As she ran, her connection to the storm finally began to wane. She kept running, deeper and deeper into the gloom of the cellar hewn from solid rock, down another set of stairs and back into the deepest, coolest part of the cellar until there was no place left to run. There, before the dark stone wall covered with enormous shelves of dusty wine bottles, she let the torch fall to the stone floor and sank down beside it, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

She could no longer feel the storm outside, only the storm within. The great, wild hurricane of anger and pain that threatened to tear her apart. Her chest was so tight she could hardly draw breath. She gasped for air, and the gasps turned to sobs. The dry, burning pain in her eyes became a flood of tears that could no longer be contained.

Kham buried her face in her arms and cried until her throat was sore and she had no tears left. And when the storm had passed and her tears were spent, she lay on the dusty floor of the wine cellar and stared up at the rocky ceiling overhead.

What was wrong with her that no one wanted her?

She was aware of her shortcomings: her short temper, the violent nature of her weathergift, her need to rebel against authority. But despite those drawbacks, she had always tried to live a good life, be a good person. A person Roland Soldeus would have been proud to call friend. Honorable, loyal, trustworthy, brave.

Maybe she was the abomination her father had called her. Maybe everyone else could see the evil in her and that’s why they reviled her.

Kham gave a harsh laugh and flung an arm over her eyes. Or maybe she was simply stupid and naïve and had spent her whole life trusting the wrong people. Maybe the only person she could trust was herself.

Tired of feeling sorry for herself, scrubbed the dampness from her cheeks and sat up. Time to regroup. She would not let Wynter Atrialan or any other person decide her fate. She was a survivor. She always had been. And she wasn’t going to be a pawn in other people’s games anymore.

And Wynter Atrialan wouldn’t honor his oaths to her, there was no reason she should honor hers to him.

She was done being the docile, agreeable wife. She was going to do what she should have been doing from the very beginning: whatever it took to look out for her own interests. No matter what happened between now and the end of her year as Wintercraig’s queen, she was going to find a way to survive and to thrive. And she was going to secure that survival independent of whether she bore Wynter’s child or won over the hearts and minds of his people.

With that goal in mind, Khamsin was going to dedicate herself to discovering all the things Wynter didn’t want her to know. Starting with whatever he was hiding in the one place in the palace she’d been forbidden to enter. The room he visited in secret when he thought all the rest of the palace was asleep.

Gildenheim’s Atrium.

CHAPTER 17

The Frozen Heart of Winter

On silent feet, Khamsin crept across Gildenheim’s marble floors. The hour was late. All of Gildenheim was sleeping save the guards who patrolled the outer defenses and the handful who prowled the hallways of the castle in search of mischief-makers and spies. Kham had dodged three of those while making her way from her rooms to the mysterious, forbidden Atrium that only Wynter ever entered.