The Summer King capitulated. “Release him, and I’ll send them away.”

Wynter blinked and shuttered the power of his Gaze. “Better.”

He waited for the three openly terrified lords to depart. The general, shaking uncontrollably, had to be helped out the room by a trio of servants. “Give him a hot bath and wrap him in thick blankets,” he told the servants. “He won’t feel warm again for several days.”

When they were gone, he nodded to Valik, who slipped out the other door, leaving Wynter and Verdan alone.

Wynter crossed his arms and regarded his enemy in silence. The Summer King and his lords were pampered fools. Arrogant and treacherous, yes, but ultimately weak. They had never known true hardship until the hand of Wynter had fallen hard upon them. They roamed the hills and vales of Summerlea, preening and prideful, believing themselves lords of the earth, when in reality they—like the people they governed—were only sheep, fatted and dull-witted by decades of self-indulgence, easily herded to the slaughter.

It had not always been so. Once, long ago, the kings of Summerlea had been lions of men, true heroes, like Roland Soldeus, who had sacrificed everything so Summerlea could live free. But somewhere along the way, that shining spirit, that noble, defiant bravery, had died out. Generations of kings who’d held the fire of the Sun in their hearts had given way to weaker, less noble men, willful, nihilistic parasites who gorged themselves on Summerland bounty and cloaked themselves in the shreds of their ancestors’ glory.

And their people, those sheep they kept glutted on a never-ending flow of wealth from the country’s fertile fields, vineyards, orchards, and herberies, never noticed the difference.

Oh, they’d rallied a few worthy defenses when Wynter had first marched upon their lands, but he’d known their will would not last. He’d continued to press them, relentless and without mercy, stripping their armies of the few brave souls still among them until only the sheep remained. And then, he’d simply spread winter across their lands and waited. Hardship sapped what tiny flickers of defiance still remained, and the last two battles had been easily won.

“Well?” Verdan prompted when the silence dragged on. “What are your terms? What is the price of peace between us?”

Wyn had intended peace to come only when every Summerlander lay frozen and lifeless beneath a blanket of ice and snow. But the helpful informant who’d snuck into his camps several months ago had convinced him there was another, more satisfying victory to be had.

“Your son, Prince Falcon, stole the woman who was to have been my queen and one of the irreplaceable treasures of my house.” Wynter pushed off the map table and began to pace. “He ran off with them both while I was fighting the brigands he sent to destroy one of my people’s villages. But that was not enough for him. During his escape, your son put an arrow through my brother Garrick’s throat. My brother was just a boy, not yet sixteen, but your son left him to die in the snow and fled like the thieving coward he is.”

Wynter turned, his face a frozen mask, his eyes burning ice. “Your son robbed me of my queen, one of my kingdom’s greatest treasures, and my heir. You will return to me that which I have lost.”

Verdan went pale, and his jaw dropped open in a stunned gape. “I? I’m no miracle worker. I can’t return your brother from the dead, and I’m sure your spies have already told you no one knows where Falcon is. Not even I. If Falcon did take your queen and your treasure, as you have claimed, only he would know where to find them.”

“A queen, a treasure, and an heir. That’s what you will provide me. You have proclaimed many times that the greatest treasures of your kingdom are your lovely daughters. So I will take one of your daughters to wife. She will have a year to fill her womb with an heir to claim both the Winter and the Summer Thrones. If she fails, she will be turned out to face the mercy of the mountains, and I’ll be back the following spring to claim another daughter. And so it will continue until I have my heir or you are out of daughters. That, Verdan, is the price of peace.”

CHAPTER 3

The Treasure of the Tower

Khamsin approached the closed, freshly gleaming double doors leading to the Queen’s Bower. Once more garbed in a gray servant’s dress with a cap to cover her distinctive hair and a white bandage wrapped around her wrist to hide her Summerlea Rose, she carried a stack of freshly laundered towels as her excuse to get inside the bower and access the solar to retrieve her mother’s things.

The Winter King was in the map room with her father, working out the terms of surrender. Khamsin knew enough about diplomatic negotiations to know he would be gone for hours. Plenty of time for her to retrieve her mother’s most treasured belongings.

The Wintercraig guards standing outside the bower doors searched her from head to toe and inspected the pile of towels for hidden weapons. She explained the bandage on her wrist as a burn from the pressing iron and bit her lip to hold back her outrage as searching hands took a bit too much liberty near her br**sts. If they were looking for an excuse to do more, she didn’t give it to them, and they finished their inspection and let her pass.

As soon as the doors closed behind her, she hurried to the solar door on the southern wall. The key she’d nabbed from Tildy’s dresser slid easily into the lock and turned with a satisfying click. The solar door swung open.

Inside, the room that should have been bursting with Queen Rosalind’s treasures was all but empty, only a few shrouded lumps of furniture and a haphazard pile of lamps, artwork, and personal effects remained.