Chapter 1

Hanna

Snow piled up on the dome above the garden, an oppressive force pressing down on us no matter how expansive and beautiful the fake garden was.

I had to choose between the two men I had come to love. Thorne had dragged us out here, claiming there was urgent danger..

And then he had told me I couldn’t trust Kaelan.

Kaelan stood to one side of me, Thorne to the other.

In one hand, Thorne clutched the charm that would call us to another location. Determination and fear was written across his face, and he held his other hand out to me. Everything in his powerful shoulders, in the way he leaned toward me, over me, felt protective.

Kaelan”s hands were empty, bunched into fists. He looked as if very little held him back from leaping across the garden and beating Thorne senseless. He was all fury, and tension sizzled through every one of my nerves, my muscles tensing for a fight.

Kaelan looked angry. Dangerous. Cruel.

Just minutes ago, Kaelan had told me I was always his queen.

They were the words I”d always wanted to hear.

Now Thorne insisted that he meant nothing. That Kaelan, who lied so easily, had spilled more lies in my path.

And I couldn”t have believed it, except Kaelan looked enraged.

As if he had just been thwarted.

”You bastard, I trusted you!” Kaelan leapt at Thorne.

My decision was made.

I”d been so close to deciding anyway.

I grabbed Thorne”s hand, and he yanked me against him. As Thorne pulled me close, Kaelan brushed against me, slamming into Thorne.

The three of us stumbled together. I leapt into Thorne”s arms, landing against his hard chest. His arm closed around me, holding me close.

Thorne folded me into his side protectively, trying to wrap his body around me as he twisted to take the brunt of Kaelan”s force.

But I still got one hand against Kaelan”s powerful chest. I pushed Kaelan away, letting my magic flow through my arm with all my power. Kaelan stumbled back.

Everything happened so fast. A glint of steel shining under the soft sunlight of the dome. The air had gone silent, every bird stilling as if they felt the threat too. I turned toward the threat, my magic sparking like fire around my fingertips.

I expected to see Kaelan with a drawn blade. But Kaelan was still stumbling back, thrown by my force.

It was Thorne who wielded the knife. I”d pushed Kaelan away, and so Thorne”s blade had just glanced off Kaelan”s chest. His tunic was slashed open. Blood trickled from the wound. Kaelan”s face was shocked.

Thorne pulled the blade back. The cold metal pressed against my back as he wrapped me in his arms, muttering the words of his spell.

I pushed away from him, but it was too late. Thorne had me in his grip, and darkness was washing over me.

Kaelan rushed toward us, and I turned to look back over my shoulder as Thorne”s arms closed around me.

Kaelan”s face twisted into agony. Rage. Betrayal.

His hand reached out, still trying to catch us, trying to come with us.

But then the world blinked out.

Suddenly, we weren”t in the castle. We were stumbling together, still entwined, in a vast, empty plain. The ground beneath our feet was hard, dotted with slicks of ice, but covered in dry, withered grass.

I shoved away from Thorne, filled with fury. The memory of Kaelan”s face twisted at my heart.

The memory of Kaelan bleeding at Thorne”s hand?

That memory incited all my rage.

”What the fuck!” I shouted at Thorne, pushing him away. ”Why did you hurt him?”

Thorne”s face flooded with regret. ”I had to.”

I”d had to make a split second decision.

Maybe I”d made the wrong one.

My stomach swooped as if I were falling.

”He”d better be alright, Thorne.” I turned around, looking desperately out at the unfamiliar landscape.

Rough crags of rock surrounded us. Ice crunched underfoot when I shifted toward Thorne, and he tensed at the slight motion. The gray sky seemed to press down on us.

Thorne stared at me with an expression I couldn”t read. He never seemed anxious; he was always steady. But now, he turned the crystal he”d used to call us here between his two fingers, worrying it absently.

Would that crystal bring me back to Kaelan?

Or could Thorne use it to drag me anywhere he wished?

Those dark eyes of his seemed empty. ”I didn”t cut him deeply.”

But he could have.

He would have, if I hadn”t pushed Kaelan out of the way. I”d chosen Thorne without realizing he wanted to hurt Kaelan. I”d been sure Thorne was a good man, and now the ice under my feet felt slick and impassable.

I leapt for the crystal.

He was so shocked that he didn”t respond until I”d slammed my body against his. But he was built like a rock, so he didn”t move under the force of the impact. My fingernails skated against his cool palm, trying to dig the crystal out of his grip.

”Hanna!” His other arm wrapped my waist, yanking me hard against his body. My feet were suddenly in the air as he held me up, and I kicked out, trying to find leverage to fight him.

I slammed my elbow into his chest, and he let out a grunt in my ear. Then his other arm wrapped around my throat. I dropped my chin, fighting him to keep his forearm off my throat.

I had the crystal in my fingers. He”d abandoned it to try to get control over me.

Good fucking luck. No one had ever managed to get control over me.

His hard bicep pressed the side of my head as he kept pulling me tighter, trying to get me into a choke. Finally, he slipped under my chin. The hard edge of his forearm bit into my throat, and I let out a ragged grunt as he cut my airflow.

”Does that grunt mean I”ll be a good girl now?” he demanded.

I slammed my head back into his face.

He let out his own grunt. I didn”t care to translate it like he had mine.

He dropped me. I landed lightly on my feet and whirled, knowing I only had a second while he was thrown off by the blow.

But even as I whirled, he grabbed for me. His hands wrapped my forearms, dragging me against his body.

The world was a fast moving haze, and so was he, but I could see the blood flowing down his face. Still, he had kept moving. I would”ve admired him, if he hadn”t been my enemy at the moment.

”Stop,” he said.

I couldn”t break his grip. I didn”t even try. Instead, I leveraged it, throwing myself backward and letting him hold me. I threw my legs up and kicked him in the chest, and he stumbled back with another grunt. This time, he dropped me.

I landed on my back.The force of the ground rushing up at me knocked the breath from my lungs.

I put my hands to either side of my head and popped up, landing lightly on my feet, expecting that he would already have closed the distance and have a blow waiting for me.

But I made it to my feet and drew in a ragged breath.

Thorne was backing away across the icy ground.

”I don”t want to fight you.” Thorne picked up the blade he”d used to cut Kaelan, which still glistened with my husband”s blood. He must have dropped it as soon as we arrived.

He wiped the blade with a rag, then thrust the rag into his pocket before he carefully sheathed the knife. He raised his hands to his shoulders in a placating gesture.

”If you didn”t want to fight me,” my voice sounded hoarse from being choked, ”then you shouldn”t have hurt my husband.”

Thorne flinched, the faintest blink of those dark eyes. It was so quick, I might have imagined it.

Then he said evenly, ”It”s too bad Kaelan will never realize how lucky he is to have you on his side.”

Even when I was furious, the sight of his bloodied face wrenched at my heart.

Thorne could”ve hurt me if he wished to. I was strong and quick, but I knew what he was.

And the treacherous lurch of my heart made me lash out at him.

”Don”t you fucking dare,” I told him. ”Don”t you say sweet things to me while you try to destroy the way Kaelan and I feel for each other. You know that right now he”s---”

”Murderous.”

”Hurt,” I corrected.

Such a small, simple word. But it broke my heart.

Thorne shook his head.

Rage gripped my chest. But before I could react, I caught a glimpse of something shining from the stony earth.

The yellow crystal glittered between us, half buried during our fight. One of us had stepped on it.

I dove for it. I threw myself into a somersault, my momentum carrying me past it, but I reached out and grabbed it on my way. I leapt to my feet as I came out of my somersault and moved to shove it into my pocket.

Thorne was heading toward me, moving fast.

He slammed into me with all the force he had, burying my body underneath his. My breath huffed out; all his muscular bulk pinned me into the earth.

Ice prickled against the back of my neck, and a hundred shards of rock seemed to press up against my back and legs as if they would cut right through me, forced deep by the weight of his body.

I started to cry out for him to get off me, but before I could shape a thought besides ouch and a vague sense of betrayal, a dark shadow swept over us.

Something big and moving fast, punching through the air where I had stood a second before. Then it was gone, rocketing across the plain.

”Monster,” Thorne said briefly. ”No more of your shit, Hanna.”

”Get off me.” I pushed at him.

It was ineffectual, to no one”s surprise. My hands just scrabbled over his hard chest. I”d have to do more than push him to have a chance in hell of getting him off me.

But it was still Thorne, and I didn”t want to hurt him.

He looked down at me, his dark eyes smoldering with anger and other emotions I couldn”t read. ”I”m fucking done. Are you going to be good?”

”I told you to get off me.”

He let out a hard laugh, and suddenly he was pressing back off me. The pressure on my chest released as he rose to his knees. I drew a breath, filling my aching lungs. His body still hemmed me down with one knee on either side of my legs.

”The wylems are shy, so that one won”t try again now since it missed its chance to snatch you without you ever having a clue,” Thorne said. ”You”re welcome. But it”s not the only monster, so we need to move.”

”Long speech,” I said. ”But all I want to hear from you is why the fuck you hurt Kaelan.”

”Mm.”

He was looking at me in a way that I wasn”t sure of, but didn”t like.

”Don”t give me the stoic grunts. You owe me answers---”

Thorne suddenly rose to his feet, grabbing me around the waist and dragging me up his long, hard body. I squirmed and twisted, trying to get an elbow into his flesh, but he hauled me against his body as if I were just a toddler.

”You should be grateful I won”t give you what I owe you,” he told me.

If I”d thought I could fight him, any cockiness would”ve fled at the way he was carrying me now, my wrists pinioned in one of his big hands and his other arm wrapped around my waist. I had to be an awkward burden, but he was moving rapidly across the ground now as if I weighed nothing. The bobbing landscape around us seemed like nothing but boundless plain, but he seemed to know where he was going, charging with a destination in mind.

”What the fuck, Thorne? Where are we?” I demanded, because I needed to get my bearings.

”We”re at the borderland,” he said shortly.

I”d heard that word before, but everything was a blur now. ”Which is?”

”The edge of ice fae territory. The land of monsters.”

”Why?”

”Because this is home for me,” he said. ”Even if it is a rotted place. And I needed to get us out of there.”

”Is Kaelan going to be able to get here quickly? Because he is going to murder you.” I turned to look, expecting to see a certain ice dragon already charging toward us.

”No. It will take him longer to get here. He”ll have to fly.”

”Why? Why wouldn”t the prince have access to whatever magic you have?”

”Because I called us home. And Kaelan has no home. Will you walk?”

”I can always walk!”

He let out one of those grunts.

I was so angry I could slap him.

If he weren”t Thorne.

If he weren”t the man who had knelt before me to give me his gloves, who had believed in me quietly and constantly, who covered me in his cloak and his warmth and his protection and his faith at every turn.

My hands knotted into fists, but I couldn”t hurt him anymore. Part of me regretted that I already had.

”I”ll walk,” I muttered.

Thorne set me down on my feet. He gripped my shoulder to make sure I was steady, and I pulled away angrily. I didn”t try to hide the disgust on my face.

But Thorne just gave me a regretful look. ”I wish I hadn”t had to take you away from him.”

”Yes, if I had a furious Prince Kaelan coming down on me, I”d wish that too!” I decided not to think too hard about how much Kaelan must hate me right now.

Again.

I”d chosen someone else and left him behind, just as he thought his mother had for all those years.

”He”s going to murder us,” I told Thorne. Kaelan did not seem like the kind of man to handle betrayal well.

He shook his head. ”No, he”s going to try. But he”s not going to hurt you.”

”What the fuck? Why?” I demanded.

”He was going to murder you. But now we have the chance to keep you safe...and to cure him.”

He started walking.

I stared after him.

”I”m sorry,” I shouted after him, ”this is not the time for your stoic, I-barely-say-a-word bullshit. Tell me exactly what it going on!”

Thorne turned. ”We need to get to safety. The borderland is full of monsters.”

”Oh, the monsters are the least of your concerns right now,” I promised him.

He held out his hand to me. ”We can talk while we walk. Or I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you.”

”And then I can murder you in your sleep.”

”Certainly,” he said. ”At least you”d be safe in the castle.”

He took a step toward me, his face resolute. I shook my head and moved to join him.

I was pissed, but I didn”t want to be eaten by monsters either. Especially not before I had the chance to punish Thorne for stealing my agency and to hear him grovel for hurting me and Kaelan.

”Thank you,” he told me as I reached his side, and the two of us began walking.

”I don”t want your thanks. The only thing I want from you is an explanation.”

”He”s poisoned by magic. He was going to kill you.”

”No,” I shook my head. My voice dropped to a whisper, ”Why would you just tell me now? Why would you just stop him now? After we were married, after we...”

The memory of Kaelan kneeling before me, holding my hands and telling me that the crown was always mine, haunted me with a desperate burning.

”I didn”t know, I just learned of it,” Thorne twisted toward me, his face concerned. He still looked as if he wanted to touch me, but he wisely resisted the impulse. ”I”m sorry, Hanna. I truly am.”

”So you were lying,” I said. ”When you said he didn”t mean any of it. When you claimed he was just saying what he knew I wanted to hear...”

”I had to get you away from him. Once he knew he was enchanted, the magic could”ve activated his homicidal impulses. It was the surest bet.”

”It was the surest way to break my heart,” I retorted, and Thorne looked stunned. I was surprised too; it wasn”t like me to speak that openly. But Thorne was different. ”And I think you triggered his homicidal impulses anyway.”

”I would imagine so.” It was bitterly cold, and we”d just come from the palace, where I”d hastily dressed in trousers and a soft sweater. For the first time, I noticed Thorne was wearing a cloak, which he now shucked off to wrap around my shoulders. Beneath it, he wore a thick sweater.

”There are gloves in the pocket,” he said. ”We need to walk faster.”

”You had this all planned out.” I felt hollow and aching inside. ”You knew just what you would say that would hurt me--”

”I knew just what to say that you would know better than to believe,” Thorne told me firmly. ”I knew you would understand I was lying for a reason, and that you would come with me, and we wouldn”t have to fight our way out with Kaelan trying to kill us.”

Tension crackled in the air between us.

”I trusted you to understand,” he said, ”and I knew you would trust me. This way, nothing happened that can”t be forgiven.”

If Kaelan had actually hurt one of us... the survivor would never forgive him. And Kaelan, once he regained his senses, would never forgive himself.

Kaelan might hate us at the moment. But the only thing that burned brighter than the ice Fae”s hatred was his love. And I had no doubt he still loved us both.

”We”re going to have to conquer this enchantment before he finds us,” I said. ”So he can forgive us before he needs to be forgiven.”

Thorne nodded. ”Put on the gloves, Hanna.”

He was always trying to protect me.

We needed a place and time to talk about what else he had said. He had Kaelan”s memories? But I couldn”t process that, couldn”t handle one more thing right now. Not even the fragile hope that Kaelan and I could have our shared past.

I pulled on the gloves. ”Lead on. But I want you to understand that just because I”m going along with you now, doesn”t mean that I won”t be pissed all over again later on.”

Thorne”s lips twitched up. ”Yes, understandably. How dare I trick our trickster goddess?”

Hearing Thorne use the words I”d heard from Kaelan sent a pang of shock through me.

Did he really understand everything between Kaelan and me... better than I did?

But he held out his hand, and I took it anyway. When the ground felt as if it were shifting under my feet, Thorne felt like the one solid thing I could cling to...even though he was the one who had started my own personal avalanche.

”How did you learn Kaelan was enchanted?” I asked.

”I ran into Seraphine.”

The last I heard of Seraphine, she was missing. ”Was she hiding in the castle the whole time?”

”No. She was manipulating people to do her bidding.” Thorne moved on quickly, and I frowned. He was hiding something. ”She used a servant to get Kaelan to drink an enchantment. She”s trying to get Kaelan to marry her instead.”

I let out a huff of a startled laugh. I felt so off balance I couldn”t do anything but laugh. ”Kaelan”s already got more wife than he can handle.”

”She”s going to try to eliminate you,” Thorne warned.

”I”m not the type to fight over a man.”

”No. But you are the type to fight for Kaelan... and he”s going to need us. Kaelan loves you. Sooner or later, I”m sure he”ll overcome Seraphine”s enchantment... but if he”s already killed you by then, he”ll be devastated.”

”Not quite as much as I will be,” I said tartly.

Thorne turned to me. His black eyes looked fathomless in the dim light before dawn. ”If he finds you, Hanna, he will kill you. And once he”s killed you, he”ll forget you and marry Seraphine.”

He let the words dangle there. Rage flitted through my chest like a flurry of venomous butterflies.

He must have registered the look on my face, because he added, ”I need you to understand the stakes.”

I frowned up at him. ”You think I”m going to be stupid? That I”m still a believer in the power of love? I lost Kaelan once to an enchantment, and I”m the idiot who created that magic.”

We had known what that magic would do to the love we shared. But even though I had understood intellectually, I hadn”t understood truly.

”There”s nothing stupid about believing in love,” Thorne told me.

”That”s the wrong thing to tell me when I”m slogging across the desert toward... where are we going, Thorne? I thought that crystal thing called you home.”

”It does.” We came over a crest of a hill, and Thorne pointed to the city nestled below, wrapped within the confines of an enormous stone wall. A castle stood at one side; tall guard posts rose from the corners, looking over the desert. ”But there”s no magic within Caer Far. I couldn”t bring us within the walls.”

”Your family”s land.”

He nodded, his eyes sweeping over the barren landscape.

”Once, magic transformed this all into farmland. It was beautiful.”

”It”s still beautiful,” I said. ”In a stark way.”

”Look at you.” His lips quirked with the hint of a smile. ”Always seeing the good in everything.”

”I”m still angry at you,” I told him.

”I know. Come meet my family.”

Thorne gripped my hand, the two of us walking side by side toward the massive walled city. As we moved closer, there were gardens, but they were walled and guarded.

”Everything the city needs can”t be produced within the walls,” he told me. ”Once, we didn”t risk the lives of soldiers to guard these things. But then Snake Queen magic poisoned all the vegetables. We lost a hundred people--many of them children--before we realized what had happened. So now it must always be guarded.”

I hadn”t fully understood the ice royals” front where Kaelan and Dare and Thorne had served. I”d thought they were merely fighting monsters. Although I didn”t feel the jubilance my sister did about combat---I would have preferred to spend my days reading with a cup of tea instead of swinging a sword---I hadn”t been afraid of monsters. Not anymore.

But I was afraid of letting people down. Of seeing them suffer. And the cost of failure was written across his face.

”And they have to face the monsters that come at night?”

He nodded. ”We try to keep the monsters from reaching them at all. But there are so many, and our warriors are spread so thin.”

“Where is Seraphine now?”

He let out a soft curse. “I was trying to get to you…and she vanished. Some kind of awful magic… maybe a portal…”

I stared at him. There were stories about portal magic, but I’d never seen it.

“We’ll have to find her, get her to undo the spell, and kill her.” It was the kind of plan I found comforting.

Maybe I could kill my way into Kaelan’s love.

”If it were easy to kill the Snake Queen and her kind, we wouldn”t have to deal with...” He swept his arm to encompass it all. ”I don’t know if Seraphine and the Snake Queen are working together or if they’re at odds. But either way, they’re both dangers to our kingdom.”

Our kingdom.Somehow, the ice kingdom had become mine.

”Where do you think Seraphine is hiding?” I asked, then frowned. ”Has she been hiding from us or from the Snake Queen?”

”We”ll know when we find her. In the meantime, brace yourself.”

”For what? It”s been a long night. I got married and then ran away from my husband. If we have time to sleep before Kaelan wings his way here... I would like to get some rest.”

”We have time to rest,” he said. ”Unfortunately, we also have time to meet my family.”

”I”m delighted to meet your roots, Thorne,” I said.

He scoffed. ”For all their faults---with which you are about to become very familiar---my sisters are brilliant. They”ll help us find the right direction to unwind this enchantment.”

”Brilliant?”

”You”ll see.” He sounded grim and proud all at the same time.

”And then we”ll go save Kaelan,” I said. ”Before he finds us, and we need to save ourselves.”