You don’t know anything, Meira, and I’m sorry if this...is hard for you to accept, but it will happen. You wanted to matter to Winter? This is how Winter needs you.

It’s so cold that foreigners have to wrap in layers of fur to walk from building to building, while our natural Winterian blood keeps us warm even in the worst conditions. And snow is everywhere, always, so much that the grass beneath it is white from lack of sun. An entire kingdom wrapped in an orb of eternal winter.

I wanted to be a soldier. Someone who would earn standing in Winter. Someone Sir would look at with pride. Someone Mather would look at and —

I’m at the center of this, a weird possessive feud between the Winter king and the Cordellan prince.

No matter our dire circumstances, no matter our shared upbringing, no matter the chill his smile sends over my body, he’s still him, and I’m still me, and yes, he needs to have a female heir someday, but with a proper lady, a duchess or a princess—not the girl who spars with him.

I don’t need made-up strength. I’m strong enough on my own—me, Meira, no magic or conduit or anything.

You may have me trapped in this.” I tug him off me. “But you aren’t the first man to underestimate me, so may I advise you to start treating me with a little more respect…

Fear is a seed that, once planted, never stops growing.

The most powerful magic of all is choice...

It doesn’t matter what I would do with magic, because leaders are valued for the wrong things.