Page 175 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“To not be afraid?”

He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know about that.”

“Kil, darling.”

“If I lose you—”

“You will not. It will not happen.”

Thora stood, also having heard their conversation. “We’ll be just outside. Rain and Sam will want to see the baby.”

Kil nodded and then wrapped Snow entirely into his embrace, leaning to whisper in her ear as we made our leave.

Little Jonah stirred in Thora’s arms as Rain and Sam crowded around us. Thora kneeled, showing them their brand-new brother who opened his tiny eyes to look up at them.

“Krigborn gold eyes,” Thora murmured, touching Jonah’s face. “You’re in for a ride, little boiled potato.”

Rain giggled and scrunched her nose. “He does look like one.”

“You looked the same,” Sam said, reaching to touch his little brother.

Rain’s hopeful doe eyes turned to me, horror and tears written in them. “Do I still look like a boiled potato?”

“No, baby doll, you do not look like a boiled potato,” I said, sitting her on my knee.

More joined us, the corridor filling entirely with people holding and passing little Jonah from one pair of hands to the other. And like the true Castemont he was, he didn’t let out a single sound, only blinking his golden eyes at the adoring people who held him.

Chapter forty-two

Pink Baby Breaths

Thora

The fireplace crackled loudly as the flames chewed the new kindling while I was entirely swallowed by Mal’s arms as he held me in his lap while we watched the Isjordian skies shift to colours of night.

“And you’re back,” he whispered in my ear.

“Had not gone far.”

“Good,” he said, leaving a kiss on my cheek. “Because I want to take you somewhere.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see.” Standing, he threw a robe over my shoulders and took my hand, fading us in the middle of nowhere.

It was dark, the crescent moon barely giving us enough light to see where we were stepping on the snow-covered forest.

A spark glistened somewhere in the distance we were heading to. Then another. And then many others.

Not sparks.

Forest spirits.

They’d gathered around a massive weeping willow, dancing around its lean hanging branches that fell and dipped in the thick snow.

“Where did these come from?”

“Some of the kids from the academy had seen a few roam by the old wall ruins. I figured they also had returned to the land now that it bowed entirely to a new queen. Now that they are no longer afraid.”