Page 85 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“Rora,” he gritted out.

“Not once,” I said, trying to hold my voice steady. “Not once did you let me just see you. Nothing else. I just wanted to see you, Malik. I’d forgotten so much of you.”

“You say that as if it is a bad thing.”

“I take it back.” My voice was barely a whisper when I said, “I do hate you.”

He wore the most forlorn grin he’d ever given me, so forced, so not like him. “You don’t mean that.”

“With all my heart.” With what little of it was left not wanting you. With what little you’d left after taking it and disappearing with it. “I’m past caring about you, Malik, but please refrain from showing up with a whore by your side or piss drunk when you come to Isjord.”

“Is that what you think I was doing?”

“Have you ever given me any other thing to think of?”

He nodded and took a few steps away from me, seeming torn because it took him a few lingering seconds before he faded out of sight. His scent tarried behind like the most haunting spirit. But at one point, I had wanted to be haunted by it.

I think I still did.

“Get down from there and let’s go home,” Skadi said from where she leaned against a wall. “Go wallow with a glass of wine and some snacks before you. Misery always tastes better with some salty pickings and cheap liquor.”

“I’m not wallowing.”

“More shooting then?”

“Can I use a breathing target?” I asked, stepping down the stairs.

“I’m not against it, but I thought we were trying to make you the next saint queen.”

“You’re very unfunny.”

“What’s unfunny is the fact that you’re determined not to get hands that are made for blood to be near blood.”

“That’s not unfunny, Skadi, that’s being a smart politician. Which is what I am.”

“Snow would argue another definition for what a politician is.”

“If Snow wanted me to speak her language, she shouldn’t have made me queen.”

I halted and let out a squeak when I almost crashed against a small body. Rain tightly hugged that ugly ragdoll to her chest, blinking her massive round grey eyes up at me and then at where Skadi stood. She let out the most grown-up sigh ever, and took my hand, wordlessly pulling me towards the gardens. “You need to stop talking to that woman, aunt.”

“I’ve told you she is nice. I promise.”

Rain carefully glanced at Skadi again and shot me a strange look. “If you say so.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Uncle is building me a princess house out in the gardens.”

“Is the castle not big enough for you, my little highness?”

“I want something that is mine alone.”

“One day it might be.”

“One day, but for now uncle is building me my own.” She let out another exasperated sigh and came to a halt before the miserable scenery ahead—Malik struggling to hold a wooden structure in place while he pinned nails here and there. “But he is incredibly slow. How does a grown up not know how to build a simple house? He’s taken all my day with training and I even missed my baking lessons with Penny.”

Malik whipped his head to us. “Hey.”