My pulse skips. My palm itches with the desire to slap him again.

“Unless you want me to hold you down and…” His voice drops lower. “You don’t want me finishing that sentence, Mayah.”

I snatch the gloves from his hand, cramming my fingers inside.

“I sure hope your brother has better manners than you,” I mutter, trying to ignore the lingering warmth and slight dampness inside the fur-lined gloves. My fingers curl into the residual heat from his large hands, and it feels far more intimate than it should.

Zevayr snorts, striding ahead. His shadow stretches long across the snow. I follow, hating how small my steps feel beside his.

The fire crackles pleasantly, warming my fingers—though they’ve been warm all day. Zevayr refused to take back the gloves, no matter how hard I insisted. My legs ache, and exhaustion seeps through every inch of me. We walked until the sun dipped behind the trees, stopping only when visibility became an issue.

“Why didn’t your brother come for the ceremony?” I ask despite my better judgment. I can almost tolerate him when he’s silent.

Zevayr doesn’t respond immediately. He tosses the remains of our dinner—a pitiful hare he’d caught earlier—into the snow.

“Too dangerous. Not worth the risk for the crown prince to venture into … hostile territory.” He finally sits across from me. Firelight catches in his dark hair.

I open my mouth again, but he cuts me off. “Get some sleep. It’ll be another long day tomorrow.”

“It’s my turn to take first watch,” I protest, even as fatigue weighs heavy on my eyelids.

He gives me a long look, one that seems to say I know you’re full of shit. I bristle.

Zevayr exhales sharply. “Tomorrow we’ll alternate. Rest. Please.” He stretches the word, jaw tight, like it burns his tongue. It’s clear he’s not a man accustomed to saying it.

I debate arguing further but decide against it.

“Here,” he says, unfastening his cloak. “Sleep under my cloak.”

I hesitate, eyeing the cloak like it’s a rabid snow wolf.

“And … where will you sleep?”

A beat. Then, with the faintest hint of challenge, “Under my cloak.”

My fingers tremble as I take it. It smells like smoke and pine and him. Wrapped in it, cocooned in warmth, I try to sleep. I really do.

But I lay there, awake. Listening. Waiting.

I’d slept in his arms last night, but I’d been half-frozen and half-asleep. It feels much more dangerous tonight.

Eventually, the scraping sizzle of snow kicked over fire wafts toward me. I can only guess when he’s reached the blanket by the faint sound of his boots unlacing—somehow, his footsteps are always silent. His breath is steady as he peels back the edge of the cloak and lies down beside me.

So close. Tides drown me. Must he nestle in so close? I guess we won’t both fit beneath the cloak otherwise, but does he need to—

“You know it defeats the purpose of me staying up if you don’t actually sleep,” he rumbles, voice laced with amusement.

I snap my eyes open. His gray gaze waits for me in the dark.

“This feels wrong,” I whisper. “What will your brother think … when he finds out we’ve … slept together. I mean not—”

“If you think this counts as sleeping together, you’ve been doing it wrong.”

My breath catches in my throat.

He goes still. Then he sighs, low and tired. “That was … inappropriate.” When I don’t answer, his voice softens. “No one needs to know. The weather will warm up as we get closer to Arbinj. We won’t have to sleep this way for long. It’s just survival, Mayah. Nothing else.”

Just survival.

So why is my heart racing like I’m being chased?

It’s a long time before sleep finally comes.

CHAPTER TEN

WE’VE BEEN TRAVELING FOR days. True to his word, Zevayr doesn’t touch me—except every night when I sleep in his arms. We don’t talk about it. Like he said, it’s necessary for survival in the frigid landscape and nothing more. I try not to dwell on it.

During the day, we usually travel in silence.

But whenever Zevayr does speak, it’s a struggle not to strangle him. I’ve never met a more infuriating man. It’s as though his every comment is designed to burrow beneath my skin and rile me up.

“How much farther until we’re out of Tundrayn?” I ask, my breath misting in the brisk air. The unforgiving chill manages to seep through my borrowed gloves. I lock my jaw so my teeth don’t chatter. It irks me that the freezing temperatures don’t seem to affect Zevayr nearly as much. He must’ve grown accustomed to our harsh climate over all the years he’s spent in our lands—murdering my people.

“At least another two weeks.” He glances back at me, a mocking smirk curling his full lips. “Tired already? I didn’t realize Tundraynis were such babies.”

I scoff, rolling my eyes. “I’ve met corpses with better insults than you.”

“Meet a lot of corpses, do you?”

“Yes, actually. It’s quite cruel. They come back in droves from the border. Usually burnt to a crisp by lightning.”

His jaw clenches so hard, for a second I hope his teeth will crack.

And just like that, we’re back to traveling in silence.

Frost crunches underfoot as I gather dried pine branches for a fire while Zevayr hunts. We’ve mostly been eating snowshoe hare, though once he caught a large arctic fox.

He scans the perimeter every night and meticulously erases all evidence of our campsites. Sometimes, we double back and take a different route to confuse anyone who might be tracking us. I’m surprised we haven’t encountered any more rebels—it’s impossible to completely erase tracks in the snow. Perhaps they were dissuaded by all the corpses the Dark Commander left for them to collect.

Despite my disdain for him, a whispering ripple of respect begrudgingly flows through me. Smug, arrogant monster, he may be, but he’s kept me alive so far.

Of course he can skin a hare in seconds. Of course he knows exactly what direction to travel based on the sun’s movements.

I hate being so dependent on him.

Why couldn’t he just be an idiot with a pretty face?

By the time Zevayr returns with a large snowshoe hare, the fire is crackling. His hood falls back, and I wish I didn’t notice the perfectly imperfect tousle of his dark hair, the shadow of days-old stubble along the sharp line of his jaw, the firelight dancing across his high cheekbones. My gaze drops to his full lips, currently turned down in a scowl—

I tear my eyes away.

Handsome or not, he’s a murderer.

He skins the hare in utter silence—which is just fine by me. When it’s ready, he skewers it on a long, thin branch and rotates it over the makeshift spit until the flesh is crackling. He doesn’t spare me a glance when he hands me my portion, which again, is just fine by me.

We eat in stilted, familiar silence.

Until he breaks it.

“You think my lightning is cruel?” Zevayr says, his voice frosted with ice. “You should see what waterwielders can do.”

His tone drops, low and razor-edged.

“I’ve pulled men off the battlefield with ice spears piercing their lungs—jagged, serrated shards. They choke on their own blood while we try to break ribs to dig them out. I’ve seen soldiers with bubbles of water forced over their heads. They scratch their faces bloody trying to escape before they drown.”

His eyes narrow.

“But the worst? Water forced in through the nose, mouth, eyes—until it fills the body. And then frozen solid. You know what that looks like, Mayah?”

Zevayr turns away—can’t bear to look at me anymore.

“And while your people have healers with glowing hands and soothing light, know what we have? Poultices. Crushed roots. Bark soaked in boiled snow. Whatever the earth gives us. We’re fighting the same war with blood and dirt, while your people can erase wounds into nothing.”