“You smell like wildflowers. You always do. What can I say to make you stay?” His words trailed off into a drowsy mumble as he fell back asleep.

Tell me it’s more than war and worry that makes you speak those words. Tell me what they would mean if you weren’t a king and I weren’t a soldier. But she didn’t want to hear any of that, not really. Sweet words and grand declarations were for other people, other lives.

She brushed the hair back from his face, placed a kiss on his forehead. “I would stay forever if I could,” she whispered. He wouldn’t remember anyway.

Hours later, Zoya’s sitting room was crowded with people. She hadn’t invited anyone; they’d simply gathered there, settling in front of the fire with cups of sweetened tea. Saints, she was glad of it. Usually, she valued her privacy, but tonight she needed company.

Despite the bath she’d taken, she felt like she could smell death clinging to her, in her hair, in her clothes. She had curled up beside Genya on the couch next to the fire. Its cushions were embroidered in pewter silk, and usually she was fussy about people putting their feet up on it, but right now she couldn’t have cared less. She took a long sip from her mug of warmed wine. Tea was not enough for her tonight.

David and Nadia sat at the round table at the room’s center. He’d set out neat little stacks of papers in what was no doubt an important order, and he was buried in a long row of calculations. Occasionally, he would hand a paper to Nadia, who was working on her own set of numbers, her feet resting in Tamar’s lap. Tolya sat on the rug beside the tiled grate, gazing into the fire. It might have been a cozy scene, but the horror of what had happened that morning hung heavy in the air.

Genya studied her designs for the wedding gown, traditional gold and paired with a jeweled kokoshnik. She held up a sketch. “Too much?”

Zoya touched her fingers to the gown’s delicately drawn hem. “For the royal chapel? No. The more sparkle the better.” It was a gloomy place.

“I know,” Genya said. She adjusted the patch over her missing eye. “If only we could hold the ceremony in the gardens.”

“In the middle of winter?” said Nikolai, strolling into the sitting room and heading straight for the wine on the side table. It was as if he’d never been hurt, never been helpless. He had bathed, dressed in fresh clothes. The man seemed to gleam with confidence. “Do you want our guests to freeze to death?”

“That’s one way to win a war,” mused Genya.

“You shouldn’t have wine,” said Zoya. “The Healer’s draught isn’t out of your system yet.”