“Sometimes I wonder if the person I’m holding on so tightly to never existed,” Bri whispered. “If her memory became something other than what she really was to me.”

“As if only the good memories are allowed to exist anymore,” Lina said with a nod. Searching Bri’s eyes, she let out a long sigh. “It feels strange to have someone to talk to like this. I think you may be the only one.”

“I can imagine it wouldn’t have been a welcome comment in your council if you said that the Queen was sometimes a shit mother.” Bri’s grin widened as Lina chuckled. “It must have been impossible—the expectations put on the only child and heir.”

“When you’re a princess, your value is in how you make other people look. How good you can be, how untroubled.” Lina’s lips twisted to the side. “You aren’t viewed as a person in your own right. That’s how people see me—only as an extension of someone else’s glory.”

“I see you,” Bri whispered, and Lina’s eyes guttered for such a brief moment that Bri wondered if she’d imagined it. In a blink, Lina’s face returned to a mischievous smirk.

“I promise if you die first, I’ll remember all of you,” Lina teased. “Not just the good bits.”

Bri’s face went solemn at those words, and she swept a hand up to touch Lina’s bottom lip. “I pray to all the Gods that I go before you,” she whispered. “Because even if I could survive knowing you were no longer part of this world, I never want to.”

Lina lifted her hand to Bri’s hip. “Then let’s pray that the Gods take us at the same time, when we’re old Queens and our great-grandchildren are already being born into the world.”

Bri’s eyes softened as she wondered if Lina meant two Queens—one of the East and one of the West . . . or two Queens together. The thought sparked a flash of light in her so bright she had to clench her teeth. The thought of them having children, of being a family, of filling their lives with the steadiest, deepest kind of love . . . She shoved down that feeling rising within her, too fragile to even think about.

Lina’s gaze dropped to her lips, but instead of leaning forward, she sat up and climbed off the rock. “Let me show you the view.”

Bri lifted up on one elbow, her eyes drifting from the gilded beads in Lina’s hair to her sandaled feet. “I like the view from here fine, thanks.”

Lina snickered, hooking her axe back onto her shoulder harness and turning again toward the trail. “Well, if you want to keep gawking, you’re going to have to follow me.”