Nova's POV
The Crown hit Thorne like a sunrise.
Not violent. Not explosive. It simply poured into him silver-gold light entering through his chest the way warmth enters a cold room when someone finally opens the curtains, steady and inevitable and completely certain of its welcome.
Thorne went still.
His ice-blue eyes went wide. Then they went luminous, lit from inside, the same silver-gold as the Crown, his ice magic and the Crown's winter light recognizing each other the way two rivers recognize the same source. His hands came up reflexively, and frost bloomed from his palms and turned gold at the edges, and the temperature in the ballroom dropped and rose at the same time, cold and warm together, winter and hearth, the two things that had always lived in the same season.
Morgessa's outstretched hand closed on empty air.
She stopped in the middle of the ballroom floor.
She looked at Thorne. She looked at Nova. She looked at her own empty hand.
