Chapter 63. Beauty Within

Lennox’s POV

The night air bites. It feels like knives cutting through my lungs with each breath I take. Snow drifts in lazy spirals from a bruised sky, collecting along the cobblestone paths that twist through the lower courtyards of the Winter Palace. It’s well past midnight, and most of the guards have already rotated in, leaving the grounds quiet but for the creak of the wind and the crunch of our boots.

Lotus walks ahead of me, her hood pulled up, a woven basket clutched in her hands. She looks like she belongs to the night, wrapped in fur and silver light, the edges of her hair catching every flicker of moon. The snow doesn’t seem to touch her; it melts before it reaches her, like even the winter itself dares not burden her.

I’d told her not to do this. Three times. And yet, here we are.

Her father’s funeral was only hours ago, and yet, here she is with a basket in hand to give food to the rebels. She didn’t even argue, just looked at me with tho