And I hate myself for wanting to hear it again.
CHAPTER 15
CLARA
By the time dusk falls, the lodge is glowing like it never has in my lifetime, lanterns strung along the porch beams, candles flickering in the old glass sconces, even the battered pine wreath Gran used to hang polished up with ribbons and berries.
The Winter Festival has always been the town’s crown jewel, and though every other year it was held down at the square or in the school gym when storms were bad, this year—this cursed, blessed year—it begins at the Wynn Lodge. My lodge now.
Inside, the rooms smell of cinnamon and pine resin, heat rolling from the stove and fireplace that we’ve coaxed into steady life after weeks of groaning pipes and half-dead kindling.
Dee is everywhere at once, bossing volunteers around with a smile sharp enough to slice, while Pippa sprinkles fairy dust—literally—over the tables so that the cider mugs gleam and the cookies sparkle as though sugared by stars themselves. Music drifts from the corner where a fiddler and his nephew set up shop, bow sawing fast as the crowd claps along.
I stand by the window for a breath, taking it in, the hum of voices, the laughter bouncing off the rafters, the light catching in faces that look softer than they did last week when we weredigging out from snow. The lodge feels alive again, as if it’s stretching after too many years asleep. And though my hands are chapped and my dress is plainer than I’d like, I feel some of that life winding through me.
“Clara,” Dee calls, swooping over with a tray of cider cups. “Smile more, glare less, or people will think you’re hosting a wake instead of a party.”
“I’m not glaring,” I mutter, though my jaw is tight. “I’m surveying.”
She snorts. “Same thing, darling.”
Before I can argue, Pippa zips past my shoulder, her wings brushing my hair, a sprig of enchanted mistletoe bouncing along behind her. “Survey all you like,” she sings. “You can’t survey him away.”
I spin toward the door, pulse jumping before I even see him. And there he is.
Dralgor Veyr.
The room shifts when he enters, though he doesn’t make a scene of it. He never does. He simply fills the doorway, coat dusted with snow, shoulders straight, eyes cutting across the crowd with that same sharp precision that makes people step back without realizing they’ve moved. He’s dressed in charcoal tonight, the kind of suit that makes him look carved, severe and untouchable, yet the lanternlight softens the edges, catching on his dark hair and the line of his jaw.
Conversations falter, then resume with forced brightness, but I can feel the ripple of his presence as surely as if he were gravity itself. And when his eyes find mine across the room, something in my chest lurches so hard I grip the windowsill.
He doesn’t look away. He doesn’t smile. He simply crosses the room with deliberate steps until he’s standing before me, taller than the lantern poles, colder than the snow outside and yet somehow burning.
“Clara,” he says, his voice low enough that it hums through me.
“Dralgor,” I reply, lifting my chin though my breath stutters. “Enjoying yourself?”
“I did not come here to enjoy myself.”
“Of course you didn’t,” I mutter, though my lips twitch. “What then? To inspect the cider? To critique the lantern symmetry?”
The corner of his mouth shifts—almost a smile, but not quite. “I came for a dance.”
For a moment, the noise of the room fades into nothing but the fiddle’s long note. My heart trips, my throat dries, and Dee’s words echo like a curse in my head. Smile more, glare less.
I should refuse. I should tell him to take his empire and his secrets and his impossible presence and leave me to my party. Instead, I hear myself say, “Fine. One dance.”
The crowd parts without being asked, curiosity buzzing in their eyes as he leads me to the center. His hand is warm, steady, engulfing mine, and when he places the other at my waist, the heat of it sears through the fabric of my dress like it belongs there. The fiddler shifts into a slower tune, the bow drawing long, aching notes that make my pulse stumble.
We move together, step for step, my hand braced against the broad line of his shoulder. He doesn’t guide with pressure so much as certainty, as if he already knows where I’ll move before I do. His gaze stays locked on mine, unblinking, and for once I don’t try to win the staring contest. I let myself fall into the storm of it, dark and endless and terrifying in how much it makes me want.
“You don’t dance like a man who doesn’t care,” I whisper, breath catching as he spins me.
“I don’t do anything I don’t care about,” he answers, voice rough with meaning.
My steps falter, just a fraction, but his hand steadies me, firm at my back. The crowd has blurred, the lanternlight soft, the air thick with the smell of pine and cider. For a moment it feels like there’s no one else in the world.
When the song fades, the room bursts into applause, but I barely hear it. His hand lingers at my waist, mine clings to his shoulder, and neither of us moves to let go.
