The wind whips my cloak away from me, tangling it out behind me no matter how closely I clutch it to my breast and chilling me right through. I use one hand to keep my hood up, trying to keep it from my aching ears and smarting cheeks, but my fingers are cold despite my leather gloves, and they’re losing dexterity with every moment.
It would be easy to blame Lady Fliad for my predicament but it’s my own fault. I knew better than to go off on my own. I knew I should have turned around when it was farther than I expected. I should have known that Wildsage would spook with her sore mouth and these strange surroundings.
I follow what I think is my own trail, bent down as much with regret as I am by the elements.
What are you supposed to do in a storm like this? Make a shelter? That seems so obvious when you say it, but I look around and there’s nothing suitable for that. Whoever it is that wanders around prepared for any eventuality could probably do that, but I have what I’m wearing, a freezing cold waterskin, and my belt knife. While it’s pretty stout, I don’t think it’s going to make a shelter all on its own.
I suppose I could hunker down under a tree and freeze to death slightly more slowly in a slightly less discoverable way. It has no appeal to me.
This feels like such a silly way to die – on my own, an afterthought as always, forgotten on my way to marry a king who only wants me for a chance sliver of royalty in my bloodline.
Put one foot in front of the other, Iva.
I shake my head – or maybe I’m just plain shaking. The cold is really getting to me. I’ll never be warm again. I wish I could be home in the kennel with the dogs and the brazier.
Or even just the dogs.
Put one foot in front of the other.
I wish I could be cuddled up to Hessa and all her warmth.
One foot in front of the other.
With that deliciously serious Sir Oakensen curled up against my back.
One foot.
Yes. That would be nice.
“Lady Iva.”
Yes, that’s what his voice sounds like. All burred and aching like he’s the saint of tears crying on behalf of mothers everywhere for their lost children.
“Iva.”
I run into something solid. I look up, and if there’s any warmth left in me to blush, then it’s blushing hard. I was just thinking of him nestled up against me. I was just thinking of kissing his very solemn lips. They are frowning now as he looks down at me.
He takes my hand and I startle. He waits patiently, ignoring the swirling snow that stings my cheeks and makes my eyes squint against the icy blast. His cheeks and ears are bright red, too, so he feels it. He just lets it savage him without stopping it.
He leads me by the hand, silently, to his horse, which stands a little aside from us, obediently waiting. The stallion must be well trained. He bows his head against the wind but is otherwise as unflinching as his rider.
“It’s a long ride to safety,” Sir Oakensen says to me, his jaw tightening and then loosening again as he tries to help me onto the horse.
My legs and hands don’t want to work properly. I fall twice, the second time sliding hard against him and we’re both left panting and gasping in the lee of the stallion’s warm back. There’s concern skittering through the young knight’s eyes. He licks his lips, opens them to speak. Pauses.
“By rights, I should build a shelter and a fire and warm you before we ride to the village.”
There’s a village?
His face is inches from mine, leaning in close so that I can hear him over the wind. I can feel the warmth radiating from his skin and count the snowflakes on his eyelashes. I’m surprised by how thick they are – dark like his short-cropped hair. He shaved his face at Castle Fairfield, but the beard is already growing back.
“Once,” he pauses like this is hard to say. “Once we were caught out like this in a storm. Malchor fell through the ice. We warmed ourselves in a shelter under a tree. No fire. There were enemies about. We had to press our skin to one another for warmth.”
Now I’m the one swallowing. Was I not just thinking of him cuddled against me? Only he’d been clothed then. I blink back sudden visions of him a little less clothed. I’m on my way to be married to someone else – at least if I don’t die here. Dreaming about the knight charged to deliver me there is not my right.
His halting words – when they come – are like cold snow on the face.
“In this moment, that would be more foolish than dying of cold.”
