“Ana,” he whispered as he settled breathlessly beside me, cradling my trembling body as if it were a precious, breakable thing. “How will I ever leave this bed? How will I ever return to the snow?” He must have seen me darken, for guilt swept into his eyes. “I made you sad.”
“No,” I breathed. “Never, Adrik. I just wish… I just wish to forget. Just for tonight.” I brushed a stray golden curl from his forehead. “I do not want to look back and find this moment tainted.”
A sliver of mischief twinkled in his gaze. “Do you intend to look back often?”
“I am afraid it will happen, whether I intend it or not.”
“Hmm,” he breathed into the space between us, fingers growing restless and urgent against me so soon. “Iam afraid,” he said in that low, lilting voice, “that you promised me an hour to have my wicked way with you. I shall whisper tender things while you writhe for me.”
We soon abandoned his plan of slowness. Our ache returned twice as sharp. Now that our bodies remembered each other, there was no keeping us apart.
We went slow the third time. As if we might stretch the night beyond its time, so long as our rapture lasted.
There came a storm outside, and the wind howled with renewed fury, and this town would soon lie in the shade of Mount Briarfell like a skeleton gnawed to the bone. We did not let it matter, in the hours we spent sharing warmth and breath and pleasure. It did not exist, in this space filled with breathless reverence.
We were living a lie that night, and we lived it well.
THIRTY-TWO
The wind never lies.
Iawoke much later, tangled in Adrik’s warmth beneath the thick blankets he’d spread over us. He snored softly against my ear, but it was not that which had roused me. Moonlight spilled through the window and over his restful face. It was so bright, I did not need a candle to find a cloak in the ravel of our clothes. I hurried with a shiver to the window.
I was drawn there, sharply awake with restlessness and a quiet melancholy only soothed by sitting on the sill and pressing my cheek to the frozen pane. My slow breaths misted the glass, and for a while, I was content to gaze at the glittering frost creeping over the frame.
I glanced, ever so often, cautiously over my shoulder to ensure Adrik was still asleep. How I longed to join him again beneath the covers. How I ached to rouse him just to feel his heated skin against mine, to drown once more in his broken breaths. I did not know what kept me from slipping back into bed or what drew my gaze again and again to the edge of the forest.
I sat there until night bled into twilight. Mist gathered among the bushes and drifted over the river. I could stand it no longer: This urge to lose myself for an hour amid the softness of dawn.
A shadow stirred amid the trees. I caught a flash of copper-red between the birches, and of a black button nose. Oh, how good to see my little friend!
I stood in the snow, so close to the forest its shadow kissed my toes. I did not remember slipping into my boots or out through the door.
Nothing but death awaits in the forest, Ana.
I peered into the twilight. It seemed harmless; almost enticing. The skies were pale and pink, pouring soft colors over the trees. A veil of frost clung to bare branches. Frozen leaves crunched underfoot. I did not remember crossing the treeline, but I was already amid the firs. I followed the drifting fog deeper into the forest, past thornshrubs and hollies. It was as still as only a winter morning could be. As if the biting cold had frozen all sound.
The fox had vanished from sight, but I knew it was going to the pond on the hill, hidden behind frozen reeds.To the ancient oak.
I did not feel the cold, though I’d forgotten my hat and gloves. From afar came a sweet tune. The wind played the frozen leaves like chimes. At my feet—once around a hollow trunk and deeper into the woods—ran a trail of small paws. I followed it. I could not help it. The trail twisted and turned, drawing me ever higher up the hill. I stumbled with burning breath over the crest.
The little fox sat amid the reeds, a splash of color in the winterscape. It waited with pricked ears and curious black eyes by the pond. The ice was thick and pink with dawn, and it wore near its heart a wound—I shivered, remembering Emond’s frozen skin.
The fox laughed.
The snow at my feet began to dance in the breeze, to stir in the wind. It rose in flurries around me, shrouding me in a veil of ice. I stiffened, from cold and from terror. In the breath of the wind lay the stench of rot and of anguish. The trees groaned and the earth wept and the wind howled.
You taste of the one who cursed us, whispered the wind.You reek of him. The hero of the forgotten lands. The tidekissed warrior. The unwilling king.
The one who cursed us… A horrible tightness twisted within me. A dark, dark realization. I denied it. Just for another breath or two. Just to cling for one more heartbeat to the warmth of Adrik’s lips on my skin.
The wind hissed.
His words are poison, witch.
I shivered.
The wind never lied. He’d been so desperate to keep the flares lit, banishing the whispers of the storm. He’d kept me from the forest. Nothing but death awaited there, he’d claimed. He’d instilled a fear of it in me. So that I would never go where the earth whispered of his treachery. So that I would never learn what the wind had to say.
