Page 158 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“What date was I born?” she asked pinching in concentration.

“Summer, first of August. Heard you were quite the fat baby, couldn’t open those eyes till two weeks old,” I revealed, tugging her cheek. I’d read her birth certificate and a midwife diary trailing an hour-to-hour observation of hers. She’d been concerned throughout for her; this little baby had been too lazy to blink.

She frowned, slapping my hand away and rapidly asked in a breath, “My childhood friend, my first lover, what is my favourite food, my favourite book?”

“Your sister, you had no other friends. I believe the second one is Caiden, mushroom anything, and ‘Fire of Flesh’ by that dubious Vrammetheni author. You have read it so many times it is falling apart, spare the poor book.”

“Marianne Hawthorne,” she said, blinking wide eyed at me before narrowing them in question. “She is not dubious, and your second guess was incorrect.”

“Correct me.”

Her mouth parted open just slightly before answering, “His name was Miles, Caiden’s friend.”

I nodded. “Miles, Caiden’s friend, did you love him?”

She snorted and blasted into laughter. “I was sixteen.”

Was that supposed to have some correlation? “My parents fell in love when they were children.”

Waving a hand in the air she dismissed my point. “Your turn.”

I frowned and narrowed my eyes at her, but there was no resistance no matter how much I tried. I wanted to give in to her. With lacking conviction I said, “There was no turns.”

She stepped afront me, her hands gripping my jacket like she always did. The dominance in her eyes utmost adorable. “I said, your turn. Childhood friend, first lover, favourite food, favourite book.”

My eyes dropped to her hands, how I liked when she did that, except that it made me want to lower myself and take her lips in mine. She made a little sound of realization and opened her palms, making to move away only stopped by my hands over her small wrists. She stilled and I placed them over my chest again. “I was a loner too, so Mal, a girl called May, I could eat lemon cake for the rest of my life, and a poetry book by an Olympian writer called Zeulen.”

She cleared her throat, her fingers stretching awkwardly over my chest. “So this May, did you love her?”

“No.” I’d never been that lucky, my heart had rejected all whom I’d thought to be love.

She bit her lip and nodded. “Lemon cake, it suits you.”

Suited me? “How so?”

“Sour and sweet.”

I could not help my smile. “Am I sweet now?”

“Your words are, but I’ll let you know of your taste too, you know, when I get my chance,” she said, slowly retracting her hands. Her soft skin rubbed against mine, creating such a friction I felt nothing but her, no cold, no wind, no breath, nothing but her. I’d been so doused in her touch that I’d paid no heed to what she said. The words slowly registering. The tension in my body registering too in the need for her to take that taste. I shook my head, clearing of all inappropriate thought. It bothered me, how often I thought of her, thought of her like this. She was her in all her vengefulness and I was me in all my fault and unworthiness.

“Killian, could you tell me something?” she asked quietly, hesitating to continue, her eyes darting far away.

“Why hesitate, Snow, tell me.” Tell me everything, tell me all, spare nothing, rely on me, lean on me…trust me—I wanted to tell her that, but I was again me and she was her.

She swallowed and nodded, her hands gathering in fist at her side. “Why did Nia say I am empty, do you really see nothing?” She put a palm to her chest. “Am I really empty? It doesn’t feel like it, though it does at the same time. I don’t understand it really.”

At her words my whole body turned unconsciously rigid, Nia’s words had been weighing on her.

It had not taken me long to realize that the rainbow wheel of her emotions was spinning so fast that her shadows now appeared completely blank, empty, and tucked away. That had been why we could never tell any apart, she could not control or cease the fury of her emotions enough for us to see, but she most definitely felt them. Nothing felt as heavy too. Too heavy felt like nothing too. Once you are used to the weight it starts bearing no issue.

“Snow, you are allowed to feel empty, full or both. Sometimes the brightness of the moon hides the darkness behind it and sometimes that darkness is so strong that it takes all the stars and candle light on this realm to keep it afloat and not drown in it. It doesn’t matter what we can or cannot see in you, only what you allow yourself to be. The moon is still the moon even in darkness or light.”

She stood quiet, lost in thoughts and with a sigh snapped to the usual her. “Mal is right, you and your pretty words.”

“Nia is right, you and your sharp tongue, a true vixen indeed,” I said, shaking my head.

Her face turned stern a sneer lifting in the corners of her mouth. “I very much hate you still.”