Page 211 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“She will come,” Nia said, looking out the massive windows in wonder, rays of sadness shadows circling around her chest. “It is the anniversary of their deaths today, she has gone to visit them first.”

I gathered my face in my hands, how had I forgotten, the winter solstice was the day that Isjord was attacked, and her family killed, thirteen years from today. Along with the death of Samuel she was still mourning theirs, all those belonging to the ones she loved most, lives all taken unjustly from them and her.

Nia stood and smiled towards the corridor, drawing our attention as well. Snow came into view, dressed in a black gown, a ruby crown atop her head, she looked astonishing, truly like a queen. Her beauty shone beyond that, radiating strong of a warrior as she did a queen, her eyes were sad but covered in bright sunlight sparkles. They were like the sun, to me they were the sun.

“Now I feel like a fool, I thought the dressing requirements were white?” Mal grumbled, and they all laughed.

“I thought that was a regular thing for you, Mal?” Nia asked.

My brother blinked confused. “What is?”

“Feeling like a fool.”

“Very funny, Nia, next time I might tell you to fade in the middle of the ocean.”

“Now, now, children,” Caiden called, throwing his arms around both their necks. “Inside we get, I don’t want my face to go to waste another moment.”

“I will only have one of you trail me. I am not the mother wolf to lead all of you with me,” Snow said.

I stepped forward and everyone agreed for me to stay close guard with her. Only the two of us were left in the corridor waiting to enter the celebrations, but my feet did not make to move. I stood there admiring all of her instead, the crown, the red lips, down to the last fray of the black dress.

She moved to me and tapped my nose as I had done before to her. “My spring,” she said, playfully bowing her head. “You look dashing in white.”

“My heart,” I responded leaning in, and planting a kiss in her neck and then another in her shoulder. I loved hearing her gasp under my touch. “Black is your colour too. Naked however was better.”

Her smile dropped. “Shall we forfeit my attendance, I did not feel like joining anyway. I was thinking of a smaller celebration with only me, you and less clothes. Preferably in different locations and several positions.”

Her joke made me rumble in laughter. I grazed a thumb over her fiery red lips, how I wanted to smudge that colour. “You will not break me, love. I’m a soldier, trained to not fall into traps, especially such easy ones as your pretty self.” My hands moved over her hair. “Maa maroh maalya omorya,”

A scowl formed in her brows. “What new nickname have you graced me with?”

I traced the dip between her brows, her angry expression always made me smile. “My black haired beauty.”

She smoothed a hand over her head. “I have been told it’s rather ominous for a hair colour.”

I ran my hand over her arm. “Rather magnificent to my eyes.” She had no idea.

She studied me intently, her features dropped, and her hand fell down to her side as if my words did not settle well with her. “I warn you, don’t fall for me, Kil. Your heart is too pretty to break, darling.” There was no teasing in her voice, but their seriousness did not bother me, nor did the warning. It was too late, it always been too late, the moment I stepped in Isjord, the moment I had seen her at the trials, maybe even long before that.

“It’s yours, do what you will with it. Do what you will with me if I break yours, I deserve your worst.”

She wore a short smile that didn’t last not a heartbeat. “Already thinking of getting on the wrong side of me?”

“I have always been on the wrong side of you, I fear I still am, my love. Fate is cruel, so very cruel.”

She took a small step back and swallowed hard, not wanting to meet my eyes. “I set this recipe for disaster. I shouldn’t have encouraged this any further.”

I closed our distance, cupping her face. “If you hadn’t, it would have killed me, to never know what this feels, what l—”

Her hand covered my mouth, stopping me from finishing my sentence. “Don’t, please. Don’t say that. I can’t hear it,” she pleaded shaking her head. Exhaling a long stuttering heavy breath, her face twisted shortly in a slight cry before taking a shaky inhale and lifting her gaze up to me again. “Can it not just be this sometime longer, for what we have left? I don’t want my head to spin onto those words and avoid you. I want you near me as much as I can have you.” She swallowed hard, “Before…before I lose you.”

Lose you. I would lose her too. “Whatever you want, my love.” I was a beggar in the mercy of cruel fate.

She rested her head on my chest, tugging me in a tight embrace, so tight her fingers dug onto my back. I felt the battle with herself going in her head, fate was indeed cruel, crueller than she would ever imagine. We both stayed like that for a while, a very long while. Endorsed completely in our presence and scattered thoughts, barely taking notice of Mal approaching us.

“Yes, brother?” I asked, and Snow rose her head from my chest at the direction of my brother.

He studied both of us, his attention lingering over me most as sadness flashed in his own shadows, probably reading over my troubled ones. “Your father is getting fidgety. Cai says is ringworms, but his shadows say it’s because of you.”