“Promise?”
“Promise.”
He pulled me down against his chest, wrapping the sleeping bag tighter around us both. Outside, the storm was beginning to ease—the wind dropping, the silence settling in.
"Sleep," James murmured into my hair. "I've got you."
For once, I didn't argue. I let myself sink into the warmth of him, the safety of him, the impossible rightness of being held by someone who'd crossed wilderness and weather to find me.
Tomorrow, we'd climb. Tomorrow, we'd face whatever was waiting at the top of that mountain.
But tonight—just for tonight—I let myself be held.
And the hum sang us both to sleep.
I woke to silence.
The storm had passed, leaving behind a world scrubbed clean and crystalline. Pale light filtered through the tent walls, and I could hear nothing but the distant whisper of wind across snow.
James was still asleep, one arm heavy across my waist, his face relaxed in a way I'd never seen while he was awake. He looked younger like this. Softer. More vulnerable.
I watched him breathe for a long moment.
Something had changed last night. Something fundamental, irrevocable. I could feel it in the way the hum had settled into my bones, no longer demanding but content. Like it had found what it was looking for and was ready to wait.
I wasn't ready.
But maybe that was okay. Maybe ready was something you grew into, not something you had to be from the start.
I traced a finger along James's jaw, and his eyes fluttered open.
"Hey," he said, voice rough with sleep.
"Hey yourself."
"Storm's over?"
"Sounds like it."
He tightened his arm around me, pulling me closer. "Five more minutes."
"We don't have five minutes. We have a mountain to climb."
"Mountain's not going anywhere."
I laughed despite myself. "Neither is whatever's waiting at the top. But I don't want to find out what happens if we're late."
He sighed, but he let me go. We extracted ourselves from the tangle of sleeping bag and thermal blankets, and the cold hit immediately—shocking after the warmth we'd built.
But when I looked at James, I didn't feel cold at all.
"Ready?" I asked.
He held out his hand. I took it.
"Ready."
We packed up the tent and stepped out into a world made new—snow glittering, sky impossibly blue, the mountain rising before us like a challenge and a promise.
