“NO.”
That’s my answer. No further elaboration needed.
Boreas watches me pace his room. “Care to explain?”
Of all the requests I expected from the North Wind, this was the least anticipated.
“You know why.” After the humiliation of my first visit, I’m uninterested in repeating it. I crawled back to the Deadlands with my tail between my legs, and licked my wounds, and suffered in silence. To have my own sister treat me so coldly… It broke something in me.
Near-silent footsteps pad toward me. The heat and breadth of the king’s body blanket my spine, as though I might be free to lean against him, to borrow strength in this moment, should I choose to do so.
Boreas sighs. “Wren.”
“Elora doesn’t want me in her life,” I snap, voice cracking on the last word. “She made that perfectly clear.” After all, I was only there to fulfill her needs, right? Food on the table, a roof over her head. Sweets, when I could scrounge up enough coin, which usually involved sleeping with the weaver’s cruel nephew. Nothing ever sullied her pristine hands.
I stride to the bed, to the window, back to the bed, then to the fireplace. “It doesn’t matter. Elora has her beloved Shaw, the baby in her belly. She doesn’t need me, and I don’t need her—or anyone.” I grip the wooden mantel. “You must think me a terrible sister.”
“I said no such thing.”
“But you think it,” I burst out, whirling around. Up my throat, out my mouth, into my eyes—the fury consumes me with breathless speed. “I should be happy for her. But the truth is, I want Elora to feel the way I do. I want her to feel my hurt and betrayal. I want every weight I have ever carried for our family to be passed onto her shoulders, and I want her spine to break from it.”
The king watches me steadily, without judgment. That is the only reason I push forward. “Sometimes I think about returning to Edgewood and spoiling her food cache, or cutting holes in her hats and coats. But mostly,” I say with a half-crazed laugh, “I wonder if the fault is mine, to have thought so little of myself for so long that I squandered my life in serving someone who did not appreciate me.”
And as the tears come, as my face folds, my hands lift to shield my expression from Boreas, the pain I struggle to snuff out.
“It’s all your fault, you know,” I manage in a wobbly tone. “Pretending you care about my feelings.” Despising him the way I once did is no longer an option. It is, in fact, impossible.
His large hands cup my shoulders. One tug, and my forehead rests against his chest without resistance. A deep breath pulls his winter scent into my lungs, and I delay my exhalation for as long as possible so as to not lose its trace.
“There is no pretending, Wren. I do care.”
Since the North Wind does not lie, he must be telling the truth. Life was so much easier when we hated each other.
“You need closure,” he says. “This visit will give you that.”
Deep down, I knew it would come to something of this nature. But I’m not sure if I’m ready. “Will you come with me?”
He squeezes the back of my neck. “You need only ask.”
Later that evening, Boreas and I stand at the entrance to Edgewood, our boots toeing the line of salt circling the town. It appears muchsmaller than I remember. I have seen the world, and my mind is open, my worldview broadened. And yet, this is the place where I was born. It represents all that I was.
“I feel ill,” I mutter, eyes trained on the square in the distance. I inhaled a slice of cake prior to our journey. For courage.
Most have bedded down for the night, but a few windows glow with lamplight. How tired the cottages look. The handful of surviving livestock huddle in their pens, old skin and frail bones, unlikely to survive the next few months. It saddens me.
“If you must be sick,” the Frost King quips as he surveys the town, “try to avoid my boots.”
“I make no promises.”
He turns to look at me. “You do not have to address her now. We can come back later when you are ready. In the end, the choice is yours.”
But the party is tomorrow, and as much as I want to avoid this meeting, I can’t. This is something I must do for myself.
Stepping over the salt barrier, I stride down the deserted street, past the square, to where a narrow path of trampled snow leads to Elora and Shaw’s home. Meanwhile, our cottage sits vacant.
Doubt begins to intrude. Here I am, arriving unannounced in the middle of the night with the Frost King in tow. A glance in his direction confirms he looks as dangerous as his previous visit, sheathed in his long cloak, cruel features having been sculpted with a precise hand.
“Do you think you can make yourself look a little more approachable and less… this?” I gesture to his frown.
