“What’s wrong?” She lightly touches his shoulder over his leathers, and he flinches.
When he doesn’t answer, she sighs. “When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here.”
Whistling wind. He doesn’t deserve her.
“In the meantime,” she says, a note of teasing in her voice that captures his attention, “I believe you promised to help me build a snowman.”
His mouth ticks up as he gazes at her over his shoulder. Turning toward her, he tilts his head. “We established this is a snow lump. And I don’t recall making such a promise.”
Ignoring him, she bends down to form a ball of snow with her mittened hands. “We start with a snowball like this. Then we roll it in the snow until it’s big enough.”
“And we need three of these lumps of snow?”
She nods, and with a sigh, he forms his own snowball. Or tries to. The snow melts against his hands with every touch. No matter how much of the white powder he adds, it never grows larger.
Laughter floats toward him, and he looks up to see Arisanna watching from beside her own ball of snow that nearly reaches her knees.
“You seem to be struggling, my elven fire wielder.”
He drops the pathetic lump and straightens, his heart beating fast at the warmth in her eyes. “Your fire wielder?”
She gazes at him thoughtfully. Flakes of white coat her reddish-brown hair and her shoulders, and her nose and cheeks are as rosy as her lips. “Yes, I think so. Mine. If he wants to be.”
There’s a question in her eyes, and every inch of him longs to wrap his arms around her and never let go.
But his hands are tingling again. He’ll have to answer with words.
“I think...” he begins.
As always, she waits for him to find his words. No pressure. No censure.
Just a soft smile with a hint of hope.
“I think he’s already yours,” he whispers.
Her smile grows, and the overwhelming urge to bury his hands in her hair fills him. To lean close and—
Fire shoots from his palm, and she gasps as she jumps away from the lump of snow he just destroyed.
He almost hit her. Nausea fills him at the thought.
“Well. If you didn’t want to build a snowman, you could have just said so.”
His eyes snap to Arisanna’s as he flexes his hands, trying to maintain his control.
She’s...smiling?
“Forget the snowman,” she says. “I have a better idea.”
His heart pounds as his adrenaline pumps. He almost hit her with his fire magic. The thought blasts over and over in his head as the world shifts out of focus.
Then a snowball smacks his chest, leaving behind a quickly melting mound of white on his leathers.
He stares at it in confusion, trying to bring his racing thoughts back to the present.
Then another one hits his arm.
“Come on, Cerian. Are you just going to stand there?”
