The knight stood down the path, packing another snowball between his hands and watching her sharply.
“No truce. Yield, if you want this to end.” He didn’t throw the snowball.
“It’scold,” Ayla informed him with a shiver.
“Then yield.”
“Come now,” Ayla said. She smacked her numb thighs to get the clumped snow off her dress, and paced towards him. “Surely you can understand—”
Niel quickly took a step back, then another, snowball still in his hand.
“I’ll not fall for your tricks again,” he warned her. “Two words, my lady. Say you yield, and this will end.”
She was ten paces from him now. Ayla stopped walking and folded her arms, shoulders tight with cold.
“Would you deny a lady her dignity?” she asked, her whole body shivering.
“Warfare isn’t kind. You threw the first strike. Say you yield.”
“I’m not beaten yet,” Ayla said. She bent down slowly to grab another handful of snow. Niel lunged forward, pulling back his arm to hurl the snowball her way. She flinched up at him, teeth chattering.
He froze, mere feet from her, and she watched the determination on his face shift away. His brows knitted together, and Niel pressed his lips tight.
“Truce,” he offered abruptly, and dropped his snowball. It split open on the path at his feet. Niel offered her his hand.
“...What?” Hadn’t hejustrefused her? She looked at his hand for a moment, snow still in her mittens, which had gone damp around her aching fingers, then up to his eyes.
“This war will drag on otherwise, fierce as you are. Come—let’s find a fire and dry these clothes.”
She had little doubt he could have continued, as he’d insisted moments ago. That the knight was just being chivalrous because he could see she was too cold; that she was stubbornly clinging to the battle even though the fun had turned for her.
But he offered her dignity, and she took it, reaching for his hand.
Sharing a Fire
It was just as cold inside the castle. Niel paused inside the hallway, still leading Ayla by the hand.
Her nose looked red, her beautiful face otherwise pale with cold. She’d worn her hair down, but it looked mussed now, and damp from snowmelt. A dusting of power still clung to her cloak and clothes. Her teeth chattered.
He longed to brush the snow from her clothes, but didn’t dare touch his hands to the rest of her body. Ayla shivered, blinking back at him with a quizzical look on her face, as if wondering why he’d stopped in the hall and was staring at her.
For a moment, chasing after her through the snow, he’d forgotten that the castle was full of men doomed to die. He’d told her Vulmar’s news was nothing, and the guilt of that small lie gnawed at him. Before spring, he’d have to take his leave of Ayla.
He could use the unicorn cloak to get into the warcamp outside, and deal with her husband. But while the odds of him being captured with it on were low, they were not zero. He’dmake sound, and leave footprints in the snow, and his brother was a cunning man. It was no secret that Niel owned the cloak. He’d won it at a tournament in front of the kingdom’s best knights, many of whom seemed to believe the cloak should have gone to Corin instead of Niel.
Even if he took care of the Lord of Blackfell, he didn’t trust the rest of Enar to treat Ayla as she deserved. What if they branded her a traitor for the speech she’d given on the wall? He couldn’t send her out on her own. If he returned to the castle, and gave her his cloak, she could leave without his brother’s army knowing while he stayed with his men.
But that still doomed his men. He couldn’t think of any way to save all the people he owed protection to.
“Niel? Is something wrong?” she asked. They were still standing in the hallway, and he was staring at her. Niel drew a sharp breath and shook his head.
“We ought not to waste wood,” he said nervously. “Would you… share a fire with me?”
“Alright.”
She agreed like it was simple. He squeezed her hand without meaning to.
“Go change to something dry. I’ll have a fire started by the time you join me.” He hesitated. He hadn’t invited her to his chambers to dine since their sicknesses, when he’d still been lodged in her husband’s rooms. “You know I moved?”
