Father.
His name is not a word. It is an ache.
How will he eat on the days his hands shake? How will he manage the fevers that strike without warning? Who will fetch his tinctures, or help him onto that stubborn old nag he pretends to hate? What if he gets worse?
The fear clamps tight around my throat. A sob breaks free of me, raw and violent, shaking my whole body. What if all I have done is leave him to suffer, to die, alone? What if my bargain did not save him at all? What if it doomed him?
I bury my face in the furs, trying to muffle the sound, and curl smaller into myself, into the cold, into the loneliness I chose. Some time later, exhaustion drags me under. Sleep comes thin and fragmented, a flickering thing interrupted by shivers and sharp stabs of cold.
I do not know how much time passes before a sound wakes me. My eyes snap open. The room is darker now, the cold far worse, and whatever meager warmth I had gathered has slipped away.
There is the sound again.
A voice.
I drag myself upright, my limbs protesting, numb and aching. My vision tilts, then steadies as I brace a hand against the wardrobe door and force it open. I stumble out, following the sound toward the balcony.
Moonlight slips through the clouds, casting the garden below in a silver-blue glow. Amid an expanse of frozen roses sealed in clear ice, Luceran Frostwyn walks alone.
He moves like a pale phantom, long ivory hair drifting behind him in slow, weightless waves. Frost mists around his bare feet as they crunch through the snow, curling and recoiling with every step. The roses remain red, vibrant, suspended in perfect bloom within their icy prisons.
He reaches out, brushing the surface of each rose with his fingertips, gentle and reverent, almost heartbreakingly so.
And he is singing.
The sound is low and deep, mournful enough to make the air tremble. Snow spirals in slow, hypnotic swirls, drawn to his voice as if enchanted. From the shadows of the garden, small creatures of sleet emerge, glimmering, shifting little things that skitter over the frost to gather at his feet.
He lifts his face toward the frozen lake in the distance, framed by snow-capped pines, the song rising with him, resonant and aching. Beneath his coat, the runes carved along his chest flare, pulsing softly with power.
He looks otherworldly. Ethereal. Utterly, devastatingly alone.
I am desperate for warmth, yes, but the heavy heat curling low in my stomach is absolutely not the kind I meant.
Then a pressure builds in my nose.
No. Not now.
I clamp both hands over my face and hold my breath. The tickle grows stronger. I squeeze my eyes shut as the urge climbs my throat.
The sneeze tears out of me like a thunderclap.
Luceran’s head snaps up. His eyes lock onto mine.
Panic floods my veins. I stumble back from the window so fast the hems of my borrowed layers tangle around my ankles, nearly sending me sprawling, but I catch myself before I hit the ground. Instinct screams at me to run, to hide, to do something now.
Gods, I cannot believe this, but I rush back to the wardrobe, sprinting clumsily across the floor and flinging myself inside. I yank the doors shut and bury myself behind the hanging garments, trying to make myself small, invisible.
My breaths come ragged. I clap both hands over my mouth to muffle the sound.
Then footsteps echo in the corridor.
My heart slams against my ribs, frantic and wild, as if it is trying to break free.
The steps stop outside my door. But they don’t sound like boots or feet. Not Fae. Not human. Something else entirely.
A cold draft slips beneath the wardrobe door, frost creeping along the wood grain as the air tightens into something almost unbreathable. I know it is Luceran, listening, waiting, and the silence becomes unbearable, my pulse roaring in my ears. Please don’topen the door. Please don’t find me. Not now. Not like this. Not after I saw him bathed in moonlight, not while his song still echoes inside me like an ache I don’t understand.
I press my forehead into a winter cloak and squeeze my eyes shut, praying to any god listening that he will walk away. The footsteps do not come closer. Instead, they trail off, growing softer, until they dissolve entirely into the heavy hush of the frozen corridor.
