Luceran is gone.
I sag against the coats surrounding me, shaking with relief, my eyes slipping shut as sleep takes me again, not gently, but like tumbling into deep water. Morning arrives as a whisper of pale, muted sunlight.
It slips through the narrow crack between the wardrobe doors, cutting a thin blade of light across my face. The warmth I expect never comes, instead, the light illuminates the frost clinging to my lashes, turning each hair into a tiny icy feather.
I blink slowly, painfully, as the world swims back into focus. Breathing hurts; my chest feels tight, wrapped in invisible bands of winter. I try to move, but my limbs scream in protest, numb and heavy, tingling with the sharp prickle of near-frostbite. Everything is cold. My fingers, my skin, my bones. Even the tears frozen on my cheeks crack as they begin to thaw.
I swallow, the motion stiff, and push weakly against the coats pressing in around me. For a moment, I wonder if I actually froze to death in my sleep. If this is the afterlife. If this is the true cost of the bargain.
My head slumps forward as a shadow falls across the narrow crack of the door. I freeze, breath locked in my chest. The sliver of light vanishes, blocked by something, someone tall. A faint gust of even colder air sighs through the wardrobe’s seams, and I cannot fathom how anything could be colder than this.
“Neve Devlin.”
The voice is soft. Low. Not a whisper, but something deeper, something controlled.
Lord Luceran Frostwyn.
A tremor races through me, jerking me fully awake. At least I am not dead. If I were dead, he would send his riders straight back to the farm and drag my father to the mines. If I am alive, I can work, and my father is left in peace.
The doors don’t shake. He doesn’t try to force them open. He simply stands there, on the other side, close enough that the frost patterns on the wardrobe wood bloom and spread.
“Are you alive?” he asks after a heartbeat.
It’s a strange question. How would I answer if I weren’t?
I lick my dry lips, my voice barely a rasp. “I… think so.”
He releases a slow breath. The cold against the wardrobe swells as if responding to him.
“Open the door,” he says.
I hesitate.
Not because I want to defy him, but because I’m not certain I can move at all. My arms feel like dead weight. My fingers don’t respond. My legs tremble beneath the pile of coats.
“Open it,” he says again, getting more irritated by the second. “Before you freeze.”
I swallow. Then, with all the strength I can gather, I push one numb hand forward.My fingers press against the wood.They slip.I grit my teeth and try again.
“What is taking so long?” he grumbles.
“You could open it yourself if you are in such a hurry,” I say. It comes out terser than I intend.
I lean harder into the wood.
“Fine. I will then,” he snaps.
His silhouette shifts. I hear the handle turn on the other side.
As I push forward, the door swings wide and I tumble with a startled gasp, only to be swept into Luceran’s arms before I hit the floor.
My breath puffs out in white clouds as my chest heaves. I stare up at him, into those astonishing eyes, into skin so flawless and pale it borders on translucent, every angle and line sharp as carved ice. His strength is unmistakable. Even through these bulky layers, he holds me without effort, not the faintest hint of strain, and he smells like roses. Wild winter roses.
Wonder catches me off guard, but it shatters the moment his thumb grazes my hand. He is unbearably cold. So frozen it stings.
I wince and pull my hand back. Luceran exhales, his posture tightening as he sets me on my feet.
I blink away the haze blurry my vision and cup my throbbing hand.
