For a heartbeat, Death stays there. But then, with agonizing slowness, he pulls back. Not away, just…enough to break the connection, replaced by how his forehead presses against mine once more.
“No,” he whispers, his voice thick with a worry that nearly breaks me. “Not when grief is dulling your senses, I understand that much. Best not do something you might regret in the morning.”
I nod, the rejection smoothed by the gentle truth, the sincere care of his words. I’m tired, bone-deep. So I simply close my eyes for a moment and rest my cheek back against the hard warmth of his chest. But when my eyes drift open again, the angle is different, revealing something that wasn’t there before.
Not like this.
My violent yank on his cloak left it askew, exposing two curved ribs, stark and white. Behind them, his heart beats steadily, a rhythmic drumming that I can feel against my skull. But it isn’t the beat that catches my breath.
It’s the strings attached to it. The first is as I remember—a single, solid line, unwavering and intact. But the second…
I blink, trying to focus through the lingering tears. Thousands of threads seem to have spun together in a chaotic, shimmering rope of red silk. Only a few loose frays shiver with his lungs where a tear had been.
No…not shiver…
Strain.
They reach against each other, seemingly stretching, trying to mend together. When did this happen? How?
My heart seems to stumble.
What does this mean?
“My wife possesses an exasperating talent for mending things that, by all rights, should remain destroyed.”Vale’s voice echoes through my head with a strength that seems to vibrate into the crown on my head. “It is dangerous. Terrifying beyond your understanding.”
I breathe the shivers from my voice before I look up at him again. “Why did you stay with Daron?”
His jaw works for a moment, the shift of bone beneath skin visible in the half-light, as if he’s searching for a logic that fits the shape of a feeling he refuses to claim. “I don’t know.” Finally, he fixes his gaze on the distance again. “It means nothing.”
I flatten my palm against his chest, sensing the quickening of his heart. And I’m not sure if he just lied to me again…or if he lied to himself.
Chapter
Seventeen
Elara
Winter smells different here.
In the gutters of Marrowbrae, snow quickly turned into a gray-brown blanket of slush, bringing out the smell of filth and starvation. But in the white palace courtyard? It smells of pine needles, frozen stone, and a clarity in the air that comes with the chimes of ice expanding somewhere.
I wade through the calf-high drifts, the weight of my heavy green skirts dragging against my shins. It’s oddly calming. Grounding in a way that makes me dare to angle my face toward the rare, pale warmth of the sun.
A few yards away, the oddest domesticity I’ve ever seen plays out on a stone bench. Mother sits there—after I finally forced her out of her mourning bed—her fur-lined cloak pulled tight, deep in conversation with…my husband.
Vale’s been strangely present for the last two days, only occasionally vanishing to guide souls to their final resting place. But he always reappears, as if he took my whispered “stay” not as a woman's single plea, but as his wife's eternal wish.
My ears prick each time I make out words between them, but the wind carries them off before I can piece together their conversation. Whatever the subject, it makes Mother’s lips wrinkle. Not with a frown, but with a reluctant, fragile smile.
My mouth twitches in response.
Fine. I’ll allow it.
I stop in a deep drift near the empty stables and let my leather-gloved hands reach for the white powder out of sheer habit. The brightness at my core intensifies, turning golden, giving a warm, unexpected sheen to my grief.
I dig past the cold crust until my fingers strike something solid. A stone. I pull it up and stare at the gray, round thing. Then I scoop up some of the white powder. Work it around the stone for speed. Pack it for impact. Smooth it round for true aim.
Daron’s snowball recipe.
