I close my eyes and drag in her scent.
“No,” I whisper. “There’s a hearth inside. Along with more furs. It will only get colder out here. To shun shelter would be reckless.”
She gives me a small smile. “But would forcing your heart to do things you don’t want to do be more so?”
I consider her question. A body may survive, but without a heart and mind, what is left of it?
As I contemplate her features, her pale eyes now more darkly blue in the dim light, her silver hair tangled around her face, I realize that to see her once again nestled in the snow… Even if she is wrapped in furs this time…
I tug her toward the cabin, scooping up our satchels along the way. The toolbox rests inside her bag and she picks up both onyx spears from the ground where Graviter left them.
My footsteps slow as we approach my father’s statue, his sword’s blade catching the light. I thought it might have rusted after all these years, but it shines a bright steel-blue.
I stand at his height now, although my shoulders are somehow even broader and my chest bulkier.
I force myself to stop beside him, contemplating his features, fighting the sadness that rises up within me.
Milena was right. I do look like him.
Asha reaches out to run her hand across his arm, and I don’t try to stop her.
“A powerful warrior,” she whispers.
“My father,” I say.
She nods. She won’t have missed the resemblance. “This was Malak’s doing, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“The same way I turned monsters to stone.”
“Yes.”
Her jaw clenches. “I did it with the same black medallion Malak wore.”
She swings to me, her hand connecting with my chest. “I’m sorry you had to watch me do that. I can’t begin to imagine thepainful memories it would have brought back to watch me use the same dark power that took your father’s life.”
I catch her hand and press my palm over it, holding it to my heart. “But you did it to savemylife.”
Her expression softens, but she slowly shakes her head. “It couldn’t have erased the past.”
“You’re right.” My voice catches in my throat, a hard lump I can’t get past and now all I feel is uncertain. “Will you…? Would you…?”
She tilts her head, quietly waiting.
Back on the snowy cliff, I started to tell her that the first time we met wasn’t in the throne room, like she thought it was. That when we actually first met, I didn’t know she was a Blacksmith.
We weren’t enemies then.
She was just a girl in the snow, and I was a boy who fell in love with her in a heartbeat.
I count my breaths to steady the shakiness in my voice. “Will you come inside, help me make a fire, and allow me tell you everything?”
Her eyes are luminous in the dark, and it’s hard for me to believe that she doesn’t have access to her power anymore.
“Yes,” she says.
“Even if some of it might hurt or surprise you?” I ask.
