I stumbled over the crest and into a gathering of chuckling, dancing reeds.
Let me see you, they snickered. Let me taste you.
I stepped into their midst, to the edge of the pond. The world tilted. I rested in a bed of reeds and ice, staring up into the lightless skies. The pond cackled and crackled and cracked. The ice nibbled like a kitten at my fingers, turning my hands wondrous shades of blue and white. It adorned my palms with frost-flowers—such delicateness against my grime-smeared hands.
Oh, what an honor to be kept forever safe in the ice.
To give life to something dead—
TWELVE
A keepsake to remember me.
Istirred awake, cold as ice and breathless from another too-vivid nightmare, and went restlessly to make tea.
Dawnlight brushed golden sparks over the endless snow, souring my mood. Sunshine was of no use to me. The thaw was coming. I could feel it.
At the edge of the forest, behind the pair of old apple trees at the back of Lorell’s garden, something stirred beneath a tall spruce. The hounds—
I caught a glimpse of copper-red fur and a tuft of white. It was not a proud beast like my nightly companion, but a small, spindly thing that scurried nervously about.
The poor thing was much too thin. How cold it must be. It had not eaten in days and ventured this close to the house only because it was famished. Out there in the forest it would starve and it would be my fault—
Ice pricked my bare feet.
I stood at the front door in the snow, fist filled with the berry preserves Lorell had cooked for breakfast. Their juice welledbetween my fingers, trickling down to stain the snow at my feet blood-red.
I need not have worried about the thaw; it was bitterly cold. I could barely breathe from the ice in the air. I stared in awe at my berry-stained hand. I did not remember opening the jar, nor that I’d hurried barefooted out into the winter morning.
I returned to the parlor to gather my boots and a coat. As I passed the corner window, the fox had vanished. I stood there for a long time, waiting, certain that hunger would lure it back to me. Nothing stirred amid the trees save a gentle breeze, sweeping wisps of snow deeper into the forest—past brambles and over a hillcrest, where a frozen pond lay amid dancing reeds…
The creak of the front door snapped me from my daze.
Adrik brought with him a blast of cold. I shivered as he brushed the snow from his hair and pressed a glass of tea into his hand.
He took a sip and frowned. “You made my favorite tea.”
That I had, indeed, and I’d spent an hour keeping it at what I knew was his preferred temperature—I deeply regretted this now, for his face shone with such soft surprise that I could barely stand to look at him.
“So?” I said as haughtily as I could. “You’ve made me tea a hundred times.”
He laughed a little wearily. The sun cast deep shadows under his cheekbones. Over his gaze hung a sheen of exhaustion, as if he’d stepped from a dream, still half-asleep.
“You look tired.”
“I see you are well-versed in the art of flattery," he said with a sleepy smile.
“You have a new scratch, too,” I said, glancing sharply at his hand. “Did another ice sheet get you?”
He slumped with a deep sigh against the doorframe. “It was an axe, this time. Olva needed the brambles cleared.”
“I thought you were an exceptionally talented swordsman. An axe cannot be too different, no?” He did not answer, but his lips quivered as he studied me. “Perhaps if you slept rather than cut brambles in the night, you’d be rested enough to wield an axe without spilling your own blood.”
“Perhaps,” he said, half-amused and half-asleep. “Now, not that I mind your keen attention, but if you are quite done with your assessment, I’ve come with a proposal.” He presented me with the thickest, finest coat I’d ever seen. “Almira says you are well enough for a walk.”
Noon had come and gone before we ventured into the cold. The air felt like glass; sharp and icy, as if it might shatter if disturbed beyond a whisper.
Adrik braced me as we shuffled along a winding path through the garden, to the steps that trailed down the hillside into the bustling street. The stones were slick and my muscles still terribly feeble.
