We laid Almira to rest that same night.
We gathered at the riverbank beneath the burrow—all of us, a sea of a thousand and more candles. We laid her, dressed in a gown like moonlight, upon a float woven from branches, cushioned with moss and autumn-gold leaves.
I wove fireflies into the leaves, and as we sent her gently along the river, I collected their sparks. The float burst aflame.
I sang to the river as it carried Almira forth, and the river sang back to me. To her. I spun strings of silver from its starlit waves and I placed blossoms on their foaming crests and I calmed the tides as the townsfolk set, one after the other, their candles adrift in the current. We sang for her all night, and we danced until the eastern skies shrouded the world with a veil of pink.
Before we left the riverside, I announced that there would be a dance at the castle. There was, I knew, no better night for one than the full moon, but we had no time to wait for such a thing.
We put Zora in charge of the dance and suffered for it. Once I’d slept for a night to recover, I had not one quiet moment. There were gowns to be designed, decorations to be crafted, and cakes to be baked.
The forest-touched thawed.
Their gazes cleared two mornings after we had freed the spirit, and they began once more to speak in their own voices. A strangeness lingered: Lorell’s beard remained frost-specked no matter how warm the house, Marin’s hands still wore a coating of rock, and from Nasha’s head sprouted a tangle of vines.
We did not mind. We had, all of us, seen stranger things than this.
Sometimes, when the night was dark and cold, they grew even stranger—there would be ice in their veins, and that horrible white sheen would settle over their gaze again. When it happened, we wrapped Lorell in blankets and moved his chair close to the hearth. It would vanish, that strangeness, if he satthere long enough while Sai held his hands and spoke of the spring.
Three mornings after the thaw had come, Lorell joined me as I sat in the parlor. He was clutching the booklet of spring poems and he said, lips quivering, “Let me read to you, girl.”
He knew every poem by heart. I suspected he had for a long time.
While the town became merrier and merrier with the advance of spring and dance, I sunk into a miserable state. A striking lack of tasks awaited me whenever I woke. The earth burst alive with spring whether or not I wove golden threads of magic into the earth. I’d grown a peach tree in Adrik’s garden and adorned it with enough fruit to last him three seasons. It was the only noteworthy thing I’d done since our return from the forest.
Wildemire needed me no longer.
Adrik needed me no longer.
No one had asked me to remain, either. I was free to leave, but it did not feel as freeing as I had expected. On the morning of the dance, I found a scribbled note stuck to the container of my favorite tea.
Follow the tracks.
I frowned at the instructions as I hurried into the thaw, mud squelching horribly beneath my boots. Ah, the finer sides of spring. I almost wished for a return of the winter, such gloom had befallen me.
A track of pawprints led me down the lively street, through a gap between the boutique and the potter. I followed the tracks over a rose-veiled bridge. I’d never been to the riverside hill. Itwas a wild thing of thick brambles, knotted roots, moss-draped floors and a steep trail to the crest.
A soft laugh came from a birch. Adrik leaned against it, aglow with golden dawnlight. “Whose murder are you scheming?”
I pursed my lips, irked by his cheer and by the meltwater trickling from the trees into my curls. “You could not have chosen a drier place for a meeting?”
“Of course I could have.”
He chuckled at my indignant snort, tangling our fingers as he pulled me swiftly up the slope. My heart stuttered. There’d been no time for much save a stolen glance over a pile of garlands, or the secret brush of our hands as we passed each other in a hall bustling with people.
The ghost of our hours tangled in his bed haunted me worse than the kiss, and still—I had not the courage to speak of it. I’d rather let it rot inside me and live with this hollow ache than risk this brightness between us.
The ridge of the hill rose just high enough to look over the rooftops into the vale. Woodsmoke climbed the slope and a faint scent of fresh bread hung in the morning mist. On the crest sprawled a wildflower meadow. Tucked between daisies and violets was a shallow pond, guarded by a willow.
Behind that willow sat a small cottage amid the flowers, a crooked thing made of pale stone, carved shutters, a steep thatched roof. A child had painted flowers all over the front door.
“I’m not a very good painter,” said Adrik. I glanced at him, speechless. His ears were bright red. “Five moons before I found you, I came with despair to this hill. It had been snowing for seven days and I realized, for the first time, that Almira was fading. I came here and I found, amid the snow, a flower. And I imagined, as if looking through a misted window, a little cottage by the pond. I ached so fiercely to know who would live in sucha place, I had constructions start that day. It was made for you, Evana, that cottage. It is yours, if you wish. Your home, should you decide to stay.”
I swallowed the sting of tears as I stared at it, morning sun catching in its wide windows. I could see myself huddled on the kitchen sill with a glass of tea in hand, watching as the streets below filled with conversation and laughter.
Adrik said, when I did not answer, “It was just a suggestion. A foolish idea. You can live wherever you want. I just thought—it seemed like it might suit you to have your peace and quiet when you need it, and still be right at the heart of life.” He paused to draw breath and added quietly, “You’d be close to the castle, too.”
“What good is a castle to me if its king does not live there?”
