Chapter 25
During that afternoon, an icy blizzard blew in.
The wind howled so ferociously through the gorge that our campfires were often extinguished.
Everyone huddled in their tents inside each cave, trying to guard against the frigid winter weather.
I was unusually concerned about the cold—Baron and I were still at high risk of getting sick or dying after being exposed to such drastic cold for so long mere days before.
That night, I bundled myself in my cloak as tightly as I could.
But even with that and my blankets, I still couldn’t get warm.
The wind seemed to sneak into every tiny opening in the tent and the chill penetrated to my very bones.
I felt as if I were still back in the icy lake and didn’t have a shred of heat left in my body at all.
After an hour of tossing and turning as the temperature continued to plummet, I looked over at Baron, laying halfway across the tent. I thought I caught a glimpse of his eyes still open.
“Baron?” I called softly through the dark.
“What?”
“You awake?”
“Clearly.”
I swallowed hard. Father and his men would have a fit if they knew, but I felt sure I would die of frostbite otherwise.
“Can we call another truce for tonight?” I asked, then added lightheartedly, “I need your big, fat body’s heat again.”
There was a pause as he considered my request. “No funny business,” he finally teased as he scooted back and held open his blanket.
I crawled inside, pulling my own blankets over the top of Baron’s as I did so.
What a difference it made! Lying beside Baron, my head resting on his outstretched left arm and my back curved against his broad chest and abdomen, I was able to warm up quickly.
Baron snaked his right arm over my waist. “You’re lucky you’re warm. I would kick you out in an instant otherwise,” he mumbled into my hair.
“You’re lucky I ignore your snoring,” I told him. “We’re still enemies.”
He laughed quietly and briefly tightened his hold on my waist. “You know what they say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
Through the rest of those bitter winter months, Baron and I fell into a quiet ritual, one neither of us ever spoke about, but both relied on.
Each night, when the cold settled over camp, we would inch closer together beneath our heap of worn furs until our shoulders brushed…
and then, inevitably, until we were pressed fully side-by-side with his arms wrapped securely around me.
At first, I told myself I only did it to survive.
Baron radiated heat like a furnace, and if I slept without touching him, the cold tried to take hold of me instead.
When I curled against his chest, the shivers lessened and perhaps it was foolish, but I slept more deeply.
I reasoned that it was because I could sense every small shift of his body.
If he meant to harm me, I would feel it. I’d be ready.
That was the story I repeated to myself, anyway.
But as the weeks crept by, that explanation grew thin.
Baron never once gave me cause to flinch.
His hands were careful when he helped me over icy patches.
His tone softened when he asked if I was warm enough, which was several times a day.
He always gave me the best seat near the fire without drawing attention to it.
He still wore the chain with me without complaint, matching his stride to mine even if it slowed him down.
My fear—the sharp, bristling kind I’d clung to in the early days—began to loosen its hold. It did not vanish in one moment, but quietly, gradually…like frost melting under the morning sun.
I found myself leaning in to him sooner each night. Sometimes, when he shifted an arm beneath my shoulders as we settled, my pulse didn’t even spike; it simply felt…right. In an encampment filled with my enemies, I felt safe. He warmed me in a way the fire could never manage.
My favorite moments usually came just before slumber claimed me, when I listened to the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath my cheek, lulling me to sleep each night.
Eventually, fear faded into comfort. Comfort faded into familiarity. And familiarity into something dangerous that I didn’t want to examine.
By the time winter was drawing to a close, I no longer crawled toward Baron for warmth out of necessity.
I did it because I wanted to.
I wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened, but at some point between nearly drowning in the lake and surviving those long winter nights side by side, I had stopped seeing him as my captor.
One day, after Baron had completed his short rounds to assess supply levels, we set off for the mouth of the Crags to gather freshly fallen snow to melt into drinking water.
No men patrolled out here and I filled my lungs with the fresh air, glad for a bit of respite from the stench of unwashed, sweaty men that permeated the gorge.
We made our way up the slope, looking for fresh, untouched snow to gather in our kettles.
The best kind of packing snow crunched beneath our boots, dangerously tempting.
On a whim, I scooped up a handful, shaped it into a ball, and aimed for the back of Baron’s head.
It splatted in an explosion of powder, coating his dark hair.
“Hey!” He turned around, and by then I had packed another ball.
I lobbed it in his direction, this time hitting him squarely in face.
I couldn’t throw very hard, with only six feet between us, but I scooped snowballs one after another, pelting him furiously and even nimbly shoving one down his shirt when he tried to come close enough to knock my snowballs from my hands.
Baron retreated and threw up his hands to block my attack, kicking snow at me in return.
Flakes showered into my eyes and I had to turn and blink my vision clear again.
He began an assault of his own, shaking the trunk of the tree we were under and sending what felt like a blizzard of snow down on both of us.
I yelped and tried to dodge the deluge, but the chain tethered me to him, and the best I could do was dash around the tree trunk, which only brought me right back to Baron.
He caught me.
“Ha! Can’t get away now!” he laughed, pulling me in as I squirmed and pushed at his chest, which, annoyingly, didn’t budge in the slightest. We were both red-cheeked from the cold and breathless from our snowball fight, and his arms looped behind me, holding me captive so I couldn’t dart off and gather more ammunition.
I finally gave up my useless struggling and looked up at him.
That was my mistake.
The world suddenly felt very quiet. His arms were still locked around me, but something in his grip shifted, moving from playful restraint to something entirely different.
His face was only inches from mine, our breaths swirling in small clouds between us.
I noticed, for the first time, the color of his eyes.
They weren’t black, as I’d originally thought, but a deep, warm brown.
And those eyes were wholly focused on me.
Something fluttered low in my stomach, startling with its intensity, and I became painfully aware of how close we were, of the solid warmth of him while everything around us was ice and snow. The feeling swelled, refusing to be pushed aside.
I suddenly wasn’t sure if I wanted to get away at all.
Baron’s hold around my waist tightened just slightly, almost unconsciously, and his gaze flicked from my eyes to my mouth then back again.
We had been close before, so why did this moment feel different?
His eyes dipped to my neckline, and he lifted one hand, hesitating as though giving me one last chance to move away.
I didn’t. His fingers brushed my skin, so lightly I almost doubted it happened.
“The scar’s gone,” he murmured, his broad thumb sweeping gently over the place where the sheriff’s blade had cut into my throat.
Then his knuckles glided along my jaw, slow and careful, as though he was memorizing the shape of it. His hand slid into the back of my hair.
The fluttering in my stomach changed rapidly, first warming, then flaring into full and terrifying heat.
I half expected the snow at my feet to steam, and wondered how Baron wasn’t yanking his hand away from the temperature my skin must have reached.
I didn’t know what to do or what I was supposed to say.
My body went still, breath locked somewhere between my ribs where I couldn’t access it.
My gaze flickered helplessly between his eyes, my palms still pressed to his chest as if I had forgotten how to move them.
He didn’t look away. His entire focus stayed fixed on my face, one hand steady at my waist, the other cradling my neck like he was afraid I might vanish. And just as the wild, reckless part of me began to hope that he wouldn’t let go, something in his expression shifted.
He blinked hard, like shaking off a dream, and released me, stepping back as though distance alone could break whatever had passed between us. Then he ducked, scooped up a handful of snow, and tossed it halfheartedly in my direction, but the playfulness we’d shared moments before didn’t return.
We remained silent as we collected our snow-filled kettles and wended our way back down into the gorge, then we avoided each other’s gaze for the rest of the day.
For the first time, I allowed myself to think about how things had changed, and I began to wonder if I had feelings beyond friendship for Baron.
I had never once experienced emotions like that before now.
And as the memory of his hands at my waist, his fingers tightening just slightly, and his unwavering gaze replayed in my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had felt it, too.