Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
The wind never lies.
Iawoke much later, tangled in Adrik’s warmth beneath the thick blankets he’d spread over us.
He snored softly against my ear, but it was not that which had roused me.
Moonlight spilled through the window and over his restful face.
It was so bright, I did not need a candle to find a cloak in the ravel of our clothes. I hurried with a shiver to the window.
I was drawn there, sharply awake with restlessness and a quiet melancholy only soothed by sitting on the sill and pressing my cheek to the frozen pane. My slow breaths misted the glass, and for a while, I was content to gaze at the glittering frost creeping over the frame.
I glanced, ever so often, cautiously over my shoulder to ensure Adrik was still asleep.
How I longed to join him again beneath the covers.
How I ached to rouse him just to feel his heated skin against mine, to drown once more in his broken breaths.
I did not know what kept me from slipping back into bed or what drew my gaze again and again to the edge of the forest.
I sat there until night bled into twilight. Mist gathered among the bushes and drifted over the river. I could stand it no longer: This urge to lose myself for an hour amid the softness of dawn.
A shadow stirred amid the trees. I caught a flash of copper-red between the birches, and of a black button nose. Oh, how good to see my little friend!
I stood in the snow, so close to the forest its shadow kissed my toes. I did not remember slipping into my boots or out through the door.
Nothing but death awaits in the forest, Ana.
I peered into the twilight. It seemed harmless; almost enticing.
The skies were pale and pink, pouring soft colors over the trees.
A veil of frost clung to bare branches. Frozen leaves crunched underfoot.
I did not remember crossing the treeline, but I was already amid the firs.
I followed the drifting fog deeper into the forest, past thornshrubs and hollies.
It was as still as only a winter morning could be.
As if the biting cold had frozen all sound.
The fox had vanished from sight, but I knew it was going to the pond on the hill, hidden behind frozen reeds. To the ancient oak.
I did not feel the cold, though I’d forgotten my hat and gloves.
From afar came a sweet tune. The wind played the frozen leaves like chimes.
At my feet—once around a hollow trunk and deeper into the woods—ran a trail of small paws.
I followed it. I could not help it. The trail twisted and turned, drawing me ever higher up the hill.
I stumbled with burning breath over the crest.
The little fox sat amid the reeds, a splash of color in the winterscape. It waited with pricked ears and curious black eyes by the pond. The ice was thick and pink with dawn, and it wore near its heart a wound—I shivered, remembering Emond’s frozen skin.
The fox laughed.
The snow at my feet began to dance in the breeze, to stir in the wind. It rose in flurries around me, shrouding me in a veil of ice. I stiffened, from cold and from terror. In the breath of the wind lay the stench of rot and of anguish. The trees groaned and the earth wept and the wind howled.
You taste of the one who cursed us, whispered the wind. You reek of him. The hero of the forgotten lands. The tidekissed warrior. The unwilling king.
The one who cursed us… A horrible tightness twisted within me. A dark, dark realization. I denied it. Just for another breath or two. Just to cling for one more heartbeat to the warmth of Adrik’s lips on my skin.
The wind hissed.
His words are poison, witch.
I shivered.
The wind never lied. He’d been so desperate to keep the flares lit, banishing the whispers of the storm.
He’d kept me from the forest. Nothing but death awaited there, he’d claimed.
He’d instilled a fear of it in me. So that I would never go where the earth whispered of his treachery.
So that I would never learn what the wind had to say.
I cowered on my knees in the snow, cut down like a great tree by the merciless cold. The storm howled in my ears and whipped through my hair.
Adrik, I whispered into my icy palms.
Just his name, over and over, as often as my freezing lips could bear it; just his name, like a desperate plea. The wind stole it from my tongue and stifled it with an angry howl.
You speak of the one who cursed us, it hissed. A witch of the wild, come to mock us?
“Who are you?”
We are no one. We are everything. We are the frost on the leaves, and the wind in the trees. We are the roots in the ground, and the dew on the grass. We are prisoners. Prisoners to your king, your hero, your lover.
For a moment, silence.
Traitor.
Behind me, softly and gently, the snow crunched.
I did not need to look to know who it was. I felt the vileness in my bones, the rottenness in the breath of the breeze. Fear seized me, but it did not find purchase in my flaming heart.
I smiled as the steps neared. I smiled as he drew breath.
I smiled as he cooed, “Hello, little bird.”
Morning light danced over his black claws, their blade-like tips resting right above my heart. One wrong move, and my blood would stain the snow.
“Come, come, come, little witch.” His low lilt cracked with triumph. “Come home to me, little mad thing.”
“Still no crown, I see,” I said softly. “How is your dear sister?”
I needed just a little time. Just a little distraction. I snaked my hand into the coat pocket. The lordling snarled, those striking features twisting in anger.
“Do not speak of her. We are reunited, little bird. Nothing can stop us. Nothing, nothing, nothing.” I leaned a little closer as if intrigued, stifling a hiss as his claw dug into the skin above my heart. “We will have her throne. We will steal it from her. It is mine, mine, mine.”
I knew this creature. I’d learned him well, quietly watching from the shadows of his glamour. I loathed that he had carved himself thus into my bones, but now… Now, it bought me a moment.
I stripped my face of rage and of sharpness, and I hid my power behind a meek smile. I made myself into something vile men like him adored: A woman without thorns, something feeble and malleable.
I leaned closer. “Will you bring me something pretty from her castle?”
“Oh,” he cooed. A little closer. His claw pierced me. “Oh, little bird. You shall have a chamber of pretty things.”
Warmth bloomed in the fabric of my woolen shirt.
Power tingled at the tips of my fingers.
I snaked them secretly towards the coat pocket.
The pocket… where was it, where was it? My fingers turned frantic, then stiffened with terror.
I was not wearing my coat. In my daze, I’d thrown on Adrik’s cloak.
Fear smothered the rage and darkened my thoughts.
The tingle sharpened to a sting.
“Ah,” said the lordling with a glance at my frenzied fingers. “A trick. A distraction. Do not look so sullen, little bird. We will rouse your powers yet.”
I trembled—from cold and from despair and from the fear that writhed so furiously beneath my skin, I could scarcely contain it.
But what was this fear if not kindling to my rage?
I feared him, but oh, I loathed him more.
I loathed him for the stolen seasons and for the horrors I’d carry for the rest of my life.
I loathed him for the cold I’d had to endure and for the loneliness.
Above all, I loathed him for the smallness to which he’d condemned me.
I refused to let that smallness define me now.
I would not cower. I would not hide. I would not run.
I felt afraid, but oh, I felt vengeful even more.
He smiled.
So did I.
I smiled, for I remembered that warmth lived not just in the palm of Adrik’s hand, or in the still-warm pebble, but it lived in me too. It writhed like a flame in my chest and spilled furiously into my veins.
I licked a drop of my blood off his claw.
My magic gathered like fire at my fingertips. It barrelled into the earth, past frozen roots towards the darkness far, far below. I did not fear that darkness.
I cherished it.
I became it.
I became the wind, cackling and howling in the lordling’s ear, and I became the thorns, sharpening their teeth on his rotten bones, and I did not become a wild thing—I became the wild itself. He shrieked and he screamed and he screeched. I basked in each broken plea as I tore him apart.
Only when he hung limply from the bramble, did I snap back into myself. He was still alive. Oh, how alive—chest heaving, face dark with terror. I smiled as I drew my knife from its sheath. He began to writhe and—
Oh, how he begged as I put the knife to his ribs.
Oh, how he gasped as I slid it through flesh into bone.
Still, I smiled.
So did the tidekissed warrior at the other end of the meadow. His moss-green eyes twinkled with dark, wicked glee.
“Ana.”
I saw nothing more than the flash of golden curls before Adrik fell to his knees beside me and pulled me tightly into his arms. His gaze swept over me, again and again, as if to assure himself that I was still whole; feverish and desperate, yet so gentle that I almost forgot what the wind had whispered in my ear.
That I almost wished to reach for his hand and allow him to guide me back to the warmth of his bed.
Back to the crinkled sheets I’d abandoned so carelessly this morning.
Had I known what I knew now, I would have savored what little time we had even more. I would have stolen a final kiss from his lips before I slipped through the door and into the cold. He placed his hand on my cheek, as tenderly as he had done in the night.
I shrank from it.
For a heartbeat, I wished I could take it back. I could not bear the hurt in his gaze. A breath of cold enveloped us. The forest had enough of my hesitation.
“Is it true?” I asked softly. I was afraid of the answer. More afraid than I had ever been in my life. Now, I was about to lose something worth keeping. “Is it true that the curse is your doing?”
For a second, I hoped he would deny it. But I knew from the anguish in his eyes that it was the truth—from his pleading look.
“I do not know how,” he whispered. “The forest… It speaks to me. It haunts me, Ana. It blames me for the cold and I do not know what I might have done to cause it. I do not know—” He paused to swallow. “Believe me, Ana. Whatever I did, I never meant—”
The wind stole the words from his lips. It swept across the clearing with a hiss, bending the trees as if they were sticks, shattering the ice over the pond with a deafening screech.
Deliver him to us, the wind cried. Deliver him, or die with him.
“Quick!” Adrik’s voice cut through the clamor. He leaped to his feet and pulled me up. “Run!”
I let him take my hand and lead us forth. As we raced toward the crest, I dared one glance over my shoulder.
I wished I had not.
The clearing lay in ruins; scattered branches, roots climbing from the frozen ground like gnarled fingers reaching out for us. Just behind the clearing, the churning mist thickened. It billowed between the trees, swallowing everything in its path like a white wall.
For a moment, my gaze met Adrik’s. Mine, I knew, was filled with fear. His was firm with resolve. A soft, sad smile flickered over his lips.
“Forever, I will regret just one thing: That you and I did not have more time.”
I leaned into him. In the face of death, it did not matter what he had done. He was still Adrik. He had carved himself a home in my hollow heart and stirred it gently alive. If I was to die, let it be in his arms. He drew me close; so close his heart fluttered against my cheek.
“Be quick, Ana,” he murmured into my hair. “Be quick, and do not look back.”
He shoved me.