Chapter 3 #2
I clamp both hands over my face and hold my breath. The tickle grows stronger. I squeeze my eyes shut as the urge climbs my throat.
The sneeze tears out of me like a thunderclap.
Luceran’s head snaps up. His eyes lock onto mine.
Panic floods my veins. I stumble back from the window so fast the hems of my borrowed layers tangle around my ankles, nearly sending me sprawling, but I catch myself before I hit the ground. Instinct screams at me to run, to hide, to do something now.
Gods, I cannot believe this, but I rush back to the wardrobe, sprinting clumsily across the floor and flinging myself inside. I yank the doors shut and bury myself behind the hanging garments, trying to make myself small, invisible.
My breaths come ragged. I clap both hands over my mouth to muffle the sound.
Then footsteps echo in the corridor.
My heart slams against my ribs, frantic and wild, as if it is trying to break free.
The steps stop outside my door. But they don’t sound like boots or feet. Not Fae. Not human. Something else entirely.
A cold draft slips beneath the wardrobe door, frost creeping along the wood grain as the air tightens into something almost unbreathable.
I know it is Luceran, listening, waiting, and the silence becomes unbearable, my pulse roaring in my ears.
Please don’t open the door. Please don’t find me.
Not now. Not like this. Not after I saw him bathed in moonlight, not while his song still echoes inside me like an ache I don’t understand.
I press my forehead into a winter cloak and squeeze my eyes shut, praying to any god listening that he will walk away. The footsteps do not come closer. Instead, they trail off, growing softer, until they dissolve entirely into the heavy hush of the frozen corridor.
Luceran is gone.
I sag against the coats surrounding me, shaking with relief, my eyes slipping shut as sleep takes me again, not gently, but like tumbling into deep water. Morning arrives as a whisper of pale, muted sunlight.
It slips through the narrow crack between the wardrobe doors, cutting a thin blade of light across my face. The warmth I expect never comes, instead, the light illuminates the frost clinging to my lashes, turning each hair into a tiny icy feather.
I blink slowly, painfully, as the world swims back into focus.
Breathing hurts; my chest feels tight, wrapped in invisible bands of winter.
I try to move, but my limbs scream in protest, numb and heavy, tingling with the sharp prickle of near-frostbite.
Everything is cold. My fingers, my skin, my bones.
Even the tears frozen on my cheeks crack as they begin to thaw.
I swallow, the motion stiff, and push weakly against the coats pressing in around me. For a moment, I wonder if I actually froze to death in my sleep. If this is the afterlife. If this is the true cost of the bargain.
My head slumps forward as a shadow falls across the narrow crack of the door.
I freeze, breath locked in my chest. The sliver of light vanishes, blocked by something, someone tall.
A faint gust of even colder air sighs through the wardrobe’s seams, and I cannot fathom how anything could be colder than this.
“Neve Devlin.”
The voice is soft. Low. Not a whisper, but something deeper, something controlled.
Lord Luceran Frostwyn.
A tremor races through me, jerking me fully awake. At least I am not dead. If I were dead, he would send his riders straight back to the farm and drag my father to the mines. If I am alive, I can work, and my father is left in peace.
The doors don’t shake. He doesn’t try to force them open. He simply stands there, on the other side, close enough that the frost patterns on the wardrobe wood bloom and spread.
“Are you alive?” he asks after a heartbeat.
It’s a strange question. How would I answer if I weren’t?
I lick my dry lips, my voice barely a rasp. “I… think so.”
He releases a slow breath. The cold against the wardrobe swells as if responding to him.
“Open the door,” he says.
I hesitate.
Not because I want to defy him, but because I’m not certain I can move at all. My arms feel like dead weight. My fingers don’t respond. My legs tremble beneath the pile of coats.
“Open it,” he says again, getting more irritated by the second. “Before you freeze.”
I swallow. Then, with all the strength I can gather, I push one numb hand forward.My fingers press against the wood.They slip.I grit my teeth and try again.
“What is taking so long?” he grumbles.
“You could open it yourself if you are in such a hurry,” I say. It comes out terser than I intend.
I lean harder into the wood.
“Fine. I will then,” he snaps.
His silhouette shifts. I hear the handle turn on the other side.
As I push forward, the door swings wide and I tumble with a startled gasp, only to be swept into Luceran’s arms before I hit the floor.
My breath puffs out in white clouds as my chest heaves.
I stare up at him, into those astonishing eyes, into skin so flawless and pale it borders on translucent, every angle and line sharp as carved ice.
His strength is unmistakable. Even through these bulky layers, he holds me without effort, not the faintest hint of strain, and he smells like roses. Wild winter roses.
Wonder catches me off guard, but it shatters the moment his thumb grazes my hand. He is unbearably cold. So frozen it stings.
I wince and pull my hand back. Luceran exhales, his posture tightening as he sets me on my feet.
I blink away the haze blurry my vision and cup my throbbing hand.
Luceran stands there. His open shirt reveals runes that have dimmed in the dull sunlight yet still pulse faintly across his chest. His eyes, winter blue and molten gold, fix on me.
I open my mouth to speak, to apologise, to explain, I do not even know what for, but my voice fails me. I sway forward instead.
Luceran’s hand shoots out and catches me again, and this time he does not let go. His gaze drags over me, my tangled red hair, my frost-blanched face, the ridiculous mound of coats and gowns hanging off me.
He exhales softly, the sound measured and faintly judging.
“You look absurd,” he says.
Heat prickles beneath my skin, not warmth but embarrassment.
“I was cold,” I say. My teeth chatter through the words. “You locked me in a room where every surface is frozen solid. What did you expect me to do?”
My chest shudders, each breath sharper than the last. I am tired of that smug frown. Who cares if I can barely stand. I would rather hit the floor than stay another moment in his forsaken arms. But when I try to straighten, my feet are numb. More than numb. I cannot feel them at all.
“I...” I manage.
He grumbles, as if my freezing to death is an inconvenience he predicted. Stupid, weak human.
“I do not feel right.”
A groan rumbles in his chest. “You probably have hypothermia. I thought you would have lasted a little longer.”
Somehow, even on the brink of collapse, I manage a scoff. “Well, I am sorry to fucking disappoint you.”
His eyes widen at the curse, as if my language offends him more than the fact that I am dying on his castle floor.
I half expect him to drop me, let me fade here and be swept out onto the snow.
Instead he slides his hands down my body and scoops me up under my knees, drawing me close against his chest.
I am too cold to respond, too cold to gasp or question what he thinks he is doing. He carries me from the room, down the dim, narrow corridor.
My head lolls with each steady step. My vision blurs as I drift between waking and sleep, the cold pulling me under until it feels like something I finally understand.
Perhaps even welcome. I notice empty patches on the walls, discoloured squares of stone where paintings once hung. I wonder what they were.
“Where are you taking me?” I breathe. My eyelids flutter. “Please do not throw me out. I can work. I promise. Please leave my father be.”
I manage to force my eyes open one last time, long enough to see him glance down at me, and whether I am awake or dreaming, he is as beautiful as ever. Then my eyes slide shut, and the cold overwhelms me.