Chapter 6 #2
Then a brutal tide pulled me under, knocking the air from my lungs. With it left any hope of survival. The current rolled and tossed me, knocking my head against a boulder. But I was too numb to feel any pain. I thought I cried out, but icy water filled my mouth and senses.
As I flailed, something grazed my hand, and I grasped it. Welcome fingertips dug into my palm and wrenched me from the channel. Rivulets streamed down my shaking body as they tossed me to the ground in a heap. I fought the tremors, gasping. But all that emanated from my lips was a gurgle.
The world was slipping away. Everything grew cold, but different from the river. A chill I’d never known. The cold didn’t freeze me and urge me to shudder. Instead, it was welcoming, like a tight hug of frost.
Lips pressed to mine. With them, warmth bloomed across my chest. The pain dissipated to nothing. It ebbed into a steady stream of comfort before he pulled away. I fluttered my tired eyes and would have jumped at the man hanging over me—if I could.
His piercing blue iris bored into me, surrounded by tightly bound raven locks and sharp features…
and ears like knives. And hanging next to him were snowflakes, drifting on the breeze.
They gathered in his midnight hair, but he didn’t seem to notice, or care.
No, he focused solely on me and watched every wheeze.
Something swirled on his face, and I couldn’t tell if it was malice, desire, or a far more sinister urge. But I wanted to scream. I knew this man.
This was the sapphire-eyed man. I couldn’t forget those chiseled, hollow cheeks or the curve of his lips. But that blue. It had haunted me.
I attempted to straighten, but languished with the strength sapped from my shivering extremities. I recognized him, but couldn’t move.
“Cold,” I whispered. My breath misted before me.
“Indeed,” he replied, but his gaze never left my ever-slowing exhales, or the thinner clouds they left behind. “And dying—quickly, I might add.”
His arms wrapped beneath me and clutched me close to his chest as he rose. “Up you go.”
“No,” I mumbled, and fought sleep vehemently.
“Should I leave you on the snowdrifts, then? Let you cease your breathing in the bitter cold?”
Bastard.
But the thought drifted from me as quickly as it came, along with the rest of the world. It lulled in the background, leaving me with only the feeling of being carried.
When my pants grew staggered, a door squealed open. Another few steps and he pitched me onto a lounge far too wide, allowing the room’s chill to steal whatever warmth remained. My pulse dipped, no longer pounding in my ears. I hardly heard it, and wondered if it would cease altogether.
But the cold danced around me, offering its welcome, eternal respite. I considered accepting.
But my lids were heavy as stones, and I didn’t want to die in the dark.
So I forced them open, inundated by the dimness of the room.
The stranger returned and threw a thick woolen blanket over me.
His hand flicked and mere feet before me, the empty hearth lit to a blazing inferno.
It crackled while a familiar, comforting scent filled the room.
The smell of roasted clove mingled with the electric scent of a downed tree.
I inhaled deeper. Comforting. Quiet. Addicting.
The man sat just before the fire lazily, leaning against the uneven stone blocks.
They were made of the same ivory as the shattered bridge.
Yet the man’s gaze never left me. His leather breeches and armor were dark and well-fitted, highlighting his tall, lithe frame.
I’d never seen someone with such long limbs before.
Or pointed ears.
He didn’t seem to pay mind to my staring as he pulled out a knife from his side and began sharpening it with a small stone, every flick down out. Laced with malice.
I searched for words as the feeling slowly drove itself into my body. But it returned brutally, with sharp pinpricks that made me shift uncomfortably. Once I stepped away from death’s door, I found my voice and readied it.
“I know you. You were in the tavern.”
A small smile curled on his lips, but it was quickly hidden as he turned to the hearth. “I don’t know what you speak of.”
“Yes, you do.”
He spun around with a deadly look and furrowed brows. “No, I don’t, and if you continue to accuse me of such things, you may get out and die in the snow. You should be on your knees, thanking me.” With that he pointed the knife at the throat, punctuating his words with the motion.
I straightened and tried to rise, but lacked the strength. I swallowed back my pride and the anger boiling across my chest, just this once. He was lying, but he also wasn’t going to spill the truth. I’d force it from him one day, but not now. Not when I hung so close to death.
So instead of fighting, I let my lids grow heavy. Then slipped into some dreamworld, where those sapphire irises followed me.
Eventually, the crackling fire awoke me, and I enjoyed my returned strength.
I flexed my fingers beneath the blanket before shoving off the uncomfortably warm cover, only to discover the stiflingly cold room, and yank it back on.
Yet it was surprising to find him still lingering by the hearth.
How long had I slept? The familiar scent wrapped around me stronger than before as he flicked a finger to stoke the flames further.
“What’s that smell?” I asked.
“I believe your traitorous people call it impetus. I refer to it as lumen, which is how you will refer to it while under my roof.” He pulled a bit of wood from an adjacent woven basket and began whittling it. “You’ll find it’s far more vile at the source.”
I took in the surrounding room. The walls were made of a dark wood, some type I’d never seen in the kingdom.
It was such a deep, rich color, wholly unlike the castle, which was built of pale birch.
The hovel was similarly lacking the castle’s stone floors, instead planked, with the only bit of rock creating the fireplace.
My thoughts finally started to clear, and with clarity came a cascade of emotions. I should have died in the cold. If he hadn’t saved me, that would have been my end.
But he was lying to me, and trying to spin the truth. I knew I’d seen him before and was as certain of that as I was my own name.
“Why did you save me?”
This time, he glanced up from his work. The crackling fire reflected in his darkened eyes.
“Should I have left you to die on the snowbanks? Would you have preferred it?”
“I assumed you’d dump me so the wraiths and ghouls didn’t get you.” I could be a nice snack, as opposed to him, a good diversion. "You should have just run and let the Eltide monsters have me."
He cocked a brow. “The… what?”
“If you threw me into the snowbanks, the wraiths and witches of the Ifrei couldn’t catch you. They haunt the forest.” The forest that didn’t exist.
His mouth downturned into a primal frown, marring his chiseled features. “The Ifrei,” he repeated.
My heart jumped. “Is that word cursed?”
He shook his head and whittled off a chunk so violently it flew off into the corner of the room. “You must be mistaken. We are the I’phri.”