Chapter 2
Lyra
The morning had broken cold and quiet over the outskirts of Iskavard. It was the kind of cold that turned every breath into mist and every sound into something louder than it actually was. Lyra walked the narrow path away from her cottage nestled near the base of the Silver Snow Mountains.
She carried a woven basket hooked over her arm while four-year-old Beckett stumbled along at her side. His tiny mittened hand clung to the edge of her long cloak as he struggled not to slip on the ice as they searched for winter flowers.
“We have to hurry, sweetheart. Once it starts snowing, it’s not going to stop for a while.”
Beckett reached eagerly toward a brittle stem that poked through the snow, its petals already curled and chipped.
“Not that one,” she murmured, her voice low and warm despite the bite of the air. “We only take the ones that are still fighting.”
Beckett paused and his dark eyes flicked up to hers with that searching look he always wore. Sometimes she felt as though every instruction needed to be measured against the fragile trust he had built solely around her.
At her words, he withdrew his hand immediately and pressed closer instead. His shoulder bumped into her leg.
“Okay,” he said softly, the word careful and obedient.
Lyra’s chest tightened in that familiar way it always did when he listened so completely.
Children were not meant to be so cautious, yet Beckett had arrived to her with that wariness already carved deep into him.
He was a quiet boy for being so young. He spoke little and held on tightly in a world that had already proven itself unreliable to him.
“You can carry these,” she added after a moment when she found a cluster of frost-tipped blooms and placed them gently into his hands instead of the basket. She prayed he was careful with the stubborn things that thrived where nothing else dared. “We can sell those at the market.”
Something brighter flickered across his face. It wasn’t quite a smile but close enough that she felt it like sunlight. He nodded and cradled the flowers with exaggerated care as though he were protecting them with his life.
They moved slowly across the edge of the treeline at the base of the mountain where the wind was less cruel and the blooms were more plentiful.
As they gathered what little winter offered, Lyra let herself settle into the rhythm of it.
Arranging bouquets and selling them at the local farmer’s market created the simple, honest life she had built here far from everything she had once known.
She first felt that something was off in her bones. It was more than the impending blizzard. This was something totally different.
It was subtle, like a faint tremor carried through the ground beneath her boots. It was so slight it might have gone unnoticed by anyone else, but Lyra stilled instantly. Her hand tightened reflexively around the basket handle as her gaze swept across the landscape.
Beckett noticed the change in her before he noticed anything else. He always did.
His fingers returned to her cloak and the flowers were nearly crushed between his hands as he pressed into her side. “Lyra?”
She forced her expression to soften but her pulse had already begun to climb. “It’s nothing,” she said, too quickly to be entirely convincing. It was something, but she had no idea what. “Stay close to me.”
The mountains loomed sharp and white against the pale sky, the peaks shrouded in mist. For a long moment, nothing seemed out of place and Lyra wondered if she had imagined the feeling.
Then she heard the sound. Low and muffled.
Lyra didn’t wait for anything more.
“Come,” she said, already turning. Her free hand grabbed Beckett’s shoulder and turned him back toward the cottage with a quiet urgency she couldn’t quite explain. Her chest tightened in response to that sound, and all she wanted to do was get the little boy to safety.
They had nearly reached the edge of her property when she saw it.
At first, it was nothing more than a break in the smooth expanse of snow further down the slope.
A small avalanche had fallen on the far side of a buttress that blocked it from the tree line.
An uneven drift had piled too high, and she might have ignored it entirely if not for the faint glimpse of a boot that barely stuck out of the top of the swell.
Lyra slowed and Beckett bumped into her from behind. She moved a bit closer and realized the sound she heard came from that boot, or whatever was connected to it. Whoever it was, they were still alive.
“Stay here,” she said in a voice she had never used on Beckett before.
He refused to let go. “Lyra, no.”
“Stay,” she repeated more firmly. This time he froze and his fingers loosened just enough for her to step forward alone.
Each step felt heavier than the last as she approached the snowdrift. Her boots sank into the snow and as she drew close, the boot twitched. She dropped to her knees and started to dig.
Questions swirled through her head as she scooped snow away from his body. Had he fallen off the mountain or had he been prowling around and gotten caught by the avalanche?
His clothes came into view as she frantically tried to free him. Her hands stopped as she revealed the crest on his overcoat. Her breath froze in her lungs.
No. Her first instinct was sharp and immediate. It can’t be.
She felt the unmistakable presence of someone who did not belong here. The king, her king, did not belong in her quiet stretch of land and definitely not in the fragile peace she had carved out piece by careful piece.
Especially when he had caused the need for it.
Her stomach turned. Mikael. A name she had never wanted to speak again. A man who had once owned her heart at the same time she hated him.
Even half-buried and broken, he carried that same undeniable presence that had once silenced entire rooms. For a moment, Lyra simply knelt there and stared down at him as the past rose up full of horrible memories before she swiped more snow away.
Leave him.
The thought came strong and demanding.
Leave him, and walk away, and let the mountain take what it already claimed.
Whatever he had been doing here had nothing to do with her. If she turned now and gathered Beckett and went back to the cottage, no one would ever know she had found him.
Most likely, no one would ever find him, at least not for a long time. But then she dug deeper and her gaze landed on his face.
It was far too pale and his lips were tinged blue. His breath was so faint she had to strain to see it, and his arms were curved around his head. His fingers were frozen and unmoving, but she could see the cuts and the blood on them from his attempts to dig the snow away from his face.
No one deserved this.
The second thought hit harder. No one deserved to die alone and buried in the cold as though his life had meant nothing at all.
Not even him.
Lyra closed her eyes briefly and a flicker of anger tightened in her chest. Not at him, but at the cruel part of herself that still hesitated and still remembered too much.
“Damn you,” she whispered under her breath. Whether it was meant for him or herself, even she did not know.
Behind her, Beckett let out a small, anxious sound, and that decided it.
Lyra continued her desperate attempt to free Mikael.
The snow was heavy and unyielding as she tried to roll him, and it almost took more strength than she had.
Her hands had lost all feelings despite her gloves as she pulled until she could get a better grip beneath his shoulders. He was heavy but she couldn’t give up.
“Lyra?” Beckett’s voice came, edged with fear.
“I’m coming, sweetheart,” she called back. “Stay where you are.”
Every inch she dragged Mikael was accomplished through sheer stubbornness. His weight resisted her at every step as the snow packed and slowed her efforts. More than once she nearly lost her footing. Her muscles burned and her lungs ached from the cold, but she did not let go.
Not when it would have been easier and not when part of her still whispered that she should. She worried that his injuries would worsen with each tug, but she had no options. Beckett followed behind and fought his own battle as he carried the basket.
The first flakes started to fall by the time they reached the cottage. Her arms trembled with effort and her body screamed in protest. Lyra forced herself forward with one last surge and hauled Mikael across the threshold and into the space she had made her own.
Beckett hovered near the fireplace, his eyes wide as he stared at the unconscious man as Lyra struggled to strip off the king’s soaked clothes.
“Who is that?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
Lyra did not answer immediately. Finally she glanced at him. “We’ll talk in a minute, okay? I have to get him warm first.”
She cleared a space near the hearth where the floor was warm and pulled Mikael onto her thickest throw rug. It would have to do until she had the strength to lift him. She dragged blankets from her bed and tucked them around him.
Her first order of business was wrapping his head where he had a large gash across his forehead. Blood flowed freely from the wound as he warmed up, and she needed to stop the flow. Her mind raced as she worked, trying to piece together what she had just done and what would come next.
Trouble.
That much she knew with absolute certainty.
“Listen to me,” she said, finally turning to Beckett as she knelt beside Mikael’s still form. “I need you to go to your room and change into some dry clothes. Put your wet things in the washroom.”
Beckett didn’t move. “Lyra, I’m scared.” The admission broke her house.
“I know, sweetheart. But we’ll be fine. I just need to figure out what I need to do now. I need you to help me by getting into warm clothes.”
His gaze flicked from her to Mikael and back again and for a moment she thought he might refuse.
“Okay,” he whispered.
She watched until he disappeared down the hallway and then turned back to the man lying half-frozen on her floor.
Mikael. An injured king.
Lyra exhaled slowly, her hands already moving to assess the damage. She wasn’t a nurse, but growing up with her brothers, she had learned to treat injuries. Her parents never would have been able to afford a doctor’s visit every time one of them got hurt.
She cleaned up the bigger cuts and the nasty bruise on his shoulder and applied salve to the smaller abrasions.
She ignored the fact that she was staring at a naked king in her own home.
She needed to call the castle to get help, but something stopped her.
It was the unknown details that made no sense.
“What were you doing here, Mikael?”
All that answered her question was silence.