Chapter 33 Snow Games #2
“Of course,” Niel said too easily. “But you aren’t telling me that’s something you did.” His eyes met hers, suddenly curious and more lively than before.
“Whyever not? It’s good fun.” She poked at a pile of snow on the balustrade with her thumb, drawing a circle.
“I didn’t expect a merchant daughter would be trained in combat. With what weapons?”
Ayla blinked at him rapidly, then snorted, fighting back a laugh.
“I meant a snowball fight, Niel. I’m not talking about true combat.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat and looked away again. “Right. Of course.”
“Have you ever had one?”
“No,” he said, his voice absent again, his eyes refusing to come back to hers. “My father was not a believer in games such as that.”
She’d pried at a wound, looking for something bright, and found nothing but more pain. Well. Sometimes a future was the best remedy to a difficult past. Wasn’t that the very lesson she’d been learning, these past weeks?
“Here, then. I’ll show you.” She scooped up another handful of snow, dense and wet and heavy in the sun instead of the light powder that had fallen. “You take the snow like this and form it in your hands.”
“I’m too old for this,” Niel informed her, watching her movements as she patted the snowball into place with her blue mittens.
“I’m certain you’re younger than I am,” she told him, and showed him the uneven, somewhat clumsy sphere she’d made.
“We are not so far apart in age,” he muttered. Was that a faint blush on his high cheeks, or just the cold?
“I know why you’re resisting,” she said airily, as she patted the snowball into better form. “You’re worried I’ll beat you. Well, you’re right to be afraid.”
Niel snorted, but the gibe must have landed. He reached towards the thick layer of snow on the balustrade and scooped a handful, the black leather of his gloves stark against the white.
“I have ever so much more experience than you,” Ayla informed him, mock-serious. “You might best me with a sword, Niel, but this is my domain. And there are many tactics the weaker fighter may use to gain an edge.”
“Indeed?” Niel asked, his lips curling slightly at the edges like he wanted to smile. “Will you share your knowledge? What tactics are these, Lady Ayla?”
“To start with?” she said, pressing the snowball tight between her gloves one last time. It was nearly perfect now. She felt the oddest urge to impress him, though surely she ought not to care what Niel thought of her. “There is the element of surprise.”
She hurled the snowball into his face, grabbed her skirts, and threw herself down the stairs. Ayla clattered down the steps, sliding and nearly falling on an icy patch, catching herself just in time as she sprinted to the courtyard.
“Cheater,” Niel called after her. “I didn’t know we’d begun.”
She reached the bottom of the stair and trotted into the courtyard, then looked up at him. He gripped the snowy balustrade, leaning over to look down at her.
There was a grin on the knight’s face and snow clinging to his dark hair. She grinned back, a giggle bubbling to her lips.
“It’s called strategy,” she called back. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
With a scowl, Niel shoved at a pile of the snow on the balustrade, sending it down into the courtyard to dust her head. Ayla shrieked and ducked her face down, throwing up her hands. When she looked again, Niel was no longer in the same place.
He was halfway down the stairs, barreling towards her, an armored warrior with a dark cloak billowing behind him, eyes narrowed on his prey.
Something low in her body snapped. For a hairsbreadth of a moment she was terrified, a frightened rabbit with a pounding heart, all instinct warning her that men with looks like that on their faces meant trouble.
But it was Niel; she trusted Niel. She quickly stooped to grab a handful of snow, barely forming it into a ball before she straightened again.
Niel was at the bottom of the stairs now. Mercy, the man moved fast.
He was three feet from her when she squeaked and lobbed it into his face, hitting him squarely in the nose with a clump of packed snow. He didn’t raise a hand to block it. Nor did he reach down to grab a handful of snow like he was supposed to.
She took a step hurriedly back, slipping over an icy patch, but Niel leapt forward and tackled her down onto a thick bed of snow.
With a startled cry Ayla fell back into the snowbank, sinking down a foot.
The knight braced himself over her, his hands pinning her wrists.
One of his legs was between her own, his hip pressing at the crux of her legs.
When his breath came out in a puff of cloud, she felt it against her lips.
She grabbed for her fear, expecting it to overpower her, but found nothing. Instead, only a strange, quivering thrill at his nearness; at the way his body pressed down on hers. It was not terror, or even the cold, that made her shiver beneath him.
“I have you. Yield to me,” Niel said, his face inches from her own and his body pressing hers into the cold of the snow. Triumph shone in his eyes. A prideful, fierce smile.
Ayla stared up at him, mouth parted and eyes wide, heart pounding.
Through all the layers of clothes and armor between them, she couldn’t feel Niel as much more than a hard weight making her body sink deeper into the snow’s embrace.
But her body reacted anyways. She closed her lips to stop a pathetic whimper from escaping.
“Wh—” she started, her mind still spinning. “What are you…?”
Had he really just charged and tackled her—and for the second time in a week, no less? She had not expected anything more than a few lobbed snowballs, and perhaps to put a smile on his face that stayed more than a second.
Niel blinked down at her and lifted his head further away from hers, staring at her with an expression that suddenly looked wary and confused.
“I thought…?” Niel started. “You challenged me to fight—?”
“A snow fight,” Ayla said breathlessly. “We’re only supposed to throw snow at each other, Niel.”
He was off her so fast she could have sworn he knew how to fly. The knight stumbled back, putting feet instantly between them, a rush of cold air and an unpleasant weightless feeling after the comforting press of his body over hers.
“I did not know the rules,” Niel said, the words a rasp, barely a whisper. There was a horrified look on his face, and red in his cheeks. “Forgive me, I…” he took another stumbling step back, but she lifted a hand up out of the snowbank towards him.
“Help me up, at least?” Ayla asked.
With a quick nod, he leaned forward over the snowbank and grasped her mitten in one leather-gloved hand. His grip was firm, despite the shame on his face.
Mercy, but she almost felt guilty. She’d started this whole thing.
She scrambled up, trying not to make him haul too much of her weight. Then, just as her body had cleared the snow, Ayla threw herself down and to the side, yanking as hard as she could on Niel’s hand. With a grunt of surprise, his foot slipping on the icy patch she’d known was there, Niel dropped.
He turned as he fell, to keep from slamming down on her. She let go of his hand and danced back, grabbing for another snowball as the knight sank into the deep snowbank.
Niel sat up slowly, blinking. She tossed her snowball lightly into his chest, where it splattered against the metal plate armor. He looked down at where the snow slid down his armor, then frowned up at her. Snow coated his cloak and clung in small clumps to his dark hair.
That he could look so serious in a situation like this one was somewhat remarkable.
“Do you yield?” Ayla asked.
“My lady,” Niel said slowly. “I acted dishonorably. I…”
“Oh, please.” She reached for another handful of snow. “Have you never heard of subterfuge?”
“Subterfuge?” He looked baffled. “I wrestled you to the ground.”
“You had me trapped. Now you don’t.” She packed the snow quickly as she talked. “Tactics, sir knight. Like I said. Now do you yield, or must I continue to prove my skill at this game?” She cocked her arm back, snowball gripped in one mitten, and raised an eyebrow at him.
Niel was still sitting in the snow, white clinging to his dark hair. He sighed once, and rose to his feet in a smooth motion, faster and more graceful than she would have managed it. She took a wary step back, not taking her eyes from him.
“I didn’t hurt you?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have…”
She threw her snowball at his head to shut him up. Niel bobbed easily out of the way, looking a little surprised.
“If I were honorable I would escort you inside,” he told her.
She grabbed another handful of snow and began to pack it.
“But I suppose I’m not,” he continued, sounding a little regretful.
Niel bent to grab a handful of snow. She lobbed her next snowball at him; he dodged that, too, before hurling a dense, fast-packed snowball straight into her chest. She stumbled back with an oof, her thighs thumping back against another one of the snowbanks.
There was snow beneath her hem and in her boots. Snow in her hair and at the hem of her mittens. It was getting to be quite cold, actually. Ayla reached for another handful of snow. She’d nearly packed it into a ball when it exploded in her hands. She yelped.
She didn’t know how Niel’s aim was so good, when he’d never had a proper snowfight before, but it stood to reason he’d have an unfair advantage at anything that even smelled faintly of combat.
She grabbed for another, not even taking the time to form it before swinging her hand to shower him in a scattering of snow.
She turned, grabbed her skirts, and ran away from the stairs, in the direction of the well.
A snowball smacked against her shoulder and Ayla stumbled before catching herself. She turned and threw her mittened hands up over her head. Her snow-bedraggled cloak swirled around her legs.
“Truce,” Ayla called. Steam puffed from her lips.
The knight stood down the path, packing another snowball between his hands and watching her sharply.
“No truce. Yield, if you want this to end.” He didn’t throw the snowball.
“It’s cold,” Ayla informed him with a shiver.
“Then yield.”
“Come now,” Ayla said. She smacked her numb thighs to get the clumped snow off her dress, and paced towards him. “Surely you can understand—”
Niel quickly took a step back, then another, snowball still in his hand.
“I’ll not fall for your tricks again,” he warned her. “Two words, my lady. Say you yield, and this will end.”
She was ten paces from him now. Ayla stopped walking and folded her arms, shoulders tight with cold.
“Would you deny a lady her dignity?” she asked, her whole body shivering.
“Warfare isn’t kind. You threw the first strike. Say you yield.”
“I’m not beaten yet,” Ayla said. She bent down slowly to grab another handful of snow. Niel lunged forward, pulling back his arm to hurl the snowball her way. She flinched up at him, teeth chattering.
He froze, mere feet from her, and she watched the determination on his face shift away. His brows knitted together, and Niel pressed his lips tight.
“Truce,” he offered abruptly, and dropped his snowball. It split open on the path at his feet. Niel offered her his hand.
“...What?” Hadn’t he just refused her? She looked at his hand for a moment, snow still in her mittens, which had gone damp around her aching fingers, then up to his eyes.
“This war will drag on otherwise, fierce as you are. Come—let’s find a fire and dry these clothes.”
She had little doubt he could have continued, as he’d insisted moments ago. That the knight was just being chivalrous because he could see she was too cold; that she was stubbornly clinging to the battle even though the fun had turned for her.
But he offered her dignity, and she took it, reaching for his hand.