Chapter 36
Talvie
Snow falls. Soft and unending. Swirling through a sky with no source.
It doesn't sting or melt or even touch me, yet a thousand flecks of white catch in a slow waltz, weightless and directionless.
A forest emerges from the haze. Big fluffy flakes float between needled boughs and bare branches. I follow a path I don’t remember, but my feet seem to know. Each step melts into another memory. Every tree I pass changes shape. Every shadow breathes.
My feet float above cobblestones that turn to pine needles, then polished marble, then frozen water. I glance behind me, but I leave no footprints. No sign I’m even here.
Visions flicker; each parting tree bough reveals a new tableau.
A candlelit table in the cottage kitchen.
Petal-bright laughter with Lark’s amber-green eyes.
Moonlight glinting on ice. A pile of blankets and children.
Snowballs mid-flight. Taynia braiding my hair.
No—yanking it. No—tucking flowers behind my ear.
Everything blurs. The more I chase it, the faster it falls apart.
Spinning. Swirling.
Somewhere, someone is humming a familiar tune. The song is sleepy, long forgotten, swaying in my soul.
“Val?”
A voice in the wind. A shimmer on water.
“Talvie.”
My heart twists. I know that voice. I know it like the shape of my hands, the beat of my own pulse. But when I turn, no one is there. Just the whisper of trees and snow that doesn’t touch me. The echo of a name I tried to bury under snowdrifts.
The forest pulses and shimmers around me. Someone whispers near my ear, and warmth brushes my cheek like a soft quilt. I hear the murmur of children, familiar voices, wrapped in safety. Katja. Aili. Mikael.
Then more voices join. Voices I shrink from. Voices that make me want to hide.
The trees close in.
The voices hunt me down until my mind latches onto one that stings with betrayal. “…Princess Talvie hiding with you…”
Princess.
Anything but that word. I don’t want the weight of it. I want the first voice. Lark’s voice. I want him calling me Val, his hands around mine, his smile crooked and his dimples heralding trouble.
“Taynia seems different. Go on…” Beron says.
Taynia.
A sharp ache slices through the fog. A name I once whispered with love, now tangled in thorns.
She changed once before, but is that what he means by different? Or has she changed again?
The snow shifts. The trees flicker and fade. Whispers float. Then finally, I hear the voice I crave.
“Lumi?” Lark calls softly.
The name comes from far away, muffled and distant like the voices that follow.
The snow stops falling.
A faint glow pulses just beyond the trees.
At first I think it’s only another trick of whatever world I’m trapped in, but then the light steadies, stronger than the drifting flurries, warmer than moonlight should be. Something stirs inside me.
The moonlight curves in the sky, a soft crescent gathering itself into a whole.
“Valkie,” Lumi says, her voice carrying like mist through branches. “There you are.”
She hovers, not quite solid, not quite light.
“Am I dreaming?” I whisper.
“No,” she replies gently. “You are caught in a dreamscape, yet not fully asleep. Not lost, for Lumi has found you, but trapped somewhere in between.”
Her light spins, drawing arcs above the forest floor. I reach for her. My fingers pass right through, like dipping my hand in moonlit water.
“Is this real?”
“Enough to matter,” she says, with her usual cryptic tilt. “Come. Follow my moonbeams.”
The trees fall away like curtains pulled back. Words carry through the veil, clearer than before. Closer.
“It wasn’t for you,” Lark says. His voice is a balm, soothing and steady. “It was for Talvie.”
My breath catches at my name from his lips, and tightens when he tells my stepmother that he wanted to give us a chance to connect again.
They’re talking about the play.
I missed the play.
“She hates me,” Taynia says. “She must.”
Pain laces her words. The voice that has been cold and sharp for years now holds emotion I haven’t heard from her in too long. My throat constricts, but no tears will fall. Not here. Lark’s words of defence aren’t as sweet as the knowledge that he did it. He reached her.
“They went ahead with the play?” I ask Lumi.
“They did. For Valkie.”
“They knew? About this curse? About who I really am?”
Lumi rolls and hums. “They did. Little Aili freed Lumi from the ice, and we reached them in time. Valkie thought they would not love you if they knew your true identity, but they did this for you. They reached our queen’s heart and cracked the ice. Now we wait.”
“Help me wake her,” Lark is saying. “There must be a way.”
Yes. Yes! I want to wake. I want to go to him, to tell him I’m here. That I didn’t leave him to do it alone, not on purpose.
Then his voice is quieter.
I cling to it.
“Because I love her.”
My hands tremble. My whole being trembles.
He loves me.
Lumi glows brighter, letting her light circle around me like it’s trying to keep me from shattering.
“I never meant to fall in love with her,” Lark continues, “but how could I not?”
The way they’ve been talking…it hits me like a kraken bite. Lark has known all along who I am. He let me into his home, around the kids, into his bed, all while knowing my true Point Fae nature. This whole time…he saw me. The real me.
“…she could never feel the same about someone like me,” he says.
No. He doesn’t understand. I need to tell him not to listen to Taynia or any of the voices telling him he’s not enough.
He’s wrong…so wrong. How could he think that? He thinks I can’t love him, but I do.
I should have told him. I would have if I wasn’t so scared. I thought I had to keep the princess hidden, but he knew. He knew the whole time. And still…he fell in love with me.
Lumi nudges my shoulder. “You see now?”
“But he doesn’t believe I love him back.”
“That is not the same as it being untrue,” she replies. “He only feels unworthy, the same way you felt like you had to hide. Silly creatures, the both of you.”
They’re talking in the distance. A counterspell. Impossible ingredients. Lark’s oath to get them, because of course he can. He can do anything.
Through it all, my mind aches. My heart throbs with want. The darkness is heavy, even with Lumi’s light as my guide. I push at every dark recess and shadow, straining to reach for them, to find a crack I can slip through.
Lark.
Taynia.
I’m so filled with longing I can barely breathe.
Then: “…true love’s kiss.”
My heart skips. He can wake me.
With just one kiss, he’ll know!
“What?” Lark’s question is weighted with iron, the hope gone from his voice.
No, my heart screams. If he doesn’t believe I love him, will he try?
Lumi’s glow flickers beside me.
“Lumi, I have to wake,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says.
Then her glow wraps around me, holding tight as I slip into the blinding snow.