CHAPTER THIRTEEN #3
“Have I?” he finally says, settling somewhere behind me. I don’t turn around, I simply tend to the stone, wishing I had never left them at all.
“Mm.” I nod. “They’re terribly overgrown.” I rise, moving to the next, pulling a dead vine free from around it before tossing it into the snow beside me. “I thought Death would have been a little better at looking after dead people.”
His boots crunch softly behind me, following me deeper amongst the rows of graves. He doesn’t rush me. Doesn’t tell me to hurry. He simply wanders wherever I wander, watching with quiet amusement as though he’s trying to understand why this is home to me. My real home. More so than anywhere else.
“Is that what you think I do?”
“Well…” I glance around the little cemetery, smiling to myself as another familiar name emerges beneath my fingertips. “I assumed maintenance came with the job.”
A quiet huff escapes him, but I don’t bother looking back. The dark will set in soon, and there isn’t much time with how much work there is to do here.
“Oh, yeah, and what job would that be?”
I tease a stubborn root free from the frozen earth as cautiously as I can, careful not to disturb my sleeping friend.
“Yours,” I reply, because isn’t it obvious?
“Mine.”
“Mhm.” I nod, dropping the handful of debris into a growing pile beside my feet.
“You took them away. It seems rather impolite not to come back every now and then to make sure they’re alright.
” I glance around at the rows, satisfied when I’ve cleared at least half of the rubble.
I’ll do the rest tomorrow. But for now, it’s getting dark, and it’ll take me at least an hour to get back to the cottage.
The air is growing colder with each passing second beneath the fading light, the endless white that surrounds us turning to deep blues and soft violets as evening stretches lazily across the hills and forest. Shadows grow longer between the stones, swallowing the carvings I’d only just uncovered.
They’ll still be here tomorrow. I’ll come back then.
“Sleep well,” I whisper. “I’m not done with you just yet,” I promise, and as I turn, I walk straight into something solid. “Oh.”
The world almost tips on its axis. A quiet gasp catches somewhere in my throat as my feet slip against something, but before I can fall, two broad hands find my arms, steadying me.
For a fleeting moment, neither of us moves.
His fingers remain wrapped around me, warm through the ice that bites at my skin, his grip firm enough to keep me upright but impossibly gentle, never tightening, never demanding more than my balance and safety.
The warmth spreads through me until I can no longer tell if it’s coming from his touch or somewhere much deeper inside me.
I hadn’t remembered him being this close.
The top of my head barely reaches his chest, my nose filled with the clean scent of spice and worn leather and something darker that belongs only to him. I can hear him breathing. Slow. Steady. Unhurried. It rumbles softly beneath my ear, grounding me in a way I don’t quite understand.
Carefully, almost afraid the moment might disappear, if I move too quickly, my gaze begins the slow climb upward, following the line of his jacket to the rough shadow darkening his jaw before finally finding his face.
He’s already looking at me. Not through me.
At me. His amber eyes catch the last of the dying daylight filtering through the trees, turning molten against the snow surrounding us, and for a strange, impossible moment, the whole world seems to still.
Even the wind grows silent, as though holding its breath.
Something inside me forgets myself. My breath catches somewhere behind my ribs, and I swallow against the sudden little knot gathering in my throat, unable to decide whether I want him to let me go, or never move his hands again.
He doesn’t release me immediately. His fingers rest lightly against the sleeves of my cloak, almost absentmindedly, as though he’s reassuring himself that I’ve found my footing before trusting the earth to hold me instead.
Nobody has ever been this careful with me, and the realization steals the words from my mouth.
When he finally lets go, the cold returns all at once, slipping back into the space his hands had occupied only seconds before, leaving little echoes of warmth lingering against my arms.
“Stay,” he says quietly, a plea disguised as an instruction. Something in his voice catches, rough around the edges in a way it hadn’t been all afternoon, and my gaze searches his face for the reason. My eyes widen slightly when I realize... he’s almost afraid I’ll say no.
I glance back toward the road leading home, disappearing into darkness behind the thicket of trees. Home. Yet, far from it.
The men are gone. The dogs are gone. The cottage will still be there tomorrow, and so will everything waiting inside it. But Death might not be.
My fingers curl tight around the edge of my cloak before I look back up at him.
“Okay.”