Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty Five
The silence woke her.
Not the usual pre-dawn quiet of students trying to sleep past the first bell, but something deeper, the peculiar hush that came with an empty dormitory.
Cassara lay still for a moment, disoriented by the absence of Liri’s gentle breathing, the missing sounds of footsteps in the corridor, the lack of muffled conversations through thin walls.
Winter break had officially begun.
The transport had left the day before, carrying away most of Vallemont’s students toward warm homes and warmer welcomes, leaving behind the few who had nowhere else to go, or nowhere else they wanted to be.
Still no word.
The thought slipped in before she could stop it. It had been three days now since Auren had vanished without explanation.
Cassara reluctantly slid from beneath the blankets, the chill seeping up through the floor making her toes curl. She padded barefoot to the arched window alcove, tucking her arms around herself as she leaned closer.
The world beyond had transformed overnight.
Where yesterday there’d been dead grass and gray stone, now everything was draped in white.
Snow blanketed the grounds in thick, pristine layers, turning the familiar landscape into something from a fairy tale.
Ice crystals clung to the window glass, fracturing the morning light into tiny rainbows.
Cassara pressed her palm against the cold pane, mesmerized.
She had never seen snow before, not real snow, not like this.
At the estate, winter came with dry winds and frostbitten windowsills. The fireplaces roared hotter, the servants rotated in thicker layers, and everything outside was kept at bay. The cold was something endured, not embraced.
Here, it felt like something sacred.
Cassara stared for a long moment, forehead pressed against the glass. She hadn’t cried when Auren left, or when the dorms emptied, not even when Liri vanished down the corridor with a cheerful wave.
She was used to being left behind, what she wasn’t used to was feeling the loss that came with it.
Back in the bed, Flicker stirred. He blinked sleep from his eyes, then padded over and pressed his little face to the glass too. His breath left a delicate bloom beside hers.
She wasn’t alone. Not entirely.
What are we looking at?
“Snow. Shall we go outside?”
Can we eat it?
Cassara laughed and moved to her trunk. Beneath the gowns and gear were winter clothing she hadn’t anticipated needing.
She dressed quickly, layering wool and leather against cold she’d never experienced.
The clothes felt foreign, thick boots that changed her gait, gloves that muffled sensation, a hat that threatened to slide over her eyes.
But the scarf, at least, was perfect. Deep crimson wool, soft and long enough to wrap twice around her neck.
If she was going to stumble through her first snowfall, she’d at least look elegant doing it.
The dormitory echoed with her footsteps, abandoned common rooms yawning empty on either side. Even the ever-present hum of daily academy life had faded to nothing. Just her and the silence and the weight of questions without answers.
Outside, her first breath crystallized in the air, and she watched it dissipate with childlike wonder. The snow crunched beneath her boots, a sound she’d never heard before, couldn’t have imagined. Each step required more effort than expected, the powder deeper than it looked.
“Flicker,” she called softly, knowing he’d materialize when ready. A faint shimmer in her peripheral vision caught her attention, but she wasn’t sure if it was him or the light catching on fresh snow. With his silver-white coloring, he’d practically vanished into the landscape.
She wandered without purpose, following paths made foreign by their white blanket. The training grounds looked softer, less militant. The gardens had become abstract sculptures. Even the austere academy buildings seemed gentled by their coating of ice and snow.
A soft poof sound made her turn. Flicker had materialized in the snow nearby, only his eyes and pink nose visible against the all white backdrop. He blinked at her once, then promptly shoved his entire face into a snowdrift.
“What are you—” Cassara started, then stopped as he emerged with snow clinging to his whiskers, looking incredibly pleased with himself. He sneezed, sending tiny ice crystals flying, then dove in again.
This time he disappeared entirely, only a Flicker-shaped hole marking where he’d gone. A moment later, the snow erupted three feet away as he tunneled up like some sort of arctic mole, chirping excitedly.
I like snow.
“You ridiculous creature,” she murmured, but found herself smiling as he began what could only be described as a frenzied snow dance, pouncing on invisible prey, rolling until his fur was more snow than silver, then shaking it all off only to start again.
When he discovered that snow retained paw prints, he spent several minutes walking in careful circles, admiring his own track patterns. Then he tried to catch a falling snowflake, leaping straight up with surprising height, jaws snapping at nothing.
When he finally tired of his snow games, he bounded over to her, leaving a chaotic trail of prints and body-shaped indentations. His fur stood up in frozen spikes, making him look like a tiny, disheveled storm cloud.
“You’re a mess,” Cassara informed him, reaching down to brush some of the accumulated snow from his back. He purred, then immediately ruined her efforts by performing what appeared to be a celebratory backflip directly into another drift.
A figure in the distance caught her attention, a dark shape moving across the white expanse. The stride was familiar, the set of those shoulders unmistakable even at a distance.
Gideon.
He headed toward the eastern grounds, where the academic buildings gave way to rougher terrain. It was less maintained than the school grounds, a stretch of rocky outcroppings and hardy trees that the academy used for advanced survival courses.
What was he doing out here, alone in the snow? She’d assumed he’d spend the break in the library, restructuring their formations, planning for a five-person future.
Without quite deciding to, she found herself following his tracks. The deep impressions made it easy, even for someone who’d never tracked anything through snow before. He moved with surprising confidence across the unfamiliar terrain, as if he knew exactly where he was going.
You’re being ridiculous, following him like some kind of—
Her foot found a hidden dip in the ground, snow giving way to nothing. She windmilled, fighting for balance, and managed to catch herself on a nearby tree. Snow cascaded from the disturbed branches, coating her in a fine layer of white.
When she looked up again, Gideon had stopped walking. He stood perhaps fifty yards ahead, his back still to her, but something in his posture suggested awareness.
Caught.
A shimmer of movement near her feet revealed Flicker, his tiny form barely visible.
You’re bad at this.
“Traitor,” she muttered, brushing snow from her scarf.
Ahead, Gideon still hadn’t turned. But she could almost swear she saw his shoulders shake slightly.
Was he… laughing at her?
The indignity of it burned through her embarrassment. She’d faced legendary beasts, survived academy politics, endured public humiliation. She would not be defeated by frozen water and uneven ground.
Lifting her chin, Cassara stepped out from behind the tree and continued forward, following his tracks with as much dignity as she could muster while wearing a hat that kept sliding sideways.
If he wanted to pretend he hadn’t noticed her ungainly pursuit, she could pretend she’d meant to be there all along.
Gideon waited until she’d closed half the distance between them before finally turning. His expression was perfectly neutral, but she caught the telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said, voice dry.
Cassara lifted her chin, brushing a rebellious strand of hair back under her slipping hat. “Yes, well. I was taking a walk.”
“A walk.” His dark eyes flicked to the obvious trail she’d left following his footsteps. “What a coincidence.”
“Complete coincidence,” she agreed, tugging her scarf higher to hide the heat creeping up her neck. “The grounds are quite lovely in the snow.”
“Mm-hmm.” He studied her for a moment longer, taking in the snow still clinging to her coat from her earlier tree collision. “And you always take your morning walks creeping behind other people?”
“I strive to maintain a respectful distance from all fellow pedestrians.”
“How considerate of you.”
They stood there in the crystalline morning, the absurdity of the exchange not lost to either of them. Finally, Gideon’s mouth curled into a smile.
“Well,” he said, “since we’re coincidentally walking in the same direction…” He tilted his head toward the eastern path. “Shall we?”
He offered an arm but Cassara ignored it.
“I can walk.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Suit yourself.”
She fell into step beside him, pretending her curiosity wasn’t eating her alive. “Where exactly are we coincidentally going?”
“You’ll see.”
The terrain grew rougher the further they moved away from the manicured grounds. Walking beside him proved no easier than following, the snow seemed determined to hide every root, rock, and dip in the earth. She managed perhaps a dozen steps before her boot caught on something invisible.
She pitched forward with a startled yelp, but Gideon’s hand shot out, catching her elbow and hauling her upright before she could face-plant in the snow. The momentum brought her stumbling against his chest, her gloved hands splaying against his coat for balance.
“Careful,” he murmured, steadying her with both hands now. “The snow is beautiful but can be treacherous when you don’t know what’s hiding underneath.”