Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Queen of the Wild.
Our kiss became a ghost that haunted me—we did not speak of it again, but its echo whispered warmth over my lips and heated every stolen glance.
In the dark hours I woke bitterly from dreams that slipped too soon from my grasp, and I was left to trust my frantic fingers to soothe the hollow, aching need within.
In the mornings I awoke heavy and sore, and I was glad for eager teapots and pesky milk jugs to keep my thoughts and hands occupied until sunlight gilded the thawing river and beckoned me to the cat-shaped hill.
Adrik and I had gone there as soon as we’d risen from our wildflower bed. We’d found Almira among her roses, sprightly as a kitten in the spring.
She’d grinned at us from the shadows of her wide-rimmed hat and said, “The wind has a fondness for gossip.”
I’d flushed—pink as a winter sunrise, if Adrik was to be believed—and he’d winked at me all too casually before he strolled chuckling down the hill. Only the slightest touch of red at the tip of his ears had betrayed him.
I’d spent that evening, and most waking hours since, with Almira.
I listened to her tales and she to mine, and we sat for hours on the burrow’s overgrown roof while I breathed warmth back into the vale.
I learned always to keep a sliver of magic—a length of that bright, golden thread—at my fingertips, and to let it spill just with a quick prick of the finger, clutching the still-warm pebble I kept in the pocket of my coat.
I adorned the trees with flowers with a mere brush of the hand and I swept through the glade, flowers blooming in my wake. When I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the pond or in the river, there was a glow around me—a dusting of gold and warmth that seemed to follow me wherever I went.
From the snow-swept hillcrest, I watched life return to the vale; I watched it return to Almira, too.
Two mornings after I’d taken the storm from her, I found her dancing in the pond, white hair floating among lily pads.
The following night, when I returned proudly and wearily from the orchard with a basket of fresh peaches, I found her spinning strings of silver from the starlit river. She was crying.
“I did not think I would feel like this again,” she said as I came close. The air around her was thick with magic. “Come girl, let us cherish the wild together.”
I sat by the riverside and watched as she weaved fireflies into the brambles and adorned their twigs with summer-red berries. I sat barefooted, the water warm as it licked my feet. By dawn, Almira had fallen asleep on a bed of tangled roots and autumn-gold leaves, but I was wide awake.
Adrik found me—when he came with oven-warm bread to make certain we ate—cross-legged in the meadow like a madwoman. But he did not look at me like I was mad at all. He only brushed a finger to the pink-blossomed vines I’d woven like a gown around me, and smiled.
Then, he sat in the grass with me and weaved with nimble fingers a crown from the golden daisies I’d grown. He placed it gently on my brow.
“Evana,” he breathed. “Queen of the Wild.”
When Almira woke, dewdrops glistening in her hair, she announced that there would be a dance. “You are in the prime of youth and I am in the prime of age,” she said to Adrik and me as we sat at her kitchen table eating bread with fresh blackberry jam. “We must celebrate.”
Her idea was met wherever she went with excitement—it had been too long since the people of Wildemire had a reason to celebrate. The full moon was upon us, and there was, according to everyone we met, no better night for a dance.
Only Lorell seemed not to be in favour. “I do not understand,” he grumbled when I sat with him and Adrik at supper. “Winter gives way to spring, as it should. It has done so for a thousand centuries, and it will continue to do so whether we dance or not.”
It was not a true spring, of course. Of this I was bitterly reminded as I tossed and turned in the twilit hours, shadows creeping across the far wall and into my thoughts.
I cracked beneath the weight of the storm and shivered with its ice-cold anguish, and Zora came with tea and a rag to wipe the sweat from my brow.
I did not tell her that it was useless. I did not tell anyone that all which saved me was a still-warm pebble in my hand.
Even so, the wind thumped angrily against doors and windows, and the cold returned that morning with a vengeance.
I climbed the hill once more and I kneeled in the untouched snow to breathe warmth and life anew into the golden roots until darkness swept into my vision.
It was gruelling work, but I did not mind.
It was far from perfect, but I did not mind that either, and neither did the townsfolk.
We were alive, and on the better days—when I woke well-rested and light-hearted, and the weight of the storm faded to a small stain at the back of my mind—we even thrived.
In the days before the dance I found myself often idle.
Almira had gone to the castle to organize decorations and food and drink.
Half of the town had followed her there, glad to be put to work.
I was to rest, according to Almira and Adrik.
Lorell and I sat for long hours by the hearth to read and, whenever Bahra allowed it, to indulge in companionable silence.
“The baker was gone this morning,” Lorell said suddenly, as we waited for Adrik to return from another late night at the castle to craft garlands.
“Adrik said he has moved to the castle kitchens for now,” I said absently, standing to cast another glance from the window.
I saw only myself in the dark pane, cheeks dusted with gold and hair a little wild.
There was sometimes a flutter in my stomach and sometimes a knot, and I never quite knew whether I craved Adrik’s presence or dreaded it.
“He had not enough space in his oven for the cakes.”
The following night, I found myself alone by the hearth.
I pretended to read for a while, but there came clatters and grumbles from Lorell’s chamber that quite baffled me.
He emerged, at long last, dressed in his finest jacket and a pelt hat.
For his sake, I pretended not to notice; his face was red as a flame and he was trying clumsily to dodge my vision.
“I left you some soup on the stove,” I said.
“No need, girl,” he huffed. “I am certain there will be food at the castle.”
I trudged along with him, only to ensure he arrived safely.
As we neared the castle the knot in my stomach tightened and the flutter worsened.
I felt quite nauseous as I thought of torchlit castle halls and silken sheets and a balcony beneath the stars.
There was scarce a light in town—only the castle glowed like a torch on its hill, much brighter than I’d ever seen it.
We had just passed the dark-windowed bakery when a shadow broke from the teahouse’s wall and scurried into the riverside thicket. I stifled a shriek and grasped Lorell’s sleeve.
“Quiet,” I hissed, pulling him with me into the unlit doorway of Kalina’s boutique. The thicket gave a shiver, branches snapping underfoot. I clutched the pebble. Fingertips tingling with power, I called into the night, “Who is there?”
Another snap, a whispered curse. I did not recognize the voice until I caught a glimpse of a deep-red cloak amid the thorns.
My fear turned swiftly into irritation. “Malek?”
The rustling ceased. Lorell gave an impatient huff and I thought for a moment that Malek might rather remain all night in the thicket than show himself.
With another curse, he stepped forth. He looked ghastly.
His cloak hung in thorn-shredded scraps from his frail shoulders and broken twigs littered his thinning hair.
“Ah,” he said, plucking a leaf from his cloak. “Good evening, sir. Good evening, madam.” He bowed, stiff as a board. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, madam.” He disappeared quickly into the dark, like a scolded dog tucking its tail.
“I find him quite unnerving,” I muttered, releasing Lorell’s sleeve and reeling back the threads of magic I’d unspooled for our protection.
“That is just Malek,” Lorell assured me as we continued toward the castle. “He has always been like that.”
I spent the following morning restless with nerves, though I could not say why.
As the sun began its descent, Zora and I met Almira at the burrow, where we helped each other into our dresses and weaved pearls into our hair.
I’d never known such soft delights. When I caught a glimpse in the mirror, hurrying past to fetch rosewater for Almira, I stilled for a beat.
The warm, hearty meals had filled the hollows in my face with pink health, and my curls gleamed like feathers of a raven.
A glow came from me, sweet as a spring sunrise.
I blushed when I noticed that the silken dress I wore was not at all dark green—it was the precise color of rivermoss speckled with golden late-winter sun.
Zora snickered madly when she saw me, nearly spilling her glass of berry-wine down her sun-gold skirt.
I could not keep a straight mind after that. I blamed it on the sweet wine, flooding my blood with warmth and my thoughts with stupor; but in truth my breath caught whenever the cool silk of my dress whispered against my skin, reminding me of searching fingers, stolen breaths, eager hands.
Torment, I called it silently, and hoped it would never end.
We left the burrow as the sun kissed the hills and found ourselves soon amid a tangle of townsfolk, all dressed in finery and abuzz with glee.
As we neared the castle—snow melting underfoot, leaving a trail of wildflowers in our step—the air began to sing.
It must have come from the ballroom and swept through the arches, but it rang brightly and clearly through the vale as if the wind and stone and trees had come together to serenade us.