Amid the Winter Snow

by Grace Draven

  Laughing at the face he made, she replied, “I was three. Outside, the shiny woman disappeared, but I could hear her voice, and I could feel when she nudged me. Our house sat at the edge of town, and she led me into the forest, past the ruins of a building, and along a creek—and as I walked, everything around me changed. Suddenly it was daylight, and I was in a field, and there was no creek, nor were there any ruins. I had walked down a crossover passageway.”

  At this point in the story, his gaze never left her face. “Were you frightened?”

  Shrugging, she told him, “Sure, a couple of times. But at first I was too excited to get to my new home and mommy. Then I was bored. After that I got used to it, I guess. When I was found, apparently I’d been wandering the countryside for more than a month.”

  “This story is killing me. You were three?” He shook his head. “It’s a miracle you survived. What did you eat?”

  She took the can back from him. “I ate the mushrooms and the berries the goddess told me to eat and drank at streams when she told me to drink. I had my bunny and my pillow, and I slept in the woods.”

  He blew out a breath. “Nobody can survive on berries and mushrooms for a month, especially not a small growing child.”

  She laughed. “I know, right? They told me I was in remarkable shape for everything I’d been through—my teeth were perfect, and I was healthy, and fit, and very, very dirty.”

  “In Ys.”

  “Yes, in Ys.” Scraping the sides of the can, she carefully licked the sauce off the blade. “Since discovering a new crossover passageway is officially a very big deal, Raella sent priestesses to verify everything in person. They interviewed everyone in the town and searched for ten miles in every direction.” She paused. “They found the creek and the ruins—they learned it had once been a courthouse—but there was no passageway. The house where I’d lived had burned to the ground early one morning. The fire had killed my mother and her boyfriend in their sleep, but they never discovered the body of a child. That’s all I know. The abbey took me in, and I’ve been here ever since.”

  Setting the empty can aside, she avoided looking at him. While the consternation and awe she saw at times in other people’s faces was understandable, it also made her feel lonely and isolated. She didn’t want to see that in his expression.

  Long, lean fingers came under her chin, and he coaxed her around to face him. Feeling cranky, she complied. Fine. How he felt about her was irrelevant anyway.

  What she saw in his gaze melted away her crankiness. His eyes were alight with… admiration? Respect? “I am beyond honored to meet that brave little girl.”

  That was a stupid thing to say. She had no business feeling touched by it or warmed in any way. “That little girl has been gone for twenty-four years.”

  “Of course she’s not gone. She still lives inside you, and you have her magic and her bravery.” He caressed her cheek. “My advance scout reported that, while he was here, he heard people talking of the new Chosen. They said she was kind and thoughtful and a true visionary in every sense of the word. Your people love you.”

  Despite the harsh words she and Gennita had exchanged, she knew it was true. Her people did love her. The ones she had sent out to fight and die loved her. Wulf’s face disappeared in a blur.

  He said, “Don’t let those demons back in, Lily.”

  She had to push her lips together hard before she could whisper, “I sent people out to fight today. I sent friends out to fight today, and some of them won’t come back.”

  A long silence greeted those words. “Was this your first time?”

  Nodding, she swiped at the tears that spilled over. “Like I said—this is mine to deal with. But today was a hard day.”

  Cupping the back of her neck, he kissed her forehead. His lips were warm and firm. “In case you were wondering, no, it doesn’t get easier. You’ll need to find ways to cope with it.”

  “I know. And I need to find ways to better handle opposition and conflict. I had a bad run-in with one of the elders on the council earlier. I don’t think our relationship is ever going to be the same.”

  He murmured as if to himself, “You’re not going to let me ride in and fix all your problems, are you?”

  With a snap of focus, she met his gaze. “What do you think?”

  He chuckled. “I think I just came up against one of those boundaries again.” Sobering, he continued. “I might not be able to fix your problems, but I’ve been in command for a lot longer than you. If I might offer a small piece of advice, don’t be too nice tomorrow. Discourse and disagreement are one thing, but don’t let anyone challenge your authority or show you disrespect. You’re the one in charge, not them.”

  She groaned and clapped her hands over her face. “She was one of my teachers. I used to sit on her lap for story time.”

  “Poor Lily.” He rubbed her back. “Do you still need to sit on her lap for story time?”

  “What?” She straightened and glared at him. “No!”

  Wulf loved watching how her gaze sparked, so much so that he was tempted to needle her further. But behind that flash of fire, there was real exhaustion, and dark smudges circled her eyes.

  Instead, he shrugged. “Sounds like you know things have moved on. While you haven’t told me what you two said to each other, maybe she needs to be reminded of that too.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down. “I’ll think it over.”

  “Good.” He was still hungry. Now that she no longer needed his knife to eat the appalling orange food, he spread more caviar on salt bread and ate. “Don’t mind me. Go ahead and help yourself to the chocolate.”

  While he braced for another argument, this time she surprised him and reached for the candy. “You have destroyed my integrity. I won’t forget this.”

  He nudged her shoulder with his. “No one need ever know about the chocolate and that other weird orange stuff. Your secret is safe with me.”

  Giving him a lopsided smile, she broke a chocolate bar into pieces. “We’ve talked more than enough about me. What about you? What was your childhood like?”

  “Mine was as straight and uncomplicated as an arrow. Nothing cutthroat, no funny business, no disappearing crossover passageways. I roamed a little too far sometimes, I was cosseted by everyone, and my curfew was my stomach. I was always home by supper.”

  “Your mother was lady of Braugne, correct?”

  “That’s right.” When he finished the caviar, he ate the last of the salt wafers, then looked around with regret. He was still hungry. “Her first husband died after she had Kris. After a few years, she remarried and gave birth to me. I was always thrilled that he was the heir. There was no way in hell I wanted to rule Braugne.”

  He still didn’t. Now he wanted to rule all of Ys.

  She hesitated, then said, “You’re so sure Varian had your brother killed… Do you have proof?”

  Instead of answering right away, he leaned back on one elbow as he regarded her. Scooting around, she turned to face him and leaned on her side too, propping her head on the heel of one hand.

  The glow of the firelight gilded her skin with gold. At first he hadn’t noticed her in the group on the dock. All his attention had been on her pretty, fiery prime minister.

  Then, gradually, Lily had captured more and more of his attention, until now he couldn’t look away from her.

  He couldn’t believe how beautiful she was, and how sophisticated the subtle play of her expressions were. And he couldn’t stop touching her.

  Capturing her hand, he played with her fingers. “Braugne has always been a cash-poor kingdom. Our country is mountainous, splendid, and unforgiving. We can feed and house our own, and our goats and sheep are some of the hardiest stock a farmer could ever hope to have, but to date, our biggest exports have been iron, a little copper, and salt from mining.”

  She played with his fingers too. It was such a small intimacy, but her touch sent a trail of liquid fire running through hi
s veins.

  “That’s about the extent of what I know about Braugne,” she admitted.

  “We also have no access to the advantages that crossover passageways can give to a kingdom. Neither do Karre or Mignez. Those advantages have been largely enjoyed by Guerlan, Calles, and Chivres. Not only are those passageways further out of reach for the rest of us, most of them levy taxes on the usage of them.”

  A frown creased her forehead. “I never considered that inequity before. Sometime I would like to discuss ways we might change that.”

  Bless her. He almost kissed her.

  He intended to change that too, to level some of the inequities in the richer kingdoms while bringing more opportunities to the poorest. She had been right. He had the soul of a conqueror and the drive to see the conquest through.

  But he was unwilling to steer things in that direction, and he didn’t want to rile her. He wanted more of this calm, private conversation.

  So for now he compromised and pressed her fingers to his lips. “I would like that. But to get back to your question, last year Varian approached my brother. He offered a treaty to lease several thousand hectares of land to Guerlan for a hundred years. Varian’s envoy said it was for hunting purposes. His king was eager to explore the vast and magnificent challenge of hunting the wild boars, mountain lions, and firedrakes in Braugne.”

  Her eyebrows rose as she considered that. “Are firedrakes difficult to kill?”

  “Extremely. Their bodies are about the size of a large mastiff, not counting their tails, and they have teeth almost as long as the length of my hand.”

  She eyed him curiously. “Do they really spit fire?”

  “It burns like fire, but it’s more like an acid that will eat your flesh from the bone if you let them spray you. They’re also smart like feral cats, and very fast, so hunting them is not a safe pursuit, yet apparently Varian was eager to try it. Kris told him he would take the winter to consider the proposal. Signing a hundred-year lease wasn’t something to do lightly. Plus it bothered him. Why a hundred years? Varian’s in his midthirties. By the time forty or fifty more years have passed, he won’t be hunting anything. Still, the money was tempting. There was a lot we could do with it.”

  She muttered, “I’m waiting for the story to turn bad.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Events transpired over some time, but the story does turn pretty quickly. Kris thought about the treaty while Varian’s envoy wintered at our court. He was funny and charming and persuasive, and yet why the hundred years? Why that tract of land? The only thing it had ever been good for was a salt mine that everybody knew was almost played out. So Kris set me to the task of finding out why.”

  “And did you?”

  Wulf thought back over the long, painstaking investigation. Having the Guerlan envoy followed, intercepting messages, uncovering, bit by bit, a network of Guerlan spies that had insinuated itself into the kingdom, and the slow build of incredulous anger at what he discovered.

  “It took me and my team of investigators several months, but I did,” he told her. “Over the past decade, Varian has quietly developed a presence in our mining towns, and he’s been spying on our explorations. It turns out the mine on the land he wanted to rent was almost played out for salt, which everyone had already known. But the real news was, the miners had struck gold instead.”

  ~ 9 ~

  She straightened. “And you didn’t know.”

  “Correct. Varian bribed the mine operator, who was reporting to him. The miner who made the actual discovery had died in a fall, his death ruled an accident, and the town was already half abandoned as people were leaving to seek out opportunities in other places. If Kris had signed that lease, all the proceeds from the mine would have been Guerlan’s for a hundred years.”

  Outrage flashed across her face. “What happened next?”

  “Kris lost his temper.” Wulf sat up too and crossed his arms over upraised knees. “I’d been in command of his army for several years, but he insisted on leading a force himself to confront the mine operator. My job was to finish rooting out all the other Guerlan spies in our mining operations. He headed out just before midsummer. That was the last time I saw him alive, or any of the troops that went with him. We’ve recovered most of the bodies, but we haven’t found Kris’s yet.”

  She touched his hand. “I can hear how much you loved your brother by the way you talk about him. Do you know what caused the avalanche?”

  “We found residues of oil, and my witches say there was some kind of magic compounded with it. And I have a heavy weight of evidence that proves Varian’s been spying on Braugne for years and conspiring to steal our resources.” Tightening his hands into fists, he added between clenched teeth, “So yes, I have more than enough to justify marching on Guerlan, and I plan on ramming the evidence down Varian’s throat when I get there.”

  “I see.” She started to say something else but was interrupted by a knock on her door. She froze and stared at him.

  The knock sounded again, and she jumped.

  After tensing, Wulf relaxed again and spread his hands. He had taken the risk in coming, and now he had to go with it. He had to trust her.

  “You need to answer that,” he told her. “If you don’t, they’ll panic and break down your door.”

  As if he had lit a fire under her, she jumped to her feet. “Just a moment—I’m coming!” she shouted. She glanced at the chocolate wrappers, the can, and the empty jars strewn on the floor and threw up her hands. Then she whirled to look at his equipment by the wall. Pointing to an open doorway, she hissed, “Quick—grab your stuff and go into my bedroom!”

  Even as he sprang into action, he bit back a smile. Yes, it might have been a risk, but he had known he could rely on her. Scooping up his things, he loped through the doorway into a darkened room, glided quietly to a stop against one wall, and listened.

  Wood scraped as she unbarred and opened the door. “What is it, Margot?”

  Ah, the Chosen’s ever-annoying prime minister. Wulf rubbed his chin with the back of one hand. She was quite the perpetual asshole, that one.

  “You didn’t come down for supper, so I wanted to check on you, to see if you’re all right,” Margot said. “Honey, have you been crying?”

  “Yes,” Lily said. “And no, I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  “Are you sure? I’m here if you need me.”

  “I know you are.” Lily’s voice warmed. “And that means a lot to me. Right now I just need to be by myself. It’s hard to wait, you know?”

  “I do know.” Margot’s own voice was somber. “Can I at least send someone up with a supper tray?”

  “Not tonight. I ate some snacks, so I’m not hungry.” She said firmly, “Thank you for checking on me. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “All right.” When he didn’t hear the sound of the door closing right away, he could sense that Margot lingered, reluctant to leave. “Good night, Lily. Try to get some sleep.”

  “You too.”

  There was a rustle of clothing, then, finally, the sound of the door latching followed by the thump of the bar dropping into place.

  When Wulf strolled out, he found Lily leaning against the door with her forehead pressed to it, shoulders slumped. She looked so dejected, he set his equipment to one side, strode over, and pulled her into his arms.

  Margot was not the only perpetual asshole. He was one too.

  He had come all this way to fight with Lily, but he had come for other reasons too. He wanted to finish that conversation they had started back in his tent. He had been intent on seduction because she didn’t get to leave him. He’d leave her when he was done with her.

  Only now he couldn’t. He recognized all the cues that told him if he pushed, he might still have her for the night. After first stiffening, she turned into his hold and rested her head on his shoulder, and the trust in that gesture tied him more irrevocably than any of her invisible boundaries.

 
; If he pushed her now, she might succumb, but her heart and mind were so weighed by other matters he might also lose her afterward, and if he did lose her, it would only be what he deserved. Besides, he didn’t want to be that kind of selfish man.

  He said into her hair, “I can’t solve all your problems. I can’t make it better. I couldn’t save that mining town. I couldn’t protect my brother, and I don’t want to stop what I intend to do next. But if you’ll let me, I can hold you for a little while. I would very much like to do that.”

  Slowly her arms stole around his waist. He was ferociously glad of that, and proud of how she leaned against him now, and determined to be worthy of it.

  She whispered, “I would like that too.”

  Walking her back to the sitting area, he coaxed her onto the couch, and when she sat beside him, he pulled her into his arms again. Tentatively, they explored this strange new definition, her slender body fitting against his much longer frame, her head resting on his shoulder, his cheek resting against the top of her head.

  As they settled, something happened to Wulf, something he hadn’t seen coming. For so long, he had carried a hard, cold knot of rage in his chest. He had grown so used to living with it, he only just became aware of its existence again as it warmed and eased into something that felt remarkably like comfort.

  Damn it. He had meant to comfort her. Turned out, she was comforting him. He remembered the sick drop in his gut when he realized Kris had died, thought of his brother’s missing body, and his eyes grew damp.

  Tightening his arms, he held her and they watched the bright flames in the fireplace. After a while, he realized there wasn’t any stacked wood nearby. Neither of them had done anything to fuel the fire, yet it crackled as if it had been newly started, and the logs still looked quite fresh.

  It was just one of the many miracles that hovered about Lily like fireflies glowing in the dark, and for the first time in his life, Wulf prayed.

  I want her, he said to Camael as he stared fiercely into the flames. In fact, I want her more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. She might be your Chosen, but you’d better be prepared to share.