What the hells happened?
My head was lost in a smoky haze as I tried to recall how—why—my body had ceased functioning. Even fury, the familiar spark of my magic in my veins, faded into something cold and harsh.
Like everything about his gods-forsaken place.
My head bounced against something velvety soft, but rather pungent. Like piss and dust. My eyes cracked. The sky was dim, but old Svӓrd with his pearly coat was unmistakable. Gods, the horse reeked. I groaned and tried to peel myself off the beast but—as I said—my body had ceased functioning.
The only movement I could manage was violent, unrelenting shivering.
“Almost there, fae.”
Who was that? A familiar voice, yet unfamiliar all at once. As if I’d spoken with this voice before, but perhaps not often.
My mind moved slowly. What were my last memories? Dagar and Kjell were with me. My brow furrowed. We were . . . separated. Right, Svӓrd, the skittish fool, startled and sprinted down a steep path. I’d been trying to backtrack when . . .
I groaned through another convulsion.
So cold. It was a bit of a miracle I even remembered my bleeding name.
“Hang on,” the soft, strangely warm voice said.
I’d like to wrap myself up in it and get rid of the icy chill racing down my spine.
Ice. Hells, I broke through ice. Now, I remembered. The horse stepped over the surface, it cracked, he startled again, and I went over.
I wanted to flick Svӓrd, but couldn’t get my hand to cooperate. Damn horse. This was all his fault. First, if he wouldn’t have bolted away from my friends. Second, if he would’ve had the brains not to step on ice!
I checked off moments after. Falling through the ice stung like a thousand knives cutting all over my body. The memory of it raised the hair on my body even more than the shivering. Somehow I’d kicked my way to the surface.
Unaccustomed to cold like the third hell, my mind faded quickly. The next moment I remember was . . . the woman. A woman appeared and spoke with me, and helped me mount the bleeding horse.
The knot of confusion unraveled the more I pulled the events leading to this moment up to the surface.
But a new concern shaped. Who was the woman? Did she know me? If she did, would she be counted as friend or foe? No mistake, if she turned on me, cold as I was, even with my height and strength I wouldn’t be able to fight off a squirrel.
All at once, Svӓrd stopped. My insides, brain, heart, all lurched around until I was certain I’d spill anything I’d ever eaten since birth.
“All right, fae, this will need to do.”
The horse blanket shifted at my back. I didn’t have the strength to care what she was doing. Next, hands curled around my cloak and tugged. For a breath, I was freefalling until the cold, bitter soil smashed against my backside. Bright, hot pain went through my shoulder like a shock. But at least it was warm.
“Sorry. I thought I had you. Only a few more steps. Should be large enough to fit the horse.”
My eyes fluttered open. Ahead of me a gaping hole stared back. One of the many caves these bleeding cliffs had, no doubt.
“D-don’t care—” I paused, waiting for my tongue to work. “Let the b-bastard f-f-freeze.”
She chuckled, and muttered more about fae folk. If she called me fae, then she was Timoran.
The woman took my arm and draped it over her shoulders. At this angle, I walked with knees bent. She had to be nearly two heads shorter than me, but thank gods she had the guts to try. A lesser woman would’ve given up carrying my body around in the frigid night.
Moonlight faded into inky pitch. The woman nickered, then tugged on something.
“Svӓrd.” My voice came out in hardly a whisper. I shivered, breathing rapidly through my nose until I caught my breath again. “His name. Comes when h-he’s called.”
“Svӓrd,” the woman said gently. “Come on, you coward. I’ll have light soon enough.”
Only a dozen paces or so more and she dropped me. I hadn’t anticipated to fall over like a wet reed, but the surface of my body insisted on convulsing and shivering instead of functioning. For a fleeting moment I worried what other embarrassing things I’d done involuntarily in front of this woman. Pissed myself? Worse?
She hardly seemed bothered as the shadow of her moved away from me.
“Just starting a fire, fae. Then we’ll get you warm. Hang on.”
I wanted to respond, say something exceptional, but my jaw locked instead. I let my head fall back on the hard stone, shuddering, and breathing heavily.
It took time to spark a flame. My head wanted to fall asleep, but the woman kept accidentally stepping on my feet or legs as she maneuvered around, blowing on the flame, and adding small bits of kindling she kept pulling from her fur coat.
With more light, my vision started to focus. The horse seemed to be tethered a few paces off. The blurry shape of another person sprinted past me, then returned a few moments later, tossing something on the small fire.
“All right,” she said to herself. “That should last.”
She wheeled on me next, her hands going—hells—going to my belt. The woman tugged off my boots, while one hand worked to loosen the boiled leather belt sheathing my seax to my waist.
Her hands were chilled against my skin when she pulled away my soaked cloak and lifted my tunic to tug at my trousers. I jolted, and covered my discomposure with a grin. Truth be told, it might’ve come out as a grimace more than anything.
“You . . . you know,” I said, voice quivering. “I-I-I usually know m-more than a name before a w-w-woman gets me out of my clothes.”
She paused, head tilted to one side. “You are quite the witty fae, aren’t you? One foot in the Otherworld, and this is how you talk.”
“I would rather meet the g-g-great hall with a grin.”
She peeled back my tunic, leaving my chest bare, then worked on my lower half. I closed my eyes, a little uneasy, but cold enough it didn’t matter what she saw. Besides I took a bit of pleasure from her breathy voice when I was at last naked.
“All gods,” she whispered.
I forced my eyes open, prepared to offer some irritating comment on my girth and impressive figure, but lost my voice when her crystal eyes locked with mine. Blue like the sea, with bits of green woven through like summer fields in Etta. Even buried beneath a fur hood, her skin reminded me of the blue cream of fresh milk, and her lips, pink as rowan berries.
A fire lived in those blue eyes. Short in stature, skin and bones beneath the heavy fur, but this woman had the spirit of the gods.
I could not look away.
Doubtless my gawking was the reason for her frown. She pinched her lips into a tight line, then tossed back her hood from her pale hair, unfastened the hook at the nape of her coat, and slithered from the warmth of the massive fur.
I widened my eyes when it settled in my head what she was doing.
She stripped a leather jerkin, then unfastened her own belt with a knife, axe, and curved seax. She stood and—by the gods—she tugged off her own trousers, revealing pale snow legs.
“W-what are you—”
“You need to get warm, or you’ll freeze before dawn. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a woman, fae. Nothing to be ashamed about, so stop looking at me like I’ve revealed a great secret.”
She rendered me speechless when she pulled off the woolen tunic until only a strip of thin linen hid her breasts from me.
The woman winced and inspected a gash on her side.
“You’re h-h-hurt.”
She waved the thought away. “Nothing a bandage won’t fix.”
After a few moments rustling through her coat, the woman secured what seemed to be a knit scarf tightly around her bloodied ribs.
My throat dried when she—now utterly naked save for the scarf—reached for the fur coat, then settled onto her side next to me.
“Roll over,” she commanded. “Your back to my front.”
I blinked, but obeyed. She pulled her coat over the top of us, then wrapped her slender arms around my waist. Her palm splayed over my heart and she rubbed. Faster and faster until the shivers running through my body started to ease.
“You hardly fit me. I should h-hold you.”
She stopped rubbing. “We’re fine like this.”
I wasn’t so sure. The sensation of her nakedness against mine was promptly becoming the single most focus of my frozen brain.
“Any better, fae?”
It was. My body still trembled, but nothing violent, nothing so bad I couldn’t tolerate it. I covered her hand over my heart, holding her palm against the steady hum. “If I recall, I told you my name. Have you already forgotten?”
She scoffed. “Have you forgotten mine?”
It took a moment, but I remembered.
“No. Lilianna. True? I’ll admit the last hours are more like a blur and I’m not sure what is reality or not.”
She chuckled and gently rubbed circles over my chest when a single, harsh shudder raced through my body. “It is Lilianna, Arvad.”
Lilianna had a bite to her tone sometimes. I went out on a limb and guessed she didn’t have much respect for Night Folk. In truth, I didn’t have much respect for Timoran folk.
At least not until tonight.
We’d come to visit with Ambassador Vargus over new trade agreements, and I had few plans to stop and mingle with the people of this wasteland. My folk already gave so much to Timoran, and nothing worked to bring vitality to this land.
Timorans had ravaged the soil and forests for too many lifetimes, now it had turned into a wretched slab of ice that grew nettles, briars, and even harsher people.
If they would drop some pride and join us in Etta, perhaps their people would survive. But Timoran kings would rather go extinct than give up their titles. As if Ettans wanted to take it. The people of my kingdom, fae and mortal alike, were peaceful. There were enough resources to go around. But they wouldn’t budge. They trusted us as little as we trusted them.
The idea of bringing a few Ettans to live among the Timorans—a way to convince them we worried for their wellbeing—was not working.
They remained stubborn as ever, and suffered even more.
I thought all these things not two hours ago. But the gentleness, the bravery, of a Timoran woman saved my life.
Was it possible they were not so selfish and obstinate as I thought? And if I thought wrong, what had Lilianna been told of my folk?
For one night, perhaps, we could forget preconceived notions.
“Lilianna,” I whispered.
“Yes, Arvad?” Her voice had grown soft with fatigue.
“Thank you.”
She didn’t respond, didn’t move for a few breaths, but after a moment her hold tightened around my waist, and I fell asleep the brush of her smile against my skin.