Followed by Fros(19)

Once I feared my pursuers had obtained horses, I began to travel into the night, running until my chilled body could not run anymore, and then only sleeping until dawn awoke me. I had to move constantly and quickly, for I could not hide, not with ever-present storm clouds flagging me. I barely had time to forage, and I grew too thin. My clothes—old and in need of mending—became tattered with my constant movement. During that time I rarely saw my own snow, for it only fell when I stayed in one place too long.

It took me three months to finally lose the hunting party, and by then the peak of summer made the world blossom green around me. But those three months had fatigued me to my bones, and the persistent fear had torn my heart open. I had lost myself somewhere between the end of Iyoden’s mountain ranges and where the wide rivers cut through the land, perhaps not too far from the Unclaimed Lands that walled the Southlands from the north. I recognized nothing; I was hungry, and I was alone. My heart and my resolve had broken, and I could not find the strength to start a new day, to forage, even to read my beloved books, which had become memorized bricks in my faded schoolbag. A darkness seeped into the cold that flowed through my veins, and it gradually consumed me.

One day I sat on summer grass white with frost, delicate snowflakes dropping in silence around me, my legs curled up to my chest. My skirt fell in tattered strips around me, and my unbound hair curtained me from the world. I had folded my arms against my knees and leaned my forehead against them, sobbing, crying as I had never cried before. I cried every ounce of my misery until I could barely breathe, but even breath did not cease my despair, nor the endless, frozen tears that clung to my dress and sleeves, neck and breast.

I knew Sadriel had come—even through my own darkness, I could feel his presence, but I could not stop the tears. I felt only the shards of what I once was and the bitter chill that tortured me.

“I can’t do it anymore!” I managed through choppy sobs. I shivered, gasped for air. “I can’t . . .”

Sadriel did not smile at me, nor did he frown. His lips held a flat line, and his brow knit over bright amber eyes. He seemed almost sympathetic in his silence, almost . . . sad. He sat on the frosty grass with his legs folded before him, untouched by the dust of my snow, wordless, mirthless.

“I just want to die,” I whispered through trembling lips. “It hurts . . . It hurts so much.”

Even without tears I wept. When I finally spoke again, my voice sounded hoarse and aged. “I c-can’t touch anything without . . . I can’t touch anything, anyone. I’m . . . I’m a monster. I just w-want it to end . . .”

And then Death knelt before me, his eyes like molten fire. He reached out his long fingers and touched the side of my face.

I gazed at him, his ageless features, those bright amber eyes.

“Come with me,” he whispered.

I didn’t answer. His fingers lingered on my face, and I was filled with the wonder of feeling someone, anyone, touch me. Beneath that I felt empty, void of emotion, void of thought, void of spirit. I watched him, frozen tears on my eyelashes.

And I nodded.

The brim of his wide hat brushed the top of my head, and his lips pressed against mine, strong and indelicate. His hands slid over my jaw and entangled themselves into my hair. I opened my mouth to him. He kissed me fervently, breathlessly, his teeth grazing my lips, his tongue tracing my tongue.

I fell back onto the earth with him on top of me, his hair falling against my cheeks, his mouth on my lips, my neck, my lips. His hands caressed my sides and flowed down my thighs, moving under my ragged skirt. In that moment I lost myself to him, savoring him, the one man in the world whom I could touch and who could touch me.

But then a draining sensation engulfed me as his arm snaked behind my back. My life slipped away in smoky wisps with each kiss, with each touch of his hand. I was dying, and though it scared me, I almost let it happen, let him take away the pain and the darkness, let him pull me into the realm beyond this one.

Almost.

Mordan had taken away the life I had known, but even his curse had not taken my life. Without that, I would be truly frozen, unable to change. Unable to save myself. My life, albeit a hard one, was the only thing I had left.

And no one—no one—could take that from me.

I found the last dregs of my strength and pushed Sadriel away from me. “No!” I cried. Screamed. “No! You cannot take it from me! I will never go with you!”

He gazed at me in shock, his eyes as wide and mouth as open as the hunter I had left frozen in the mountains, but the surprise receded and his eyes blazed with fury. One moment he sat on the ground beside me, and the next he stood, a raging shadow. He cursed me in his old tongue—“Shiksha, Obiden, Tyar!”—and vanished in a swirl of maroon and black.

The setting sun colored the horizon a bloody red, and I found enough strength to pick myself up and crawl to my schoolbag. I changed my chemise and my dress, took a bite of a half-frozen apricot, and slowly, hazily, began collecting wood. For the first time in three months, I lit a fire, and though I could not feel its warmth, I savored its light.

By the time the true snows of winter came once more, I had restored my old routines and returned to the mountains. More importantly, I had learned to recognize the mercies Mordan had allotted me, even in his rash anger. I still had my mind, my memories. I could still move, even if my frozen muscles made my limbs sluggish. Most importantly, I still had my life.