Page 14 of A Heart of Ice and Shadow

It was her turn to cock a brow then. “You were taken aback?” He hadn’t seemed uncomfortable at all. In fact, he’d seemed entirely aloof and cold.

“Very few people have the gumption to ask a vampire how old he is.”

She laughed, not sure if he was serious or if he just had the driest sense of humor in the world. Even if he’d not meant it to be funny, she laughed at the cold delivery. His eyes fell to her mouth for a moment, then shifted back to his path. She smirked. “You didn’t tell me that either,” she reminded him. “How old you are.”

“I suppose I didn’t,” he replied. And that was that.

Gwen rolled her eyes again, her cheeks slightly aching from her smile. He really could be an ass when he wanted to be, and she found she was starting to like that fact more than hate it.

As they made their way further into the forest, her skin began to tingle with awareness. The leaves rustled at her feet and in the trees, and she couldn’t help but feel they were speaking to one another. “What is that?” she asked, not knowing how to explain. “The—trees?”

“You can hear them?”

Hear wasn’t quite right. She shrugged. “Can you?”

“In a sense,” he admitted. “It’s more of an understanding.”

Weirdly, Gwen knew what he meant. It had been the same with the whispers of magick in that horrible place with the mirrors. She’d not understood their language, but she’d understood their intention. She felt something similar here in the forest, only it was vastly more comforting. Much like the old stones of Volkov, only here the magick was awake.

“What do you hear?” he asked, taking her in.

Gwen stopped and tried to focus, to make sense of it all. “I don’t know what they’re saying, but—” The forest seemed to almost be welcoming her. Encouraging her onward. “I think it wants us to keep going.”

She couldn’t quite make out the look in his eyes, but something did flash in them before he turned back to his path. A flutter of butterflies spread through her chest, and Gwen struggled to will them away.

“There are places throughout the world where the magick is naturally more potent,” he explained. “This is one such place. It is why the faerie chose this location to build his home.”

Gwen could feel it. Like the magick twisted and slipped along the breeze. Seeped into her skin, her hair, her lungs. She’d felt strange since she woke. Like her body was aware of something it couldn’t quite define. It was this place she recognized—the magick.

An amusing thought popped into her head, and Gwen couldn’t help her soft laugh. Sirus glanced over at her expectantly. “It’s just, after all that talk from you and Niah about how dark and deadly vampires were”—Gwen couldn’t help her sharp smirk—“I never thought this is where you would live. In an enchanted forest. It’s pretty Snow White.”

“Our clan was fortunate,” he replied after a moment, “to be given such a place. Though I can confirm there are no dwarves in residence.”

Gwen’s heart swelled, and she chuckled, surprised he got her reference at all. “I’m surprised the faeries let you keep it if it’s so rare,” she quipped.

It was faint. If she hadn’t been watching him closely she would have missed it, but the tiniest fraction of a smile teased at the corner of Sirus’s lips. Gwen nearly stopped dead in her tracks.

“They didn’t,” he said darkly, not elaborating.

He led her around a bend of wide fir trees while she tried to decide whether or not she’d seen what she thought she’d seen. A smile from Sirus seemed impossible.

She stopped short when they came past the trees. A pond the size of a backyard pool lay nestled against a group of large boulders and rocks just ahead of them, soft tendrils of steam lifting from its surface into the breeze.

“It’s not quite a fountain,” he said.

Gwen blinked back her surprise. “A hot spring?” she chimed, coming to stand closer. The heat wafting through the air sent her chilled skin skittering with the stark difference of temperature.

Sirus sauntered to the edge of the water and crouched down next to a collection of rocks. He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing more elaborate swirls of tattoos, and dipped his hand beneath the surface. “The waters are healing.”

Gwen mirrored him on the other side, sliding her fingers beneath the surface. It was lusciously warm and made the tips of her fingers feel soothed and tingly. She dipped her hand further. Over the red line on her palm. The tingle of magick tickled over the remnant of the wound.

“It will help you heal,” he added. “You may soak if you wish.”

Suddenly, her mouth went dry and her eyes wide. Gwen yanked her hand from the water and rubbed it on her pants. “Maybe some other time,” she stammered awkwardly.

“Any time you like,” he offered, eyeing her strangely after her sharp reaction. “The forest will show you the way if you ask it.”

It hit her that he probably hadn’t meant she could soak now. A wave of embarrassment flooded her cheeks. “Th-thanks,” she managed. Her eyes lingered on his arm and the swirls of black symbols left exposed. “Do all of you have those?” she asked. She couldn’t remember seeing any tattoos on Niah.

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