Page 84 of A Reign of Roses
I scraped my nails softly down his back until he shivered. Kissed his damp brow and his ice-cold hands and his even more frozen silver rings. Felt more warm, salty tears drip down my cheeks and onto the thick wool of his shirt, though they were less insistent this time.
He brushed the hair from my face and pulled the cloak more snugly around my shoulders when the wind chill picked up. Murmuring intomy neck how much he loved me. How much our separation had nearly killed him. Laughing that it did, in fact, kill him.
Until finally, he exhaled a mighty sigh and lowered me gracefully to the ground alongside the evening light as it faded around us. Wind howled gently through the gnarled trees, drowning out the rhythmic chirps of crickets. The moon’s illumination cast the snowdrifts beneath us in veils of rich silver.
Kane appraised me once, his eyes the color of the winter that surrounded us. He brushed a thumb across my cheek and I nuzzled into the touch. “Well, bird,” he breathed. “Shall we?”
22
Arwen
The first person to recognizeus in the pale dusk light was a young soldier with a mop of stringy hair and an impressive height for his young age. As we strolled through the barracks, hand in hand, he scrambled over a fresh campfire to alert his peers, sparked by the realization that his king had returned.
Kane stifled a grin, which produced a matching one across my own face.
By the time we strode into the great hall, the entire castle was abuzz with murmurs and hollers and the rare cheer.
I was touched—I loved the people of Onyx, of Shadowhold specifically—but there were only a few faces that mattered to me, and I scanned the bustling hall for them.
Shadowhold in the wintertime was the most magical I’d ever seen it, and the great hall was no exception. The dark wood floors were somehow warmer, friendlier in contrast to the sheets of white that filled the windowsills outside. Each pillar and arch was dotted in garlands of bright red poinsettia, aspen leaves, and wreaths of mistletoe.Cranberry and peppermint and roasted nut aromas wafted in from the kitchens, and the delightfully haunting chords of a lute and jingling bells played a winter carol somewhere by the roaring fireplace.
The castle was fuller, too, and busier, which I assumed was due to all the soldiers and families bundled inside to stay warm. Their chatter and laughter and the clinking of their glasses only made me feel more at home. Solaris had been so empty. So cold. Shadowhold bundled me up and placed me into direct sunlight. I already felt my petals unfurling.
A family erupted in exultant laughter and I blinked twice at them. Small blonde girl, older, gray-haired man…
My heart expanded, and Kane squeezed my hand tightly.
Sitting at that long, lovingly dented wooden table, replete with plates piled high and steaming mugs, wasmy family.
Leigh, pitching her head back as she laughed with unfiltered glee, and beside her, Beth—the little seer whom I’d not realized would be here—not quite smiling but eyes still bright. Ryder and Barney across from them. Dagan, with his nose in a thick book, at the head of the table ignoring them all.
My hurried stroll to them became an ungraceful sprint as I drew nearer and nearer and nearer to the table.
“Arwen?” Leigh’s stunned surprise was cut off by my barreling embrace. I pulled her so close I could feel her heart beating against my own. Her small hands reaching for as much of me as she could grasp. Blonde curls filled my vision and my throat grew so tight I couldn’t speak. But that was all right. I had nothing to say that she couldn’t feel through my hug.
I’m alive. I love you. I’m sorry I was gone so long.
“How is this— How…” Ryder’s awed voice cut through Leigh’s tears.
When I finally released our sister and got a good look at him, his smile was soft, though unmistakable remorse swam in his eyes. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
When I wrapped my arms around his neck and held tightly, he appeared more stunned than anything.
“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled into my shoulder. “So sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
He nodded against my shoulder wordlessly. If I’d learned anything from all the stupid mistakes I’d made—telling Halden things I shouldn’t have, not listening to Mari about the amulet before it almost killed her, and about a hundred other awful errors in judgment—it was that life was far too short to be the last one to forgive yourself.
Ryder pulled back just enough to search my face, frowning as he beheld what I was sure were sunken eyes, pallid flesh, and weak limbs. I needed some sunshine, and to move my atrophied muscles. And toeatsomething. Nothing had done less for my appetite than captivity.
“I’m all right,” I assured him. “I’m going to start training again as soon as I can.”
A gruff voice behind me said, “I’ve heard that one before.”
For whatever reason it was the soft, relieved smile on Dagan’s wrinkly face—his uncharacteristically warm, crinkled eyes—that wrecked me.
My face crumpled and I launched myself at him, fully expecting the old man to back away and let me topple onto my face. I wouldn’t even have minded. But he was surprisingly strong and sturdy, and his dry, knotted fingers gripped me tightly into his chest as I broke into soundless sobs.
