Page 4 of Heart of Snow
His touch startled me, and I wrenched my wrist from his grip, the action flinging my hand into the flame. Burning pain shot through my palm, rippling out to my fingers. Unable to hold back a shriek, I nearly dropped the torch, but the man caught the stave, slipping it from my grasp. I used the torchlight to study my burning hand. “What could you be thinking, attacking me without warning?” A large blister was already forming in the center of my palm.
“You looked ready to do yourself an injury, and I—”
“You think me mad?” My fingers weren’t red yet, but I knew they would be soon. “There was no danger of injury until you came along.” I lifted my glaring eyes, but my scowl faltered as I took in the face of the traveler. His cheeks were smudged with dirt, and the blood-encrusted gash above his brow was conspicuous despite his attempts to conceal it beneath his cap. Yet it was his eyes that arrested my attention. Storm gray and so familiar, as if I ought to remember them.
And then I saw his livery, striped black and yellow. Father’s colors.
Worry for my brother returned in force. “Have you come from Mühlberg? Do you know of Count Samuel?”
His answer was drowned by the sudden cheers of villagers, and I rounded, following their collective gaze to a column of black smoke rising from the fiery heap that was once the witch. My earlier preoccupation now dissolved in my anxiety for my brother, I turned back to the stranger just as he faltered, stumbling forward. Catching him by the arm, I could feel his body trembling and the heat of his skin burning through his sleeve. “Are you ill?”
He winced as he pulled himself upright. “Where is Count von Waldeck?”
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” he growled but wrapped a protective arm about his waist. “I must speak with the count.”
“You must speak with a physician. At least let me look at it.” The burning in my hand revived my anger toward the man, but I tamped it down. He was sick. I would never neglect my duty to any ailing person, no matter how infuriating they were.
Ignoring his protests, I pulled back his arm, revealing a dark-brown stain on his doublet. Old blood was a good sign, but the heat of his flesh told me he was not out of danger. With my good hand, I unbuttoned the doublet, lifting his shirt to find a hastily made bandage covering a gash, long and thin, like a slice from a sword. Redness and swelling hinted at infection.
“There, you’ve seen it. Now take me to the count.” His limp hands fumbled as he tucked his shirt into his hose.
“I have an angelica powder to help with your fever.”
“The only help I need is finding the count.”
“Perhaps some yarrow root,” I continued. “Though I’m not certain we have sufficient stores in the castle—”
“Countess, please.” His earnest entreaty made me pause. “It’s about your brother. Count Samuel was captured.”
Chapter 2
Friedrich
The countess had changed. Isecretly studied her as she helped me sit against a tree trunk and was shocked by the difference in her looks. Her childhood roundness was gone, her once-awkward nose and ears now in perfect harmony with her face. Even her freckles had melted away, leaving snowy, flawless skin. But more surprising was what hadn’t changed. The deep sadness that had darkened her blue eyes as a child still remained.
She caught me watching her, and I dropped my gaze, angry with myself for noticing her at all.
“Wait here. I’ll be back with help.” She blew on her hand as she disappeared into the crowd, and my gut shifted uncomfortably. I was to blame for her injury. If I hadn’t taken it upon myself to try to help... and why had I? She was nobility, after all. The whole class had a pretty tidy way of getting themselves out of trouble.
A violent shiver raced through me, and my eyelids drooped. Exhaustion threatening, I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth and leaned my head against the trunk. Food had been scarce since Mühlberg. Being seen at an inn or caught traveling the main roads was too much of a risk, and what little I’d eaten was either foraged or begged for. But not even the smells of ham and ale wafting from the feast tempted me. Right now, I wanted nothing more than a bed.
The scuff of shoes nearby jolted me awake. I instinctively pushed myself farther back into the shadows of the forest before realizing the steps were faltering and uneven. Not the smart clip of a soldier.
I risked a glance around the trunk at the man staggering toward me, his swaying steps all too familiar. Even if he’d been sober, he wouldn’t have recognized me, but I crouched lowerbehind the trunk, trying to rein in my shivering as the town bowyer passed by.
It could have been a few moments or a few hours before the countess returned; my sense of time had warped into uselessness, and my head was growing hazy. I almost didn’t notice the countess’s soft step.
Her voice whispered from the other side of the tree. “Do you think you can get up?”
I leaned around the trunk to find a gangly boy standing beside the countess as she twisted a dripping rag around her hand. “I brought a servant if you—”
“I can stand.” I made an effort to rise, but the shivered crouching had taken its toll, and I sank back to the ground.
The countess winced. “Help him, Ulrich.”
I gave the servant a quick appraisal. He was likely somewhere near fifteen years of age and had the tall, bony build of a boy who’d just sprouted. I didn’t trust that he could carry me, but he seemed determined, dropping to the ground beside me and wrapping his arm around my waist. When his hand bumped against my gash, I had to squeeze back a cry, only letting it escape my lungs once I’d stifled it down to a groan. He had enough sympathy to wait until I’d recovered before draping my arm over his shoulder and hoisting me up to meet the countess’s worried gaze.
