The storm had not abated by dawn. The sky hung heavy and grey, the air sharp enough to sting the lungs. Snowflakes drifted steadily, veiling the world in a whiteness that seemed endless. The beloved led the way, his arm firm about the girl, while the clergyman guided them down the narrow path that wound from the village into the wild.
Beyond the last hedge, the moors stretched vast and desolate. The snow lay unbroken save for the tracks of deer, and the wind howled across the expanse like a voice mourning forgotten things. It was a land stripped bare of comfort, yet it promised one gift: concealment.
The girl drew her cloak tighter, her face pale beneath her hood. "It feels," she whispered, "as though the earth itself has forsaken us."
The clergyman placed a steady hand upon her shoulder. "Nay, child. The earth is but silent. Providence speaks in silence as well as sound. Take heart. There is purpose, even here."
---
By midday, they reached the hut he had spoken of. It crouched low upon a rise, half-buried by drift and time. Its roof sagged, its door hung askew, and its walls bore the scars of years untended. Yet within was space enough for two to lie side by side, and a hearth, though long cold, still waited for flame.
The beloved struck flint to tinder, coaxing life into dry moss. Slowly, stubbornly, the fire took, filling the hut with faint warmth and smoke. The girl sank down beside it, her hands trembling as she reached toward the flickering light. For a moment, her eyes shone with tears.
"I never thought," she murmured, "that love should lead me here—to a hut in the snow, hunted and betrayed."
The beloved knelt before her, taking her chilled hands into his own. "Nor I. Yet I would choose it still, a thousand times. For what is a hearth in a fine hall, if it holds not your face beside it?"
Her lips curved into a fragile smile, and she leaned forward, resting her forehead against his. "Then let this poor hut be our hall. Let it be enough, so long as it shelters us together."
---
The clergyman, watching, turned away to the doorway, his gaze upon the horizon. "I must return," he said gravely. "If I am absent too long, suspicion will fall, and your flight be discovered sooner. I will bring what food I can, when I can. But you must keep yourselves hidden. Trust none but each other."
The girl rose swiftly, clasping his hand with fervour. "You have given more than we could ask, Father. May Heaven guard you."
The beloved's voice, hoarse with gratitude, followed. "Without you, we should have been taken ere now. We owe you our lives."
The clergyman shook his head. "You owe me nothing. Love such as yours is a sacred thing, though men despise it. Keep it alive, and it shall repay all debts."
With that, he departed into the snow, his figure swallowed by the storm, leaving the two alone with fire and silence.
---
The days that followed blurred into one another, marked only by the rising and falling of the storm, the hollow gnaw of hunger, and the fragile warmth of the fire. The beloved would venture out to gather sticks and search for game, though often he returned empty-handed, his cloak stiff with frost. The girl tended the hearth, her hands red and raw from cold, yet her spirit held.
At night, when the wind shrieked and the hut shook as though it would tear apart, they lay close together beneath their cloaks, whispering fragments of memory and hope.
"Do you remember," she asked one evening, "the garden where first you looked upon me? How the air smelled of roses, and the world seemed brighter than it had ever been?"
He smiled faintly, though his face was shadowed by fatigue. "I remember naught else so clearly. Your eyes held me fast that day, and they hold me still, even here."
"And they always shall," she whispered, pressing her lips to his brow.
---
Yet love could not wholly quiet the weight of hardship. One morning, after a fruitless search for food, the beloved returned with shoulders bowed and eyes hollow. He sank before the hearth, burying his face in his hands.
"I cannot bear it," he murmured. "To see you suffer thus, to know that my love has brought you from comfort to hunger and cold—what worth has love, if it leads only to misery?"
The girl knelt beside him, drawing his hands away from his face. Her eyes shone fierce despite their weariness.
"Do you call this misery?" she said, voice trembling yet strong. "Yes, we are cold, yes, we hunger. But I am with you. I am not bound to a loveless fate, not chained by fear of what others command. Here in this poor hut, I am freer than I ever was beneath my father's roof."
Her words struck him like light through storm-cloud. He gazed at her, wonder mingling with shame. Slowly, he gathered her into his arms, holding her as though she were the last warmth in the world.
"Then I shall endure it," he whispered fiercely. "For you. For us. Though the world turn against us, though the snow bury us, I will not yield."
---
That night, as the storm abated and a pale moon rose above the moors, the beloved stepped outside. The land stretched silent and endless, silvered by frost. He felt the cold bite into his skin, yet within him burned a flame no wind could quench.
Behind him, within the hut, the girl's voice drifted soft as a lullaby, murmuring prayers for strength. The beloved lifted his gaze to the heavens, stars faint and scattered above, and in that moment he knew: love was not merely a dream to be cherished in gardens and ballrooms. It was a fire to be kept alive against hunger, cold, and despair.
And though they were but two exiles upon a frozen moor, their love made them unvanquished.