The world was made of white and silence.
Snow layered itself over sound, over shape, over distance—until even the rumble of the caravan wheels seemed to come from far away, as if they were rolling across someone else's memory instead of the road beneath them.
Inside the canvas-covered wagon, it was dim.
Cold seeped through the stitched seams and wooden slats, touching skin in quiet, insistent strokes. Breath misted faintly in the cramped air, blurring the line between waking and sleep.
Reina Asheville drifted in the narrow space between the two.
Not fully awake.
Not entirely gone.
Just… resting.
Her body had done what disciplined minds resent—betrayed her to exhaustion. She hadn't meant to sleep. She had promised herself she would maintain vigilance, keep one eye on the road, another on their "poet" and their surroundings.
But snow had its own rules.
And it had wrapped the world in a soft, numbing lull.
In that half-dream, half-frozen state, all she felt was warmth.
Not much.
But enough.
Something solid at her left side.
Something steady.
Something that cold could not quite reach.
Her fingers had moved without her permission.
Instinct.
Not thought.
They slipped over something—
Not coarse like a crate's surface.
Not rough like rope.
Gloved.
Warm.
Human.
Her hand closed around it lightly.
Her body sighed inwards, the kind of release she never allowed while conscious. Her shoulders eased. Her breathing deepened. Beneath layers of cloak and uniform, the tension she always wore like armor loosened for the briefest span of time.
…Warm.
The thought floated, slow and blurred, through sleep-thick mind.
Why is there… warmth here?
In this cold… in this place…
Her hand squeezed faintly—testing.
The warmth stayed.
Steady.
Unmoving.
For a while, that was enough.
But Reina Asheville belonged to a life where safety was a lie and warmth usually preceded betrayal.
Deep inside, the habits honed by survival stirred.
A splinter of awareness pushed through the fog.
Her brow faintly creased.
…What…
The thought sharpened.
What am I holding?
Another moment passed.
Slow.
Her lashes fluttered.
The world did not rush back in.
It crept.
Fragment by fragment.
The swaying of the wagon.
The muffled crunch of snow under wheels.
The faded scent of dried herbs and old timber.
The weight of a cloak around her shoulders.
The sensation of something firm beneath her cheek—
Her shoulder.
No.
Not hers.
Her head was leaning sideways.
Against…
Her senses aligned with a soft snap.
Her eyes opened.
Dim light filtered through the caravan's flap, sketching faint silver across the interior.
The first thing she saw was a shoulder.
Dark fabric.
Neat seams.
Close.
Too close.
Reina's gaze, still fogged from sleep, followed the fabric line up.
A throat.
A jawline.
Pale.
Motionless.
Then—
A profile.
Kel's.
His head was leaned back against the wooden support beam, the pale column of his throat exposed in that resting angle. His eyes were closed, lashes long against colorless skin, the usual sharpness of his gaze hidden.
He looked…
Still.
But not vulnerable.
Even in sleep, something in him felt coiled—like a blade sheathed, not discarded.
Reina froze.
Only her eyes moved now.
Slowly, she followed the path of her own arm.
Her left sleeve.
Cloak folds.
Gloved fingers.
Wrapped—
Firmly, unmistakably—
Around Kel's left hand.
Her heart did not lurch.
Reina's heart never did anything that dramatic.
But it did tighten.
Just once.
In a way that felt too loud inside her chest.
…I…
Her hand had wrapped around his.
Not loosely.
Her fingers had curled around his gloved knuckles as if they had been seeking something solid and had finally found it.
His hand did not hold back.
It simply rested where it was.
Warm.
Steady.
Anchoring.
The thought surfaced, as if from the last layer of fading dream:
How could something this soft… this comfortable… exist inside a caravan crossing a winter road?
Reina's breath caught.
Very faint.
The tail of it visible in the chilled air.
Heat climbed—not from outside, but from beneath her skin.
It traced a line from her hand up her arm, across her shoulder, and into the base of her neck.
What am I doing.
The thought formed with sharp, awake clarity now.
Carefully—so carefully she might have been disarming a trap—Reina began to withdraw her hand.
Her fingers loosened from his.
Slowly.
Her touch left his glove.
Fled back into the safety of her own cloak.
Kel did not stir.
His breathing stayed shallow and even, cold mist curling from parted lips with each exhale.
She straightened her posture, spine aligning almost painfully, as though she were re-forging armor around herself.
Her hands folded neatly in her lap.
There.
As they should be.
As they always were.
She stared straight ahead at the wooden wall in front of her.
Her heart settled.
Eventually.
Her mind did not.
You slept.
The accusation aimed inward.
You leaned on him. And you—
Her fingers twitched once against her gloves, hidden beneath her cloak.
—held his hand.
Her expression remained as calm as ever.
Only her eyes betrayed motion, flicking once—quick, sharp—to her right.
Landon slept soundly.
His head rested on Kel's right shoulder, jaw slack with unguarded rest. A line of exhausted tension she had seen in him since the contest no longer pulled at his features. His body, heavier, less restrained, had slumped into sleep like someone confident that the world would not move under his feet while he wasn't watching.
Her gaze drifted briefly to how Kel's right arm was angled slightly outward, bearing Landon's weight without strain.
Then back to his face.
Still.
Eyes closed.
The cold had painted the edges of his lashes with the faintest trace of damp.
His skin looked almost translucent in the dim light.
Reina had seen sick men.
Dying men.
She knew the color of failing bodies.
Kel's pallor was not new to her.
She had watched him from the distance of servant halls, training grounds, and long corridors, always moving, always fighting against some unseen confinement.
And yet—
Just now, when her fingers had closed around his hand, she had felt warmth.
Not weak.
Not fading.
Present.
It unsettled her more than his curse.
I… slept.
Her gaze sharpened.
Her jaw tightened.
On someone else.
In House Asheville, no one had been safe to lean on.
Her father had been kind, once.
But kindness had not saved him from breaking.
Her uncle's hands had been firm.
But only to push her away from inheritance.
When she wandered the territories alone at twelve, sleep had been something taken in corners with her back against stone and a blade under her hand. Even in the barracks as a trainee, she had rested in pieces, not fully.
Yet here—
Inside a creaking caravan with snow drowning the world—
Her body had decided.
For her.
Close eyes. Lean. Reach.
Toward him.
Reina exhaled slowly, almost inaudible.
Snow really does take things from us without permission… even vigilance.
She lifted her gaze to the slit of the open flap.
The snowfall had changed.
Earlier, it had come heavy and fast, like someone had opened the sky and poured white upon the earth without restraint.
Now—
The flakes fell slower.
Larger.
Floating.
They drifted in languid arcs, each one visible as it turned briefly in the air before joining the pale, thickening layer on the ground.
The world outside looked gentler.
It was not.
She could feel it in her bones.
The temperature had not risen.
If anything…
It had dropped.
The cold pressed against the canvas from all directions, a quiet, suffocating pressure. Her nose prickled faintly. The tips of her fingers stung under the gloves. Her breath, when she exhaled, came out in longer, denser ribbons of mist.
Her eyes narrowed.
The snowfall slowed… but the cold remains.
She understood then—
It was the kind of cold that did not need the spectacle of a storm to kill.
The kind that settled in silence.
Patient.
Unyielding.
Snow disguised its cruelty beneath softness.
Just as people often hid their malice under warmth.
Just as comfort could lure someone into unclasping their guard.
Her eyelids felt heavy.
Again.
Her body traitorously recognizing the lull of the world around her.
She blinked hard, once, forcing clarity into her vision.
The edges of the wagon blurred briefly.
She straightened her back further.
Even my eyes want to close in this frost…
The thought drifted through her as she watched the flakes.
Even they want to surrender to this false peace.
She knew better.
She had surrendered once before—to family, to the illusion that being born into a house meant anything permanent.
The consequences had written themselves in ash and exile.
She would not repeat that pattern.
"Not again," she whispered inwardly.
Her lips did not move.
Only resolve shifted, like a blade turning within its sheath.
She glanced once more at Kel.
Asleep.
Head resting on the wood beam.
Two people unconsciously leaning on him as if he were some structure built for that purpose.
Her heart gave one small, uncomfortable twist.
…Why did I feel safe enough to sleep beside you?
It was not a question she could yet answer.
She only knew this:
When she had been asleep—
When snow had been lulling her down—
Her body had reached for him.
As anchor.
As warmth.
As something that did not vanish when touched.
That realization made her fingers curl faintly in her lap.
A quiet, defensive reflex against her own uninvited vulnerability.
The caravan rocked over a deeper rut.
Reina planted her boots more firmly.
Landon murmured once in his sleep but did not wake.
Kel's head shifted a fraction with the movement, but his eyes remained closed, breathing steady.
Reina looked away from both of them and fixed her gaze outward again.
The snow outside continued its slow descent.
She tracked each drift with cold, unblinking focus.
Letting frost, distance, and discipline knit themselves back into her bones.
I cannot afford to let my eyes give up.
Even if the weather begged for it.
Even if warmth invited it.
Even if trust made it tempting.
Not while he walks with a curse in his chest and a lake in his mind.
She did not know what Scarder Lake was.
She did not know what road he had chosen within his own thoughts.
But she knew this:
He would keep walking until his body failed.
And because of that—
She would not let herself sleep easily again.
Not while he rested.
Not while the road grew colder.
Not while someone needed to make sure snowfall did not become their grave instead of their shelter.
Her eyes, heavy but unwilling to close, held their vigil.
Over snow.
Over road.
Over a cursed heir who slept with others leaning on him—
As if, without ever asking for it, he had already become something like a center.
A quiet one.
A dangerous one.
Reina drew in a slow breath.
Let it out.
Watching the mist curl and vanish.
Might my eyes give up in this freezing snowfall?
She answered herself, silently, in the dark.
No.
They are not allowed to.
Not yet.
Not while this winter still had teeth.
And not while she had chosen, for the first time in years, to follow someone by her own will.