Page 35 of Kiss of Frost

And I had never been forsworn. I had protected the Oracle of the North Wind for eleven centuries. Sometimes, travelers evaded me. These were the worthy ones. If they slipped through my wards and under my notice, they were meant to reach the Oracle. These travelers weren’t always powerful, but many were, and they returned with powerful gifts—bundles of rare herbs and crimson phoenix bones. Priceless books and crystal skulls.

Most travelers didn’t make it past the White Gate. These I sent away, but not before I took whatever knowledge they carried in their packs and belongings. Because I’d vowed to serve when I said my vows, my eyes wide as I watched the ice cover my heart. But when the Grand Master thrust it back into my body, I’d taken another vow—a secret one I’d whispered over and over in my mind until it was as loud as a shout.

I will never stop searching.

Wind howled, tugging me from the past. I pulled a book toward me and opened it. As the storm began to batter the castle, I resumed my search.

Just as I had every night for over a thousand years.

* * *

The cold woke me.

I blinked—and it took me a moment to figure out why the room was sideways. I’d fallen asleep with my face pressed to the inside of the book. A page stuck to my cheek for a second as I lifted my head.

The study was still. Too still. Ice coated everything, including the ends of my hair. I ran a hand through the tangled mass, which I usually cut with a knife when it got too long. But that was the last thing on my mind as I gazed at the ice glistening around me. On its shelf, the crystal skull shimmered under its glassy layer, its eyes glazed with frost.

The temperature plunged another dozen degrees. Cracks raced down the cover of one of the books on my desk. A second later, the book shattered.

Hamish glided through the door.

I went as still as the room around me.

Hamish stopped just inside the threshold. His auburn hair brushed his shoulders, the color vibrant against the brown quilted gambeson the same shade as his eyes.

“My love,” I said hoarsely. “Please speak.” It was a useless request. Hamish never spoke. He visited sparingly—once a decade or so—and he never, never talked. Not once in eleven centuries.

I didn’t dare rise. In the beginning, when he first showed himself, I tried to go to him. But he vanished when I approached, so I’d learned to move as little as possible. Instead, I devoured him with my eyes, running my gaze over his handsome face and long, leanly muscled body. The sunlight was stronger now, and it turned his hair to fire. He was so real in the doorway, I could almost feel his breath on my neck and his strong hands clasping mine.

But his eyes were sad.

“Why have you…?” I started, but I already knew. I knew why he’d come.

Hamish stared at me, the sorrow in his brown gaze grinding my guts to pulp. The morning sunlight set the ice-coated study glittering like the inside of a diamond. It was beautiful. I saw none of it.

“I’m sending them away,” I rasped. “The witch… She tried to trick me. The incubus is working with her. They want to reach the Oracle. I won’t let them. I’ll order them to leave immediately.” My pleas turned to babble, my words tripping over each other. “I’ll do it straightaway, love. I don’t want them here. I don’t want—”

Hamish glided backward, part of his shoulder passing through the door frame.

“No!” I gripped the edge of my desk. My throat tightened. “Don’t… Please, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Sunlight slanted across the study, a thick beam shining inches from the tips of Hamish’s boots, which began to fade.

“Don’t,” I gasped, shoving my chair back. Ice formed fissures on my clothes as I stumbled around the desk, knocking scrolls to the frost-covered floor.

Hamish’s gaze stayed sorrowful as his hair lost its color and his legs grew transparent. His skin turned gray.

“No!” I lurched forward, slipped on the icy floor, and went down hard. My hip and elbow struck in unison, white-hot pain knifing through me. I scrambled to my knees.

Blood bloomed across the front of Hamish’s gambeson, turning the brown cloth black.

“Don’t,” I whispered—and knowing what came next didn’t lessen the horror. Blood trickled from his pale lips. It spread across his chest and down his stomach like gruesome tributaries branching off from a deep spring.

He moved backward, his eyes never leaving me.

But he would. He always left me.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked. “I’m sorry.”

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