Page 34 of A Dance of Water

12

WOUND UP (LET DOWN)

LUELLA

Nerves made Luella’s hands shake and her feet tap against the floor.

She was standing in the middle of her room after just having been awoken from her nap—the second one today. Her head was still fuzzy with sleep, and her eyelids threatened to droop with every passing moment left unattended.

It was the beginning of the Winter Solstice celebrations, and she was scared.

The others had been making themselves scarce. Luella had not even seen Az since they had shared a cup of hot chocolate under the watchful eye of Bastian.

The King?—

She shook her head dazedly.

Vale. The dragon shifter had been like a ghost in the halls of the castle of Serpentis. She saw his importance reflected in the statues and paintings around, could feel the simmer of something grand and powerful as it swept throughout the wintry-decorated rooms, a whisper of chatter amid the servants. But no sight of the male himself.

Of her captors, Tharen, Graves, and Bastian had been the only ones she had seen the last few days.

And something about that made her stomachclench with worry.

As Luella waited for Ina and Osa to prepare her bath, she padded to the glass doors leading to the balcony. The sun’s rays were blotted out by a thick mass of pure white clouds. Like a soft blanket stretched out upon the sky. Everything was white—the sky, the ground, the treetops… And everything held a quiet sort of stillness, like the silence right before disaster. It was as though the whole land was holding its breath.

She found herself holding her breath, as well, forced to don that same expectant quietude modeled after the thick blanket of white around her.

Snow.

Snow was everywhere. She wondered how far it reached. She wondered of Solis. Was the barren land now coated in a combination of soft, crunchy snow and hard, unforgiving ice? Was the top of her tower dusted in freshly fallen white powder? Were the ruins she once enjoyed frolicking in now topped with snow, the flowers bending under the weight of the flakes?

Luella sighed, resting her palms on the cold glass. She tilted her head forward, nose nearly brushing the doors as she peered out. Her breath fogged the glass, and her fingertips danced across it, making the slightest of squeaking noises as she etched nonsensical shapes into the condensation.

Waves crashed, sea foam curling up and battering the rockface of the cliffs. She breathed out. The waves ebbed. She breathed in. The waves roared to life, unforgiving water crashing against the rock so fiercely she wondered if, in time, the rock would corrode and the very lands that the castle stood upon would crumble to dust and disintegrate under the force of the waves.

Her nose scrunched up as she watched. From the side of the castle her gilded cage was, she could not see the bustling town of Serpentis, only the jagged rocks and roaring waves. She wondered if the village was as icily decorated as the castle.

The reach of the Solstice had even touched her room. A small statue the size of her hand rested on her bedside table, depicting a roaring dragon spewing, not flames, but ice. The curtains on her windows had been changed to a soft blue, and tendrils of icy ribbon-like ornaments had been fixed to the walls, dripping down like icicles.

It was wondrous, and she wished she could have enjoyed it. The roil of anticipation and harrowing nerves within her was a distraction.

The memory of amber eyes and warm fingers against hers was an even grander distraction…

The snow fell in a flurry of white, growing heavier with each breath she took.

Az, Az, Az. All she could think of was him.

But not all.

Reddened eyes, gloved hands, glinting crowns, and shadowed hoods.

The call of their connection was a song of woe in her chest. A mourning cry, punishing her for her lack of acceptance.

She tamped it down, shoved it away in a box, and put an impenetrable lock on it. But that did not stop the tug on her soul.

So, she watched the waves to ground herself. Envisioning that she was the very gravitational pull that made them ebb and flow. Breaths syncing up with each crashing swell.

Luella blinked?—

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