Page 43 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen
It was louder now, almost as if it was by her window. It sounded like ice breaking, or frozen metal splintering.
Crack.
Kolfinna shoved her blanket off and stared over at the window bars, then inhaled sharply. Three of the bars were broken off, and there was someone standing there. His hands wrapped around one of the bars and ice climbed up the metal; he applied pressure and it crumbled in his hands, and he tossed the remnants behind himself. The cool midnight air breezed into the room, freezing her where she laid.
She must have been dreaming. She must have been?—
“Blár?” Her voice was barely a whisper, her emotions thickening her throat.
The man paused; she couldn’t see him clearly, not with the moon behind him and the darkness of the night. He placed his hands over another bar. “Yes, Kolfinna?”
A strangled sob escaped from her as she shot out of the bed and ran to the window, her hands instantly covering his cold ones, tears pricking the back of her eyes. Up close, she could make out the arctic blue of his eyes, the relief on his face, his tousled black hair. She had so many questions—how, where, when—but she couldn’t think straight, not with him so close. Not with him breaking into her room.
“Blár!” She bit her bottom lip to keep from crying. She glanced over her shoulder at her door, behind which Astrid or Yrsa stood watch—she had noticed that only one of them guarded her at night, likely to give the other a break. “They’re guarding me?—”
“I know.” Ice escaped from his hand, sending another burst of wintry chill into the room, and another bar crumbled. “These runes aren’t breaking.”
Sure enough, the runes on the bars weren’t disappearing; the broken bars still had the runes floating in vertical lines like the metal was still there. The runes kept her inside, but they didn’t say anything about anyone entering.
“You can enter,” she said as he broke the last of the bars. “These runes won’t hurt you.”
He nodded and climbed through the window, landing softly on his feet. The familiar coldness she associated with him brushed over her body, sending a wave of goosebumps over her flesh.
She didn’t wait. She flung her arms around him. He stilled, as if not expecting it, and then circled his arms around her waist, his head dipping down to the crook of her neck and shoulder. She held him tightly, her body trembling with unspoken words. He smelled like vanilla and spice, like fresh snow—crisp and earthy. She had missed him. Especially after the way they had left things off. With a chaste kiss. With a promise to return to one another.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes. She wanted to sob, she wanted to jump up and down, and she wanted to just hold onto him and never let go. More pressure built in the back of her eyes.
He inhaled the scent of her, his body relaxing. His voice came out small, so unlike him, as he murmured, “I’ve missed you.”
Kolfinna clung to him tightly, sobbing softly against his chest. She had thought she wouldn’t see him again, but like a miracle, he was here. It made everything she had endured up until this point manageable. He was alive and well.
Blár rubbed her back and she stiffened as his fingers brushed over the sore spots where her wings had been, and she inhaled sharply. He froze, and then slowly pulled her out of theirembrace. His cold, calculating eyes scanned over her body, once, twice, and then stopped at her face. “Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?” His voice came out barely constrained, the temperature in the room dropping astronomically. She could tell he was trying to gain control over his anger by the way his expression shifted from the harshest of winters to a shuttered expression, but his powers never lied.
Kolfinna touched his cheek; it was cold, too. “I am well.”
“Truly?”
How was she going to explain to him that they had hurt her, but that she healed extremely fast? She tried to smile, though it came out wobbly. “Yes.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Did they hurt you?”
“Blár, I’m …”
He stared at her, his gaze trailing from her face to her ears, which were now pointed, and then to the rest of her body. She could see the questions in his eyes, the thinly veiled confusion that passed over his face.
Kolfinna’s eyes burned with tears and she stared down at her feet. Shame built in the pit of her stomach, swirling within her like the shadows in the room. She hadn’t told him the truth about any of this. That she was the daughter of the commander. That she was the key to freeing Queen Aesileif. That she was the root of the problem.
“Kolfinna.” He grasped her chin gently, tipping her head up to stare at him. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Then we can talk about the details later.” Blár pushed back a stray strand of hair behind her pointed ear, his touch tracking coldness against her flesh. She closed her eyes at the familiarity of it. “Look at me.”
She peeled her eyes open to stare at him. At his beautiful face. At the sharp blueness of his tundra-like eyes. At his gentleexpression. There were faded bruises on his cheeks from the earlier battle, over his jaw, his cheek, down to his neck. The fur-lined collar of his cloak did little to hide the bruised marks Vidar’s fingers had left on his throat. Even now they were visible. Darkness smeared the bottom of his eyes like he hadn’t slept properly in days.
Her chest ached for him in a way it had never done before.
A moment passed with the both of them staring at one another, searching for all that had changed in their absence. He slowly framed her face with his hands and leaned closer to her. Her heart raced beneath his touch and she stared expectantly at his lips. Were they going to kiss? They last time it had been sweet and quick, with the threat of the fae forces finding out about Blár’s escape running in the back of her mind. But now, there were no distractions.
