Page 69 of Frost Like Night
“We’ll wait for Angra’s forces to gather in Winter,” I confirm. “In the meantime, can we borrow supplies?”
“Oh! Of course.” Nikoletta signals to a few of the servants at the edge of the room, and as they duck outside, I follow. I don’t think anyone expected me to leave the tent, but the orders have been given, decisions made, and I cannot stand around rehashing old news or picking apart our strategies.
“I’m coming with you to Winter, idiot. Not only do I have to redeem myself, but I’m not letting the three of you go alone.”
Ceridwen keeps pace beside me as the servants weave into a tent across the clearing. While they shuffle through supplies inside, I face her.
“I’d take you if I could, believe me, but for this mission, I need to be able to use my magic on everyone. Besides, we’ll need leaders like you in the battle.”
“I won’t sit here while you’re off actually defeating Angra. He overtook my kingdom too.”
Ceridwen’s voice breaks. Her agony is a hot, sparkingwave that palpitates off her body.
“I know,” I say. This isn’t about packing down my weak feelings—this is about choosing what will strengthen me over what will break me, and right now, at this moment, I desperately need to be strong. “Please, don’t argue this.” My throat shrivels. “Go—spend time with Jesse. This war isn’t done taking people from us.”
Ceridwen pushes closer to me. “Get that look off your face right now.”
I pull back. “What?”
“The look that says you don’t expect to survive this. Because if you don’t expect to survive this war, youwon’t. Death has a way of finding those who welcome it.”
Her words heave at the balled knot in my chest. I turn from her, reaching for the tent.
“The servants should be—”
Ceridwen grabs my arm, holding me in place. “I’m not saying that that feeling isn’t natural. Any fighter worries about it constantly. But don’t let it consume you.”
“Idon’tlet it consume me,” I snap. “You have no idea what it will take to end this. I do.I know exactly what has to happen, so don’t lecture me on how to handle it. I’m doing the best I can, Ceridwen. I’m barely holding myself together.”
Her grip on me loosens. I run a hand over my face, and when I look back at her, her anger has returned, a flash of hurt that makes me all too aware of how I yelled at her.
I slacken. The main tent’s flaps part, and out come Sir, Dendera . . . Mather.
My chest deflates. “You’ve worried about not making it through battles before.”
Ceridwen nods, sharp and short.
“Did you ever fear . . .” The question sticks in my mouth. “Did you ever fear what that would do to the people you love? Did you ever try to, I don’t know . . . distance yourself, so it wouldn’t hurt as much?”
Ceridwen doesn’t respond right away, and when I look at her, her lips part.
“I got too good at distancing myself,” she says. “Mostly it was because I was afraid. But I’ve come to understand things differently, after all this. And . . .” Her eyes stray to the camp around us. “And it’s so ridiculous, these barriers we put up. We aren’t hurting anyone but ourselves. Everyone involved in this knows that at any moment Angra could come sweeping in and obliterate everything. You think the people we love would be happier if we pushed them away? Flame and heat,no. Every moment we have is one more moment that can’t be taken from us.”
I look to Mather again—he’s talking with his Thaw just outside the main tent, no doubt telling some of them to go with Henn to escort the last refugee group. His eyes jump to mine when he feels me looking at him, and even from paces away, his smile sends a tingling storm through my body.
Ceridwen follows my line of sight and looks back at me with a knowing grin. It softens into something serious, an absent longing dredged up from her own life.
“You’ll only regret the time it took you to make the decision,” she says.
That makes me shift a questioning smile to her. “And have you? Made a decision?”
Because the last time I saw her, she was distraught over ending things with Jesse. But they spent time together in her refugee camp—have they mended things since then?
By the slow, startled smile on her face, I know the answer.
She laughs at herself, palms going to her suddenly sheened eyes. “I don’t know! I don’t know. I just know that I—” Ceridwen shrugs, laughing again. “I love him. And that’s all.”
“Ventralli and Summer.” I echo her smile. “It could work.”
