A Cold Night To Remember

[8] Numbness is better than pain...

Arovis wanted to weep. In the depths of her loneliness, she wanted to let her emotions flow and soothe her aching heart. She grieved for her homeland, she missed Lyla, and all that she had once held dear was now ripped from her. But the tears would not come. She would not allow them. She would be hard. Hard like the father that had sold her into this situation. She had never really loved him, but she never thought he would sell her like this, to a man twice her age and living in a brutish frozen wasteland. That was what her life was worth, a trade route. 

Arovis shoved every stinging thought down deep into her core. Then she reached out to the burning log in the fire grasped it, allowing it to burn her fingers instantly. She yelped, pulling back instantly and held her hand, focusing on the pain. Her breathes came in and out in a long practiced fashion. She moved to the frozen window where she place her hand on the glass, the cold surface soothing her fingers. 

"I will not break, I will not stop. I will find Lyla and escape this prison of a mountain", She thought to herself. 

Her toes were numb from the stone floor by the window, the woolen rug not extending this far. "That is what I must do...I must be numb. I must not feel, that is how I survive this." 

She took a deep breath removed her hand from the pane of glass. Suddenly she noticed the frozen glass was now clear and for the first time she could see further than a few feet into the air. She could see the rocks on the outside of the castle on this side were large and deeply set, obvious handholds exposed. Her mind began to come up with a plan for escape when the door to her room burst open, startling her. She held her hand to her chest, cradling the stinging fingers. 

"You have been summoned to the hall, my lady," The guard spoke brusquely. 

"As your future queen, I demand you knock before entering my chambers again," Arovis chided, chin held high. 

The guard rolled his eyes, "If  you are ever queen, I'll be sure to do that." He walked off down the hall, waiting halfway for her to follow. She grabbed a woven shawl and followed him into the main hall which now was full of music, the bard in the corner singing and playing what she now knew was a type of harp they used in the north. She wished it were louder, it's melodic twangs vaguely reminding her of home.

The king was seated at the head of the table while the other nobles sat along the sides, most of them men but also a few women dispersed throughout as well. Arovis was unaccustomed to men and women eating together but it appeared to be the custom here. 

Arovis was seated near the king on his right, while the space opposite of her was empty. She ate quietly, their meal consisting of roasted goat, potatoes, and some cooked roots she didn't know the name of but found particularly delicious. The king did not speak to her much that evening, preferring to tell tales and jokes with his friends and noblemen. Arovis held her tongue, allowing words to pass over her as sand over stone in a windstorm. If she were to be numb as ice, she mustn't allow their stories to move her. She meditated on the feeling of cold in her feet, letting it creep up into her legs, belly, and into her heart. She would be nothing but the snow that surrounded her, unforgiving. 

She finished her food and a servant removed her wood plate from before her, but refilled the horn of ale on the table. She took a sip, not yet having developed a taste for the crude alcohol. When she set the horn back down, she found the empty seat before her had be filled by a dark figure, snow melting on the straps crisscrossing his chest. Her eyes moved up to see the hooded man before her, Tristian. She hadn't seen him in weeks, where had he been? He flipped back his hood and she could see the flicks of melting ice dripping from his short beard.