Sisters Three (Completed)

41. Adair

A cold wind beat against the castle walls, and Adair could not sleep. She rolled over in her bed for the hundredth time, the fur blankets tangled around her bare legs and her eyes restlessly roving the ceiling of her room as the lantern light danced against the ice.

Her mind returned to her sisters, straining to remember their faces and what they sounded like. She called Morna to her mind easiest, remembering soft cheeks and doe eyes. Always skittish, but loving. Brenna was harder, recalling more of a vague annoyance than an image. Still, she knew all three of them had had good times in that old house. The few times that Morna and Brenna's Mama had not broken up the tea parties or tag, or whatever else they had invented to amuse themselves.

Adair groaned and flipped back over, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. That king had come into her lands, crashing into her life with his mention of her sisters. He'd married Brenna, which didn't seem surprising. Brenna could find a way to become the most powerful person in the land even if she'd been born to a peasant swine herder. Yet, now Adair felt a twinge of regret that she'd skewered the man, imagining Brenna and Morna waiting endlessly somewhere out there in Anjeluund for his return.

Shaking her head to dislodge the image of her two little sisters' crumpling faces, Adair sat up and drew her blanket around her shoulders. She shivered against the cold, unable to get warm since burying the Anjeluund soldiers in her snow storm. She glanced down at her fingers, and even in the gentle orange light of the lantern they still were tinged blue. She tucked them away in the fur and huddled over.

Something made her stand up and begin to walk. She didn't remember telling her body to move, but she found herself climbing the stairs to the higher section of the castle. It wasn't until her knuckles rapped on the door that she even realized she had gone to Silver's room. For a moment she wanted to run back to her room, hoping he would just think it was the wind that had awoken him, but she couldn't make her legs move. Her heart was too heavy.

A moment later the door cracked open, spilling a small sliver of light into the dark hallway. Adair blinked in the sudden glare, barely able to make out the silhouette of Silver standing in front of her.

"Is something the matter?" he asked.

Adair shook her head, feeling like a dog begging to be let indoors during a storm. It was everything she hated to feel, yet when she thought of returning to her own bed the images of her sisters floated in from the mists of her mind, and she couldn't face them any longer.

"I'm cold," she said.

Silver didn't remark on the oddity of her words, and only stepped to one side. She slid into his room, her fur blanket trailing behind her like a cloak. His lantern burned on a small table she'd made him. His room was smaller than hers, which made it warmer. His blankets were tossed to one side, and he shuffled toward them now.

She hadn't been in this room since she'd made it, and she looked at all the ways he'd made it his own. She edged toward where he stored his armor, fingering the black leather panels. He watched her, his curls rumpled and his eyes drooping.

"I don't wish to disturb you," she said, pausing a few feet from the foot of his bed. He shook his head, pulling his feet in and throwing his blankets over them.

"It's all right."

Before she lost that vulnerable feeling in the pit of her stomach, before she could convince herself that she was perfectly capable of battling old memories, she held out her hand and approached his side.

"Can I stay?"

Silver blinked in surprise, but mutely turned down the covers on the other side of him. Crawling over, Adair positioned herself near the wall, arms pinned to her side and eyes staring at the ceiling. Silver watched her for a moment and then turned to dampen the lantern to barely a glimmer. In the newfound dark, he settled in for sleep.

Their breath matched, and Adair slowly felt herself relax in the duet of their rhythm. Her rigidity melted away, and she turned to her side, facing Silver though she could barely make out his face in the gloom. He did not smile or frown or look at her with pity, but he scooted forward and moved his arm under her head. She let him, curling in close to his chest and listening to his heartbeat.

It took Silver eight minutes to fall back asleep, but Adair still couldn't quiet her mind. For now she was thinking about something else entirely from her sisters. She was thinking about the fact that even though she could feel the warmth of Silver's skin, feel it trying to warm her own, she stayed just as icy cold. Her fingers lay blue against the fabric of his shirt, her bare legs wrapped in his blanket did not thaw. Silver's warmth could not revive her crystal heart.