Sisters Three (Completed)

51. Adair

Adair woke with the uneasy feeling that something had gone wrong. Sitting bolt upright, her powers reacted with her emotions and released a flurry of snow into her bedroom, whipping her door open and waking the two wolves that had spent the night in her room. The snow and wind blustered, but she saw nothing in her room that had caused her iil ease. She lifted her hand to dispel the snow, and slid out of bed. Draping a fur over her shoulders, she comforted the wolves with a passing stroke, and stepped into the hall.

As usual, her castle was entirely silent. She was used to the stillness of her mountain, and it did not bother her anymore. Only, somehow today's silence felt different. It hung heavy, hard. Her skin crawled under it, and her ears strained for a noise she thought should have been there. She just couldn't figure out what the noise was.

Whenever she felt bad, she always sought out Silver. She was used to keeping her feelings to herself, used to sorting them out and making sure that she could handle anything that came her way. Every once and a while, though, she couldn't hold herself aloft any longer, and she needed to speak to someone. And her only someone was Silver. He was an extension of herself, the only thing she cared about in the world that did not involve her or her kingdom. He was her family more than the two girls out there somewhere in Anjeluund ever had been.

She searched his room first, but only found his made bed and untouched belongings. Since she'd found him in the passage, she hadn't seen much of his face. He'd taken to sleeping in random rooms, hidden from her so that she couldn't find him without her magic. The times she did see him he smelled of wolf. It meant he'd most likely been sleeping somewhere near or in their room, which surprised her as he did not normally like being close to the animals.

After peeking into the observation room to see that it was empty, she searched the rest of the castle, trying to remember all the places she'd found him before. The hidden spaces and small corners were all dishearteningly empty, and she ended her search in the foyer.

A small speck of worry lodged into her heart, and she chewed on her knuckle as she paced the icy floors. He wasn't in the castle, and she doubted he was outside in this cold. While she'd spent the last few hours searching for him, the sky still had a few more to go before it began to lighten. Unless he'd somehow found a way to wrangle the reindeer together and stop them from crushing him with their restlessness, he couldn't have slept in the snow. He just couldn't have.

But where was he?

The feeling of dread deepened, and before she knew what she was doing, she threw open the doors and charged into brisk night air. The snow stuck to her barefeet, but she didn't feel it anymore. It had been a long time since she was warm enough to feel the cold of her snow. Now it was no different than walking through grass.

The reindeer took some time to get geared up, but when she finally had them harnessed to the sled she wasted no time in putting them straight into top speed. They charged through the snow, and Adair fixed her eyes on that distant point on the horizon that seemed to draw Silver to it time and time again.

The sled came to a stop at the entrance to the hidden pass just as the sun broke over the mountains, and Adair tossed the reins to the side. She scrambled from her seat, not caring if the reindeer wandered off or not. Right now all she cared about was not finding Silver in that pass.

With each step she whispered a plea that he wouldn't be there. It was as if her words would turn into a spell or a charm, magically transporting him to the safe and warm confines of the castle. She would find this pass empty, and then go home and find that he was in his room all along.

Her breath a cloud in front of her, Adair reached the end of the pass where her spell cut the North off from the rest of the world. Her steps slowed, her heart slowed, as she saw a huddled black form pressed up against the border. Her eyes slowly shut, a strangled groan passing her lips.

She started walking then, not wanting to open her eyes but knowing she had to. At her feet lay Silver, his forehead pressed to the invisible barrier, huddling against the cold of the night. His eyes were closed and his brows knitted, with his mouth just barely crooked down in the corners. She almost could believe he was merely asleep if she didn't notice the lack of vapor around his mouth and nose.

Covering her mouth with her hands, she stared at him. He didn't move, motionless as one of her ice statues. She had no idea how he'd made it out here in the dark, and she didn't know why. Her crystal heart called out for that common echo that only he could provide, but found that his heart was not there to answer. She sunk to the snow by his side, her toes red next to the blue of his skin.

She didn't notice when she started to cry, only that her face was suddenly wet. It felt strange, unnatural. She didn't cry. Raising a hand, she touched the tracks they left behind, staring at the glistening water on her fingers. Her eyes flickered to Silver's unmoving face. "Why did you do this?" she asked, her voice strained and so quiet. Of course, she didn't expect an answer.

More minutes slid by, marked only by the steady growing of the light. The air didn't warm yet, but with each passed minute she was treated to more and more of his blue skin and lips, and the way his chest did not rise or fall.

Taking a few steps backward, she bent over, trying to force air into her lungs while she stared at him. This was her doing. Ice, ice, ice statue. Something she'd made, carving him into what she wanted. And here he lay, straining after the one thing he'd wanted. The one thing she could never give him.

A dangerous thing happened then. The Queen of the North's crystal heart shattered into a million splinters, exploding into her chest and escaping the confines of her woefully inadequate body through the most catastrophic display of her powers. A blizzard formed instantly overhead, icicles formed on the pass walls, the snow beneath her feet swirled into a vortex around her. Adair disappeared into the swirling, vicious venting of her heart. The snow swallowed the entire mountain, shaking the rock until avalanches tumbled from the highest peaks and destroyed everything in their path.

There was nothing left in the North now. Only the cold and heartless snow.