All Adam felt in that moment was sorrow. Wet tears fell from his eyes and made his frostbitten face turn even colder. Winter had surely arrived. He had been sure the snow would work to his advance. Instead he painted the white snow red with his own blood.
Everything seemed to slow down. He could hear the sound of his own heart struggling to keep pumping. It had been speeding seconds earlier, all full of adrenaline from the battle. Now it had slowed down to a cruel, slow pace. It wouldn't last long.
"Traitor," Adam whispered.
"You had it coming," Kyle said.
Adam looked up at a man he once had been close enough with to call his brother. Kyle was one of the men Adam had felt slowed him down in his quest to take more land. He had thrown them out of his army. Not once had he thought they would join forces with the enemy to lead a fresh army into battle to take down Adam and his men. Kyle, Bobby and Roderick ended up becoming his own downfall. They knew how he thought and how he fought. It had been an ambush he hadn't seen coming.
"Poets will sing of this day for years to come," Kyle said. "The day Adam Cole was slayed and laid to rest."
Adam blocked out Kyle's voice. He didn't even look at any of the men anymore. There in the middle of the battlefield came a being walking he had heard tales and songs about. She was a myth that a lot of people still believed in. Winter's icy hand.
"Neves," he whispered.
She didn't respond to her name. She kept walking over the snow without leaving any footprints. The long, white dress flowed in the wind along with the long, white hair that went all the way down to her ankles. Even her eyes were white and they never moved away from Adam. She didn't stop moving until she stood in front of his feet.
"No!" Adam cried. "Don't let her take me! Please! I don't wanna go!"
A body ran through her with a sword raised as if she wasn't even there. Kyle might have taken Adam down first, but Roderick was the one to finish the job. Adam didn't get to plead for his life anymore. Roderick planted his sword down in Adam's heart. The tears on Adam's face stopped running and turned to ice in the bitter cold.
Adam watched through dead eyes how Winter's icy hand Neves went to stand beside his body. She kneeled down, placed her ice cold hand on his chest and leaned over him. With frozen lips she kissed him and forced his soul out of his body.
He stood up at the same time as her. He wanted to make a run for it so he wouldn't be taken to her frozen realm to spend an eternity but he never got the chance. She was right next to him in a split second, wrapping her cold fingers around his throat and continuing forward while he was being dragged with her as if it wasn't a struggle to her at all.
He wanted to cry but no tears fell. He wanted to scream but no words came out. He didn't move. He just felt himself being pushed backwards with this being. His corpse and his old friends got further and further away. He watched Kyle raise his sword and cut the head of his corpse, grabbing his long hair and holding up his head for everyone to see. It broke his heart to see.
He closed his eyes and allowed the cold, frost, snow and ice to devour his entire soul. He surrendered to Winter's icy hand. Not that he would ever have a choice when it came to fallen warriors spilling their blood in the snow. He just didn't have anything left inside him to even try to fight her anymore.