Chapter 2
He is half-dead by the time she drags him inside the empty foyer of her palace. His clothes are torn up in places from where bloody bones and mangled muscles peek at her. He is a godling by the looks of him. His face is too swollen for her to form any opinion about his appearance, but he has nice hair, even if it's matted with blood.
It's long and soft, the color a shade of brown that her locks used to be like before godhood changed them into white.
What is she supposed to do with him?
She prods him with her foot, but he doesn't stir.
Is he dead?
She gets on her knees gingerly before placing her hands on his chest. His heart thuds faintly beneath her palms.
How is she supposed to heal him?
She is an ice goddess. All she can do is freeze up things.
She sits there contemplating for a very long time and it's the sound of teeth hitting against teeth that breaks her reverie.
He is shivering.
She silently curses herself for her stupidity in her head and gets up to search for something to warm him up. But the only thing in this ice palace are the jars of peach wine that goddess sends for preservation.
She looks at her dress.
It's old and worn out, frayed at the edges, and it is hardly going to do him any good. He starts moaning from cold and pain, and she runs out to escape the sound.
What if he dies?
What will she do with the body?
How will his loved ones find closure?
He must have a family. A father, mother, perhaps siblings?
What is she supposed to do now?
What was she thinking? It was the sound of her name, uttered out loud after so many years that made her search for him and drag him away from the dark woods to her icy domain. She must have suffered from temporary insanity.
She starts walking towards the woods.
He needs warmth if he is to survive his injuries. She doesn't know much about medicine and healing, but the least she can do after dragging him to her ice palace is keep him warm.
Lost in her thought, she continues her trek and doesn't even realize that she has crossed the boundary of her prison until she sees an antelope gallop away in the dark. She looks back and her frozen footprints taunt her.
Before she can scurry back to the other side of the line in fear, a howl echoes nearby.
Years from now on, this memory is still going to haunt her dreams in perfect clarity. It happens in a split second. The wolf prances towards where she stands, its golden eyes boring into her.
She takes a cautious step back instinctively, body ready to flee the moment the wolf lunges at her. She stares into the golden eyes that seem more intelligent than those of a regular animal and she stills.
The visions of blood, fangs and snarls fill her head. In her head she sees the wolf chase a young man across the woods. She sees the wolf walk on his two legs and turn into a man who pulls out a crossbow from thin air and notches his golden arrow. She sees the arrow pierce the man who wept and begged her to save him.
The wisps of cold air start escaping from the tips of her fingers. The wolf growls, she flicks her wrist sharply and a needle thin shard of ice imbeds itself in the soil near where the wolf is balancing on its haunches to jump.
She has never used ice consciously.
It hurts her bones, but her heart feels lighter.
She feels free.
The wolf attacks and she impales it on a thin spear of frost that feels as if it were fashioned for her hands alone. It struggles. it tries to cling on to life for a long while but after painful minutes, the energy deserts it. It's jaw opens wide and it gives one last mournful howl before the heavy body aided by gravity slips at the base of the ice spear.
She has never killed anyone before.
Her hands are steady when she fashions the ice into a sharp cleaver and skins the animal. She leaves the flesh, bloody and out in the open for animals to feast on.
The wolfskin feels softer than it should and it wraps around her shoulders comfortably. The smell of rust from blood lingers even though she iced the skin multiple times. But it's okay. The almost dead man won't mind a smelly blanket of wolf skin if he survives.
When she returns, his lips have already turned blue. He looks like someone who might pass into the domain of death any given second.
She rushes to where he lies, somehow curled around himself, all his injuries on display. She manages to wrap him snugly in the wolfskin, rolling him up so that only his battered and swollen face is visible.
Minutes pass and yet the blue doesn't recede from his lips. There is nothing around that she can give him to warm him up. She is reminded of the peach wine, but she dismisses the idea the moment it pops in her head.
It would do him more harm than good.
There is no chance of lighting a fire inside her palace or anywhere near her vicinity.
So, she does the only thing that comes to her mind. She cuts open her wrist and presses it against his lips. Forcing open his mouth, she lets her cursed, warm blood fall on his tongue. It dribbles from the side of his mouth.
She sits on the floor and then drags him in her lap. She raises his head and holds her bleeding wrist to his mouth. She balances his head in the crook of her elbow and massages his throat. He swallows a few drops. She continues the motion till she feels his lips latch on to her wrist.
He takes a few mouthfuls and his head rolls to one side, some of the blood dribbling on the wolfskin.
His lips are still blue, but now there is faint color on his cheeks.
All she can do now is wait…
~TX~
His name, she comes to know, is Elijah and he is the second son of the Goddess of Arcane.
His face, which miraculously returned to its former glory in the morning after his rescue, is the kind of face that hints at likanen verta descent. His nose is too blunt, his lips too thin, his forehead too wide, his jaw too square, but his eyes are the brown that reminds Elena of her father's eyes. His hair is the shade that reminds her of her own.
He is an outcast too. It's there on his face, in his timid gaze, in hands that shake and body that vibrates with nervous energy.
They must have been merciless in their teasing.
After he opened his eyes, it was hard to persuade him to not prostrate himself in front of her. She finds that absence of emotion has made her stoic and too much of it at once is painfully mortifying.
Few days of awkward tension is all she can endure before she suggests he return home.
He instantly refuses stating he has nowhere else to go and that he will serve her for his lifetime if she accepts.
She doesn't want to accept, in fact she is ready to voice her feelings when he suddenly falls on his knees in front of her.
'Let me stay beside you,' he whispers, 'I will cook and clean and make sure that your goblet never runs out of peach wine…'
'I hate peach wine,' she finds herself admitting, albeit with a certain carelessness.
'I…I will bring grape wine for you then, one that I brewed myself and hid in hopes of drinking one day.'
She stares at him, this young, foolish godling who wants to stay in this cold with her. She envies him. He has a choice.
She had none.
'I will tell you stories of lands I have roamed and legends I have heard, the whispers I have secretly listened to about the mad goddess and her primordial lover…'
He is cunning, this godling. He is looking at her expectantly and she can see the calculation going on in his eyes. She almost laughs.
Does he want to stay here so badly?
What was his life like that he is ready to forsake it all and share this cursed existence of hers?
The thought sobers her.
'You can stay,' she says at last, tired of watching him kneel on the hard, icy floor. She starts walking away when the sudden tug on the hem of her skirt makes her stop.
'You are not jesting, are you goddess?' he asks timidly. 'You won't force me to leave after a few days, will you?'
'That depends on you,' she replies, extracting the cloth from his hold.
What a silly godling, she thinks in humor as she walks out of her palace, heading towards the woodlands.
Well, at least she won't be lonely anymore…
I hope you guys are okay! Stay safe everyone…
