Page 20 of Omen of ice
“He doesn’t,” he confirms, and I’m not at all surprised. He drops his arm, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leathers. “The magic was impossible to hide. It manifested before I could speak. The wolf came later, a sign of my mysterious father’s bloodline. Highborn don’t have an animal side. There is no one living—aside from you, now—who knows.”
I press two fingers against his chest, over his heart. “I will tell no one what I saw. You have my word.”
Beneath my fingers, his heartbeat explodes. Eyes wide, he lifts his hand to mine yet stops just shy of touching me. “What are you—”
“I didn’t mean to—” I blink and yank my hand away. “An oath. When a druid swears something over the heart, it’s binding.”
His eyes are still on my hand as he takes a step back. Nodding once, he says, “Thank you. If Orbik knew about my wolf, he’d have me gutted and hung on display in the center of the estate, magic be damned.”
“That’s barbaric!” My gut twists. The Winter Lord seems the opposite of everything we’ve been told he was. How could we have gotten it so wrong?
He shrugs as if he hasn’t just informed me his own uncle might one day flay him like cattle. “It would be an excuse to be rid of me. He might want the magic in my blood, but he fears it just as much.” Valen turns and walks toward an open doorway, sticking his head into another room. A quick scan, and he moves on again.
“Right. The omen thing. Like I said before, prophecies are tricky things. Easily warped to suit an individual’s needs.”
“It’s not just that. I’m technically next in line to the throne—not that I want anything to do with it. I imagine Orbik is unhappy about that because I’m a bastard with no clue what my bloodline is. I don’t know my father.”
“You don’t know who your father is?” I can sympathize. Valen and I, it seems, have much in common.
“My mother was abducted. There are theories, but we never discovered who was to blame. She found her way back home years later with a baby in her arms. She died shortly after. Where she was, what was done to her… It remains a mystery.”
We come to another room. He peers inside, and when nothing seems amiss, we continue on.
“I didn’t know my parents.” The confession tumbles out with more emotion than I mean to give. Most Aphelians don’t spare this fact a second thought, but for me, it’s always been a sore spot. “My father was an unnamed volunteer from the only remaining druid village, and my mother, an Aphelian, was assigned to a Fae shortly after I was born.”
He nods and says, “I’d like to ask you a question.”
“Okay…?” The serious tone of his voice makes me nervous.
“I would like to know your name.”
“Aphelian,” I answer immediately. It should make me happy that he’s trying to establish more of a connection, but this is something I’m not willing to offer.
“I would like to know yourrealname.”
“Aphelian,” I repeat, this time stiffly. My birth name was given to me by my mother, the one and only thing I ever received from her. I’m an anomaly among my kind in that respect. Normally, we’re simply handed over to the Order moments after birth—no name, no connection. A blank slate to train and hone as they see fit. But, for some reason, my mother was different. She gave me a name, and though I’m not supposed to use it anymore, I keep it close.
His brows lift. “That can’t be the name the Order gave you at birth.”
His request shouldn’t surprise me. His last Aphelian apparently shared her name with him. He must have worn her down, somehow—but I’m not her. “Why does it matter?”
“Because we’re going to be spending a great deal of time together.”
“So, does this mean you’ve accepted that I’m here to stay?” Hope blooms in my chest.
He makes a show of taking a deep breath, and when he blows it out, the air turns frosty. “What is your name?”
I square my shoulders and meet his steely gaze. One word. That’s all I need to give him. But I can’t push it past my lips. It’s something that’s mine, the only thing I truly own. I want my relationship with Valen to grow, and maybe Iwilltell him. Eventually. But not now. Not yet. He hasn’t earned it. “Aphelian.”
“Fine, then.” His posture stiffens, the tightly corded muscles of his arms taut. “I’m retiring to my quarters for the evening.”
I watch him go, waiting until he turns the corner to start moving. A few moments later, his door—obviously replaced by estate staff after we left to search the rooms—slams hard enough to rattle the pictures on the walls in the hall.
A moment later, his room is quiet and there’s no light bleeding from beneath the door. I’m tempted to knock and apologize, but I’m tired. My first full day might not have been as bad as the day before, but it still hadn’t gone the way I hoped.
Tomorrow is another day.
I shiver as I grip the doorknob to my room. It’s colder than it should be, and when I pull open the door, more than a foot of snow spills from the small space. It comes to just below the mat of the cot and covers my old boots.
