Winter

Ninety-Three

Jacin slumped in the visitor chair, watching the doctor check Winter’s vitals with no small amount of envy. He wished he was the one to administer to her needs, to know from a readout of life statistics how she was faring and what he could do to make her better. Instead he had to sit there and pretend to be patient and wait for the doctor to inform him, once again, there was nothing to be done. They just had to wait and see if she would recover.

Recover.

Jacin hated the word. Every time it was said he could hear Winter’s voice, haunted and afraid. I do not know that even a sane person could recover from this. So how can I?

“Her heartbeat is still accelerated,” said the doctor, putting away his portscreen, “but at least she’s sleeping. We’ll check on her again when she wakes up.”

Jacin nodded, holding back any of the multiple retorts he had. When she wakes up kicking and screaming. When she wakes up crying. When she wakes up howling again like a sad, lonely wolf. When she wakes up and nothing has changed.

“I don’t get it,” Jacin grumbled, letting his gaze rest on Winter’s forehead—at least she was calm in her sleep. “It should have made her better, using her gift. Not worse. She shouldn’t be like this, after so many years of fighting it.”

“All those years are precisely what caused it.” The doctor sighed, and he too looked wistfully down on the princess. Too wistfully. Jacin bristled. “It might help to think of the brain and our gift like a muscle. If you don’t use that muscle for many years, and then one day you decide to push it to its full potential, you’re more likely to strain it than strengthen it. She did too much, too quickly, and it … damaged her mind, quite extensively.”

I am destroyed, she’d said. Not damaged. Destroyed.

And that was before Aimery had even shown up.

As soon as the doctor left, Jacin scooted his chair closer to Winter’s bed. He checked the padded restraints on her limbs—they were secure, but not too tight. She had often woken up with violent thrashing and clawing, and one medical assistant had nearly lost an eye before they decided it was best to secure her. Jacin hated watching them do it, but even he agreed it was for the best. She had become a danger to others and to herself. Her teeth had even left an impressive gash on his own shoulder, yet he still couldn’t fathom that it was Winter lashing out. Sweet, gentle Winter.

Broken, destroyed Winter.

Jacin let his fingers lie on her wrists longer than was necessary, but there was no one to chastise him now, other than himself.

The rash from the disease grew fainter every day. He doubted it would leave many scars, and what it did leave would be largely unnoticeable on her dark skin. Not like the scars on her cheek that had paled over time.

He both hated and admired those scars. On one hand, they reminded him of a time she’d been suffering. Of a time when he hadn’t been able to protect her.

On the other hand, they also reminded him of her bravery and the courage that so few people saw in her. In her subtly defiant way, she had dared to go against Levana’s wishes and the expectations of their society time and again. She had been forced to choose her battles, but choose them she had, and both her losses and her victories had cost her so much.

The doctors were at a loss for what to do with her. They had little experience with Lunar sickness. Few people chose to let their sanity deteriorate like she had, and they could only guess what the long-term effects might be.

And all because she refused to be like Levana and Aimery and all the rest of the Lunars who abused and manipulated and used others to fulfill their own selfish desires.

Even in her last desperate act, when she had used Scarlet’s hand to kill Aimery, Jacin knew she had done it to save him, not herself. Never herself.

Just like he would do anything to save her.

He dragged a hand down his face, overcome with exhaustion. He’d spent every night since the fight at her side and was surviving on little nourishment and even less sleep.

His parents, he had been shocked to learn, were not dead. He had been certain that his defying Levana’s order and helping Winter escape would end in their public executions, like Levana had threatened, but a twist of irony had spared their lives. His father had been transferred to a lumber sector years ago. When Cinder’s call for revolution broadcast, the civilians rioted, imprisoning all of their guards and the guards’ families. By the time Levana’s order to have them killed had come through, Jacin’s parents were no longer under her domain. The lumber sector, it turned out, was the same one where Winter had been poisoned.

He hadn’t seen them yet, as all guards were waiting to be granted trials under the new regime. Most would be offered a chance to swear fealty to Queen Selene and join the new royal guard she was building. He knew his father, a good man who had long suffered under Levana’s thumb, would be happy at the change.

Jacin himself was nervous to be reunited with his family. After years of pushing everyone he loved away, it was difficult to imagine a life in which he was free to care for people without fear of them becoming pawns to be used against him.

He knew they would love to see Winter again too, who had been like a part of their family growing up. But … not like this. Seeing her like this would break their hearts.

Seeing her like this …

Winter whimpered, a pathetic sound like that of a dying animal. Jacin jumped to his feet and settled a hand on her shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. She whipped her head back and forth a few times, her eyes jerking beneath her closed lids, but she didn’t wake up. When she had settled down again, Jacin breathed a heavy sigh.

He wanted her to be better. He wanted this to be over. He wanted her to open her eyes and not thrash or bite or howl. He wanted her to look at him with recognition and happiness and that hint of mischief that had captured his heart long before she’d been the most beautiful girl on Luna.

He pulled a coiled spring of hair away from her lips, brushing it back off her face.

“I love you, Princess,” he whispered, hovering over her for a long time, tracing the planes of her face and the curve of her lips and remembering how she had kissed him in the menagerie. She’d told him then that she loved him, and he hadn’t been brave enough to say it back.

But now …

He placed one hand on the other side of her body, leaning into it for balance. His heart was racing, and he felt like an idiot. If anyone saw him, they’d think he was one of Winter’s creepy admirers.

It would change nothing—every bit of logic told him so. A stupid, idealistic kiss could not put her mind back together.

But he had nothing to lose.

Winter went on sleeping, her chest rising. Falling.

Rising and falling and rising.

Jacin realized he was stalling. Building up hope, but also erecting a wall around himself for when nothing happened. Because nothing would happen.

He leaned over her, leaving a hint of space between them, and dug his fingers into the thin hospital blankets. “I love you, Winter. I always have.”

He kissed her. One-sided as it was, it had little of the passion there’d been in the menagerie, but so much more hope. And a whole lot of foolishness.

Pulling away, he swallowed hard and dared to open his eyes.

Winter was staring at him.

Jacin snapped backward. “Dammit, Winter. You … how long…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Were you just pretending to be asleep?”

Winter stared up at him, a dreamy half smile on her lips.

Jacin’s pulse skittered at that look, his attention dipping back to her lips. Was it possible—?

“Win—Princess?”

“Hello,” she said, her voice parched, but no less sweet than usual. “Do you see the snow?”

His brow twitched. “Snow?”

Winter peered up at the ceiling. Though her wrists were bound tight, she opened up a palm, like trying to catch something. “It is more beautiful than I’d ever imagined,” she whispered. “I am the girl of ice and snow, and I think I’m very glad to meet you.”

Disappointment tried to burrow into Jacin’s chest, but the walls he’d thrown up did their job, and it was repelled as quickly as it came.

At least she wasn’t trying to bite him.

“Hello, snow girl,” he said, folding her fingers around an imaginary snowflake. “I’m glad to meet you too.”