Previously
While Ana is skating and singing a nursery rhyme about the Snow Queen, the ice on Argent Lake breaks, and she falls into the freezing water. Jeanne manages to pull Ana out using a long tree branch and immediately strips the girl's wet clothes, covering her with her own coat and boots.
What had become of Ana? As I lay there groaning, someone helped me up and tipped something warm and tart against my lips.
I lifted my eyes to look at them. It was the young maid who looked after my room.
My voice scraped out, terribly hoarse.
Her words brought relief. Feeling the warm drink spread to every corner of my body, I lost consciousness once more.
Dreams pursued me as I drifted. In them, I was chased by something, or plunged from a great height. Gasping and crying out, I woke and fell back under again and again.
‘It’s cold… I’m scared…. Am I going to die like this?’
A fever raged while the chills refused to leave. Lying by the fireplace, I shivered, soaked in cold sweat. Each time, the girl would lift me to drink something warm, wipe away the sweat, and change me into dry clothes.
How many times had that cycle repeated? When I finally opened my eyes, night had fallen in full. My throat was parched, and my stomach hollow. Trembling, I looked around; the fire seemed to have gone out. Prone where I lay, I called out for the maid.
If she wasn't, I meant to let myself slip back to sleep. I lacked the strength to stir the embers with a poker or seek out water. No answer came, so I resigned myself and closed my eyes.
It was just then that the door opened. With my eyes shut, I sensed someone entering and assumed it was the girl. No one else had ever walked into my room.
Still lying down, I let out a weak breath.
Before long came the sound of kindling catching. Then a hand settled on my clammy forehead, testing my temperature. It was dry and firm. And broad—large enough not merely to cover my brow, but to cup it entirely.
‘Were Janet’s hands this big?’
Sickness must have scrambled my senses. Regardless, the cool palm felt wonderful against my skin.
“Haa…”
A groan slipped past my lips as I shifted slightly. I wished the palm would linger, and felt a twinge of regret when it withdrew so soon. As I lay catching my breath, hands slid between my back and the bedsheet to lift me up. The hand at my back was just as broad. Feeling a dull discomfort there—as if my spine were bruised too—I swallowed the water poured past my lips. It was sweet and cool.
Then I opened my eyes, and my breath caught.
“…”
Pouring water into the cup before me was the Duke of Skadi. Stiff as a board, I could only stare, while he held out the cup with an untroubled expression.
Was this a dream? I accepted the cup and drank, my thoughts racing.
“…”
Yet the cool water slipping down my throat made it unmistakable: this was real.
I moved to scramble up, but a slight shake of his head held me in place.
“…”
A brief silence settled over the room.
I had expected him to unleash a furious rage for putting Ana in danger. Perhaps he might even try to kill me where I lay. Yet the green eyes looking down at me were calm and level. Was he so enraged that he had turned stone-cold? His thoughts were impossible to read.
Sitting upright, I spoke with my hands clasped tightly together.
It had all been my fault. There was nothing else to say.
At my words, the Duke of Skadi tilted his head, studying my face as if weighing my intentions. Once, every small gesture of his would have left me trembling with dread. But right now, I felt none of that.
It was no more than I deserved. Acting as an adult guardian, I had let a child walk into mortal danger. And that child was his only daughter. An ordinary mistake was something one might fearfully beg forgiveness for, but this crossed every line. All I cared about before being dragged away was Ana's condition.
He murmured the name to himself. Belatedly, I realized I had referred to the young lady of the estate as if she were my own little sister.
She had. Thank heavens. I pressed a hand to my chest in quiet relief.
The memory of Ana reaching out to me from the freezing water surged back. And that frail, fading voice singing in my arms. Had I lost her, no punishment in this world could have matched that torment.
His question sounded almost like an interrogation.
To hear him put it that way naturally chilled me, no matter how firmly I had resolved to accept my fate. I could not fathom why he was cornering me like this.
“…”
Unable to speak, I closed my eyes. Perhaps this was what falling into a lion’s den felt like. My breath grew shallow and rapid, impossible to steady.
The answer scraped out of me.
My eyes snapped open. He was still regarding me with that unreadable gaze.
The unexpected words left me frozen.
Thanks?
He paused before continuing.
“Thank you for waking up. I was worried you might die.”
Then he swiftly added,
Again, he paused for a moment.
In that instant, the tension that had gripped my body snapped loose.
Ana was safe, and I did not have to leave my post. The crushing guilt that had lodged in my throat melted away. As all the pressure that had tormented me dissolved at once, an overwhelming surge of emotion broke through, and tears spilled down my cheeks. I lowered my head to hide them, desperate not to let him see me cry.
Usually, the polite course would be to pretend not to notice and take one’s leave. Instead, the duke extended a handkerchief with that rugged hand of his.
It sounded almost like an order. Taking it, I pressed it firmly over my eyes.
It was true. They simply fell.
‘How dreadful.’
Now that the guilt and dread had receded, humiliation rushed in to fill the void. Why was it that I only ever showed him such pathetic sights?
‘I must look filthy, I smell, my hair is a matted mess….’
Vomiting, lying unwashed for days, getting caught picking up dropped apples.
‘How much lower can I sink? It’s miserable and humiliating. I wish the ground would swallow me whole.’
Returning the handkerchief, I apologized.
Taking back the handkerchief, he frowned as though he had just heard something entirely bizarre.