The morning sun had crept higher into the winter sky, bleeding a harsh, brilliant gold across the horizon and turning the frozen labyrinth of the frost gardens into a blinding expanse of absolute white. Elara remained out on the stone balcony a while longer, letting the biting mountain wind whip through her hair. The cold was beginning to seep directly through the heavy weave of her cloak, numbing her skin, but she barely registered the physical discomfort.
Her mind was entirely elsewhere—hopelessly caught in a turbulent current between the clean, stabilizing warmth of Rowan’s promise and the crushing, suffocating weight of everything she had left unsaid.
With every small movement she made, she could still feel the faint, lingering stickiness between her thighs—the tactile, invasive evid
