Elara. Balent Woods The first snowfall came. It was the first week of the tenth month. They had found shelter in an abandoned cabin in the Balent Woods, had spent the last weeks of autumn restoring it and erecting a lean-to that would shelter their horses. Elara's hands were raw from work and cold, but when the first white flakes of winter bore down on them one midday she was grateful for the work they had done. It would not last long, but it would protect them through the winter. It would be more difficult to move now, let alone move without a trace. William had bartered for a dagger in one of the holdfasts they'd come across, which he had wrapped in a small hide and given to her. "You keep this in your bodice, no matter if it isn't comfortable," he had told her as he carefully protected its sharp tip. "If anyone finds us in the snow, we are as good as dead unless you can help protect us." He had taught her how to wield it, where best to strike and from how close a distance, how not to injure herself either drawing it or using it. Now the dagger in its binding pressed uncomfortably against her side beneath her clothes as Elara sat by one of the two small windows and watched the oncoming storm. The snow had started at midday, a few scattered but large flakes. They soon came down in flurries, faster with each minute, and William had gone out to find food. Elara knew he would try hunting something first, but if that proved futile then he would go to the nearest town, which was a half-hour's hike away. He had left when the sun was only just past its zenith through the storm clouds. Now the light was nearly gone, and from the cottage in the woods it already felt like dusk. Elara had made a fire hours earlier. It was slower going without assistance, but she'd had nearly two months to learn the process and managed well enough on her own. The heat did not quite reach the far window by which she sat, but she was learning not to mind the cold. She had her heaviest cloak over the thicker cloth dress she had bought at market, and over that she had laid the second of William's two fur-lined cloaks. Her hands were buried in the folds of fabric; gloves would be all the sweeter if she only slid into them later. The distinctive five-beat knock came from the door. Elara rose swiftly and went to unbolt the thick wood front door. Even though the signal had been given, she was still relieved when it was William on the other side. He was quick to give orders. "Take these," he said, holding the bundles in his arms out for her to take, "I need to get my boots off before I flood us out with melted snow." Elara did as she was bidden, placing the parcels on their small worktable as William unlaced his heavy boots and stepped out of them, stocking feet landing on the dry inner floor. He placed the snow-sodden boots just inside and bolted the door. Elara watched as William pulled off his bow and quiver of arrows and laid them on the table, followed by his sword belt. Next came his cloak, laid out by the fire to dry, the snow in his hair making it almost glitter in the firelight. His cheeks were raw and red, his hands stiff with cold when he pulled off his heavy gloves and set them by the cloak. He proceeded to take off the layers of clothing that were damp with snow and crouched next to the fire when down to his breeches and woolen tunic, hissing as the heat touched his frozen fingers. "We won't be able to get out for a few days, I don't think," William explained, glancing up and over his shoulder at Elara. "The whole village is barricading themselves indoors." Elara stiffened, oddly hurt by his words. She longed for the roaring fires of Castle Randal, the warm soups and stews the cooks always managed to make even in the darkest and coldest nights of winter. She looked across at the pile of provisions William had brought; it seemed enough for them to last a few days, but even having to consider it made her stomach churn with fear. "Close the window, will you? The eaves won't keep the snow out much longer," William asked, and Elara nearly jumped, ashamed she'd daydreamed away about the castle far away. When she'd closed and bolted the window, it shuttered out the last bit of natural light. She looked back at William, noticing for the first time how his broad shoulders trembled as he twisted his hands in front of the fire. Blushing, feeling again that she'd forgotten herself, that she was too busy being a princess to be a friend, Elara quickly untied the outer of the two cloaks she wore, one of his. Careful not to startle him, she laid the dry cloak across his shoulders from behind. His head turned toward her, eyes finding hers. "You don't need it?" Elara shook her head. "It's yours, anyway. It won't do us any good if you freeze and leave me alone." William stood, tying the cloak at its collar and adjusting it over his shoulders. "Did you love him?" William asked, voice low but innocent. Elara's cold hands loosened where they were buried against her body, as if giving up the fight she did not know she had been waging within herself not to speak of past tragedies, not to speak of what-ifs. "As much as I knew how to," she admitted, eyes flitting between William and the fire. "He was... gentle. And he held me like a woman, not like a princess. Like something worth holding for no other reason than that you want to." Her vision had begun to blur, the embers at the bottom of the hearth seeming to fan out around their edges like glowing, breathing sunbeams. "You could have--" "I could not have married him," Elara preempted him, blinking the film from her eyes and leveling him with a wary, knowing look. "My brother was already the king, I had become too important." The statement felt like a redundancy given their very conversation was only happening because it was true. William cleared his throat, then said tenderly, "If you had wanted it, Derrick would have allowed it. You know he would." Elara had suspected her brother would have had that sort of regard for her wish had she requested it, but hearing William, his confidant, say it aloud hurt like a dull ache from a wound that had mostly healed. She was not sure if she would have had the courage to ask – not because she was uncertain of the answer, but because she was uncertain if she truly wanted that for which she would have been asking. "I thought," Elara stated softly, "about asking Cerdic... about telling him, that that was what I wished and that, if he was to go off to war..." but she trailed off, the self-consciousness seeping in at her edges. "If he would have you as a wife, in all but name," William concluded on her behalf, observant and intuitive as ever. Elara looked at him, willing herself to feel shame for what she was admitting to have wanted, but could not find it. "He would never have agreed. He cared too much for my honor," she finally said, though guilt started to edge in on her now that she was putting words in a dead man's mouth. "And I wonder now if I really would have wanted him to have agreed. Not because I would have regretted it," she clarified promptly, "but I think I loved the idea of him, of us, tucked away in some room... I think I loved that more than him. It would not have been fair." "To Cerdic, perhaps not," William countered, shifting his cloak around his shoulders. "But if that is what you wanted, in what is so often unfair to women..." he trailed off. Elara considered him for a moment before she said, "No wonder my uncles thought you were a debauched menace," unable to keep herself from laughing softly. "Telling an unwed princess she ought to have herself a lover even if it breaks his heart." William laughed too as he replied, "I didn't tell you to break his heart, Princess. Only that it wouldn't be so bad if you valued your own more than his." And what of her heart now? Frozen, stuck. Lost in a cold body in the middle of nowhere, hiding, unsure when she'd ever go home or anywhere safe again. "Maybe that's what I did, in the end," Elara said, her mouth quirking to the side, considering it. "Cared more for myself than... some idea, of him and me. Some idea that I don't even know if I wanted." "And if he had lived?" William asked, the question Elara did not want to consider. "Then perhaps it would be him here with me, instead of you," Elara considered, trying not to dwell, to word it so they could breeze past it. "Spiriting his wife away in the dead of night, hiding her from the world for her safety." They were silent for a long while after that. Elara could imagine what was in William's mind, wondering if he would have been safer or in greater danger if he'd remained by Derrick's side in this war instead of hers.