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Viviane wasn’t surprised she’d found him here. Kallias never had taken to planning Winter Solstice festivities to the degree she had, and three full days of countless meetings with everyone from Winter’s most famous ice sculptors and bakers to their city’s guards gearing up for the high volume of visitors. Her husband and mate wore his High Lord mask well during these meetings, but she knew him: details like these tended to blur together. As meetings and visits dragged on and grew more numerous, he would slowly start to retreat back into himself, and Viviane would take his hand to ground him again.
To celebrate Solstice again was a blessing. Their people were overjoyed by the prospect of having something to celebrate again, and grateful that it would once again be with their High Lord.
Though none were quite so impacted by this as Viviane.
This would be the first Solstice they’d celebrate together after their marriage and mating bond had snapped. It was the first they would share together in an entirely new light, and it would be alongside their people.
Their safe and thriving people, who still worked every day to put the pieces of their lives back together again.
Viviane took in her husband’s form. His back was to her, but she could envision his face clearly: lost in thought, his blue eyes focused on something far away from where they were now.
Or, more accurately, lost in a time that had thankfully passed.
She sent a tug down the bond before she approached him, and in the glowing twilight, his shoulders seemed to relax slightly at the feeling of her near. She circled his waist with her arms, breathing in that familiar scent of evergreen and cold she’d clung to the memory of during those awful days he’d been gone. Kallias covered her arms in his own, letting out a long, steadying breath.
“Does it feel the same?” he asked her, still staring out over the frozen lake. Then, more quietly, “I took Solstice for granted, once.”
“I did, too.” A wave of warmth fluttered through her as he traced a circle on the back of her hand with his thumb. Neither wore gloves: their resistance to the cold was far higher than others’, though Viviane doubted she could ever feel cold when he was near.
Kallias was winter personified. He carried its cold, otherworldly beauty as though he’d been born of the frost and snow itself. His white hair swept up above the collar of his jacket like a snowdrift, and she had seen how the High Lords and emissaries of other courts looked at him. Like winter, he was quieter than most, never feeling the need to present himself to them for anything other than what he was.
Yet Viviane had seen some of those looks: two parts intrigue and wonder, and the other reserve.
He was beloved by his people and respected. They both were. Yet even in their own court, too few saw him for what he really was.
She loosened her hold, resting her hands against his waist and urging him to turn. He did easily, and when she met his eyes—startlingly blue and so full of life, depth, and warmth—an ache settled into her chest. This Kallias was so different than the boy she’d grown up with; whom she’d called friend for so long with no notion he’d been in love with her all along. The Kallias she’d loved before Amarantha had always been reserved, but had worn his shy smiles more easily. His boredom towards festivity planning would have been more apparent, and he would’ve made a sarcastic remark to her or two in confidence when one of the ice sculptors inevitably burst into a dramatic fit about a giant, carved swan’s eye being less than a half snowflake’s width larger than the other.
She rested her hand on his face, their bond surging into a warm fire between them. There were days he smiled less now. Moments she could tell he was back under that mountain. The horrors he had endured had sickened her, and it had taken some time before she’d admitted how much they had.
At the time, they had not known about their bond, yet Viviane knew it would’ve changed nothing. When he had flung out his plea and his declaration of love with the last of his magic, she had been gutted in ways she’d never thought possible.
She had risen to protect their people.
She had ruled in his stead with love and strength knowing how badly they needed both if Winter were to survive.
Yet there had been moments only she had known during her darkest nights alone. Viviane had called to him with both voice and magic; screamed as tears had streamed and frozen against her lashes. Her knuckles cracked and bloodied from pounding them against the ice in hurt and rage: at Amarantha, for their people trapped under that mountain, and for the male she’d realized too late that she loved.
And she had loved him: she’d often wondered how long as those terrible days had crept by. She felt that love in every fibre of her being; in the excruciating ache in her chest at his loss as if her very heart had been ripped out.
Later, she’d realized that hadn’t even been the bond that shattered her. Without even realizing it, she had fallen in love with her best friend.
Kallias had never doubted her, and Viviane had held the Winter Court together. She’d been the picture of strength despite feeling like a shell of herself. She had ensured their people had food, shelter, and what small glimpses of happiness they could find when it seemed like none existed.
When Kallias had winnowed back to her that day and their eyes had met, Viviane had kissed him. She had felt both his shock and relief, and they had held each other there, refusing to let go until her eyes had run dry and lips swelled from their desperate union.
Kallias had gotten down on one knee, and Viviane vowed to never let him go again.
Their bond had snapped on their wedding night.
They hadn’t emerged for weeks.
Presently, she smiled as he leaned his face against her touch. “You can stop hiding now,” she teased, though her voice was barely above a whisper. “The sculptor realized it was a trick of the light.”
What distance Kallias had held in his eyes subsided a little at that, a small twinkle in their striking blue. “Wonderful. Here I thought Solstice would be ruined forever by a swan.”
"You could help him, you know,” she teased, sliding her hands down his arms and taking his hands in hers. Her smile turned coy. “These hands must be good for something.”
The twinkle shifted to a knowing gleam, and despite himself, a faint blush rose to his pale cheeks. “Perhaps we should put them to the test,” he suggested.
“The sculptor will be rather offended if he's been put out of a job.”
“There’s nothing he can craft that won’t already be put to shame.” He rested his hand beneath her chin and tilted her head up at him, studying her like a master craftsman examining a work of art. Chills trickled through her at his touch, heat pooling pleasantly in the pit of her stomach. The bond pulled between them, and her eyes lowered to his lips: so full and flushed from the world around them. She traced over his knuckles with her fingertips.
The soft light that stretched across the lake had begun to fade into night. The ice would begin to sing soon, its old creaking, ancient song a reminder of passing time. Vivane would never take winter for granted again. She would never stop savoring every moment she and her mate found together.
“Do you want to do something fun?” she whispered, and his eyebrow raised slightly and blush deepened. She smacked the hand that still rested beneath her chin lightly. “Not whatever wicked thoughts are swimming through that pretty head of yours. Something…” she paused, tilting her head towards the lake. “Something we used to do, Kal.”
His eyes softened then, and the ache in her chest begged her to take him in her arms and give him even wickeder thoughts to consider. “Viviane. Always.” He pressed a kiss–soft and lingering–against her forehead before releasing his gentle hold and turning back to the lake. He bent one knee and then the other, running his hand along the sole of his boots until two blades smooth as metal were bolstered along the center and balanced with a tough ice shell. He stepped onto the lake and turned, a small smile tugging at his lips as he offered her hand.
Viviane paused, her grin slowly spreading. Instead of her hand, she extended one foot forward, raising her skirt past the top of her boot and above her knee as her husband’s eyes lowered to follow it. Despite his blush, he smirked.
“Is that how this is?” he asked, lifting his gaze back to her as he knelt against the snowy bank and positioned her foot against his thigh. She inhaled at the nearness of his scent all over again, changing just enough for her to take notice.
She had every intention of hers changing, too.
His hand was strong against her calf as he held her in place, free hand trailing beneath her own boot until another perfect blade had formed beneath it and rested against his leg. The heat in her stomach burned as he tilted his head then, his eyes locking with hers as he pressed his lips against her knee. Her thigh.
With a feigned hmph, she rested a single fingertip against his forehead and gave a gentle push away. His grin grew as he shifted and she offered her other leg, raising her skirt more slowly and stopping its hem much higher on her thigh.
His steadied himself with a breath, though she hadn’t missed the subtle shift in his posture as he formed her second skate with his magic. “Something we used to do,” he repeated slowly, the bond humming as he met her gaze again. “You've always tormented me.”
“Should I stop?” she asked innocently, resisting the urge to yelp at the slight pinch he left at the tenderest skin too high on her inner thigh. She bit her lip as the ache sunk to her core, and as Kallias stood, she almost regretted requesting they do anything else first. Blades intact, he took her hand and backed onto the ice, guiding her as they glided away from the shore.
“I hope you never stop,” he murmured, pulling her against his strong frame. The world seemed to slow as they began their dance, a series of drifts and spins that they’d fallen into so long ago. It seemed like ages ago since they’d first danced together on this same ice, when he’d still been gangly and awkward and she hadn’t yet known loss.
They fell into perfect sync with each other leaving the world at the shore. Winter’s dances were made for the ice even more than they were for the ballroom, and Viviane embellished his lead, adding dynamics to the turns he lead her through, reaching for him with her entire body in the moments they drifted apart, and finding her center with him again when their bodies became one again.
They danced until the last of the light had sunk beneath the snow; until sweat gleamed against Viviane’s neck and Kallias’s brow. They danced until her thighs burned from exertion…and from the need of bracing against his.
When they at last skidded to a stop, they held each other close, their breaths small clouds that danced together in the freezing night. She breathed him in: her best friend, her husband, her mate, and she kissed him once, letting her lips linger against his as she uttered a single word. “Kal.”
Later, she would wonder if the blades he’d made had simply melted as he’d carried her back to their quarters. She would forget what the cold had even once felt like as they set each other ablaze again and again, leaving a mess of tangled sheets and sweat. They would miss their first meeting the next morning, and their second.
Kallias would blush when a trusted emissary stared in amusement at the mark on his neck his jacket hadn’t fully covered, and flush deepening when she adjusted his collar to hide it.
They would go into this new season together as they would for every Solstice after: together.