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Red was hot.
Red was a feverish heat, like the color was trying to burn you alive from the inside out. Red was burning cold and freezing hot. Red was blood, dripping down your face and rising in your cheeks, leaving you flushed and fevered. Red was your heartbeat pounding in your chest and your hands taking their pound of flesh. Red was hot.
Green was… cold.
Green was wind and water, Green was glittering snow and falling stars and freezing rain. Green was the kind of cold that made you feel alive.
Ren shivered, sitting on the wall of the Shadow Fort. He didn’t quite feel alive. He just felt cold.
The Faerie Circle would have been warm, even with the wind. In their tight circle of trees, with the hanging lanterns and the glowberry vines, with Lizzie’s cozy little cottage and a touch of her magic, it was always just warm enough.
She’d made him glowberry tea, when it got too cold outside of their little pocket of warmth. If he closed his eyes, he could smell its sweetness, feel the steam on his face like the smoke from her chimney.
He didn’t close his eyes. Their world was too dangerous, especially without the protections that the Faerie Circle had granted them, and especially without Lizzie’s magic to protect him.
He heard footsteps on the wall. He didn’t have to look to know who it was. He knew his queen’s boots like he knew his own heartbeat.
“Lizzie,” he greeted, tilting his head.
“Ren.” She sat next to him, staring off into the woods. He followed her gaze, but he couldn’t see whatever it was she saw in the darkness.
She pulled down her hood, shaking her head to let her hair fall free. Her long pink locks and the fabric of her cloak were perfectly still, despite the wind whipping Ren’s hair and clothes every which way.
Her cloak was a deep burgundy, shimmering slightly in the lights of the Shadow Fort behind them, like velvet woven with silver. He’d never seen her wear it before. It looked heavy, but she held her shoulders as high as ever. It was long, fabric bunched up on the wall on her sides and falling halfway to the ground behind her. He could see that the edges were brown, almost black, soaked in mud and muck and soil.
There were tiny pink flowers growing in the dirt of her cloak.
He finally looked at her face. Her eyes, still staring off, were a deep red, matching the blood dripping from her nose. Her pale skin was flushed, not nearly as pink as her hair but certainly going that way. There was a new scar going through her eyebrow, the jagged stretch of skin glittering.
She looked at him, not moving her head. She held his gaze for a moment that felt like forever, then her eyes went back to the woods. “You’re shivering.”
He shrugged. “It’s cold. Of course I’m shivering.”
“It’s ‘cause you’re green,” she said, unclasping her cloak. “Red isn’t cold. Red’s hotter than hot.”
“So I’ve heard.”
She pulled her cloak off and handed it to him. “You’re green,” she repeated. “I’m Red. Hotter than hot.”
He pulled the cloak on. It was warm, warmer than he’d ever felt in all the time he’d been Green.
Lizzie jumped off the wall, walking back into the woods. He couldn’t hear her footsteps over the wind.