He stopped talking for so long that I came to him and wrapped my arms around him from behind. This time he let me do it. He even leaned back against the pull of my body so that I cradled his upper body against my kneeling one.
I whispered, "What happened?"
"There was music in the snow, and Taranis, Lord of Light and Illusion, came riding on a horse made of moonlight. You have no idea how amazing a golden court could be when they rode out in those days, Merry. It wasn't just Taranis who could make a steed out of light or shadow or leaves. It was truly magical. He and his men lifted them out of the snow and began to ride away toward the faerie mound. I was content to lose her if it meant she lived. I waited to be blasted back to nothingness and I was content. I had saved them, and my existence for theirs seemed right. I won't say my life for theirs because I wasn't alive yet then, not as I am now."
I hugged him close, and he gave me more of his weight, so that I leaned back against the foot of the bed, and cradled him. I kept one hand on his chest so I could feel his words rumbling up through his body.
"She woke, held in the lap of one of the shining court. My little Rose woke. She cried out for her Jackie, for her Jackie Frost. I came to her as I had from that first moment. I came to her because I could do nothing else. She pushed herself from the arms of that shining lord of the sidhe and came to me. I was not as I am now, Merry. I was young and childlike. The goddess gave me a body that could do more. But I was not one of the shining court. I was a lesser fey in every way. I suppose to human eyes I might have appeared as a boy of perhaps fourteen or younger. I looked a good match for my Rose."
He lay still in my arms.
"What happened to her mother?" I asked.
"She is still a cook at the golden court."
I kissed his forehead, then asked, "What happened to Rose?"
"We found shelter, and I used my magic to carry her far away from her village. People didn't travel then as they do now, and twenty miles was enough distance that we never saw any of the others again, She taught me how to be real, and I grew with her."
"What, do you mean, you grew with her?"
"I looked like a boy of fourteen, as she was a girl of fifteen. As she grew, so did I. It was not sword and shield that I first learned with these arms, it was axe and any other work a strong back could do to help take care of his family."
"You had children," I whispered.
"No. I thought it was because I wasn't real enough. Now, since you remain without child I wonder if it is simply not my fate to have children."
"But you were a couple," I said.
"Yes, and a priest who was more friendly than Christian even married us. But we could not stay in any one village for long, because I did not age. I grew with my Rose until I am as you see me now. Then I stopped, but she did not. I watched her hair turn from yellow to white, her eyes fade from the blue of winter to the gray of snowy skies."
He looked up at me then, and there was fierceness in his face. "I watched her fade, but I loved her always. Because it was her love that made me real, Merry. Not faerie, not wild magic, but the magic of love. I thought I was giving up what life I had to save Rose, but the consort had asked if I would give up everything I was, and I did. I became what she needed me to be. When I realized that I would not age with her I wept, because I could not imagine being without her."
He came to his knees and put his hands on my arms, and stared down into my face. "I will love you always. When this red hair is white, I will still love you. When the smooth softness of youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want to touch your skin. When your face is full of the line of every smile you have ever smiled, of every surprise I have seen flash through your eyes, when every tear you have ever cried has left its mark upon your face, I will treasure you all the more, because I was there to see it all. I will share your life with you, Meredith, and I will love you until the last breath leave your body or mine."
He leaned down and kissed me, and this time I kissed him back. This time I melted into his arms, his body, because I could do nothing else.
CHAPTER 16
WE ENDED WITH HIM ABOVE ME. HIS HAIR HAD COME UNBOUND and fell around us like silver rain, if rain could be soft as silk and warm as your lover's body. Our skin glowed as if we'd swallowed the moon, and it was shining out of every inch of our skin. I knew my hair was a mass of red shining fire, because I could see the light of it from the edges of my eyes. His hair began to spark and shine as he moved above me, catching the light the way snow glitters in moonlight. I'd had other lovers who brought the sun to bed with them, but Frost was a winter's night with all its beauty and harshness.