He Broke Our Betrothal at the Midwinter Ball, So I Wed the Grand Duke Before Dawn novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: The Snow Road

She left the capital that same night on a hired horse, with her Sunhallow escort and no plan beyond the north road.

By the second day the sky over the Brenn pass had turned the color of lead.

By the third, the last storm of the winter came down off the peaks with a roar.

She lost the road, the escort, and her horse in the white.

She found the hut by walking into its wall.

It was a shepherd's shelter of rough stone, with a sod roof, a hearth, a heap of old sheepskins and a door that stuck.

She got the door shut with her shoulder and sat down on the floor, shaking.

A fist hit the wood.

"Thessaly!"

She did not move.

"Open the door. I know you're in there."

"Go away, Eskil."

"I rode three days behind you, and I lost my horse at the ford," he said.

"I am not going away."

"I am going to die on this step, and you will have to explain it to the Peers."

She opened the door.

He fell in with the snow, grey and frozen, with ice in his black hair and his gloves gone.

She dragged the door shut, stripped his mantle from his shoulders, and made him sit by the hearth while she coaxed the damp wood into flame.

Neither spoke.

When the fire caught, he held out his hands to it, and she saw that the scarred one had gone white to the wrist.

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