Freya’s voice had all the warmth of the first sun after a long winter. When the days were long and the nights longer he’d try to capture the very essence of her words. The exact caress a phrase from her could illicit, but it always fell short. Nothing could imitate her words in his mind other than the woman who spoke them. They were a mere shadow of the vibrancy they could be. So many times he tried and failed. When his mind spun as it did he’d grasp for her voice among the others, cling to it in an attempt to feel her near his side again. A habit he reached for as he sat alone on the garden bench, the chill of the stone numbing him.

This time he almost captured her voice. The lilting, calming, essense of words that eased his soul. They were so real he could only look for her out in the garden, so easy to picture her in this place, kneeling among the plants. But she wasn’t kneeling, the words weren’t a voice in his mind.

Freya stood in front of him, her dark cloak stark against their surroundings, her blond hair like a beacon of sunlight in the dreariness of winter. “Freya.” The word came out a rasp, rough on his throat as if he hadn’t spoken in the six months she had gone. Daniel set his glass aside and stood up, taking a step toward her, he had to know she was real. Tentatively his hand reached forward, cupping her jaw. The skin was warm beneath his cold hand, he could feel the blood pulse through her neck against his thumb, the softness of her cheek as he looked in her eyes. Freya was real and before him. The voices faded, calmed by her very presence.

But it had been too long. Daniel’s icy coolness had him stepping back almost involuntarily. “You were away too long.” A chill crept in with his words, while the truth they were not intended to be kind. She had left him, here, alone, again. For what? Her mother? A woman who had a league of healers and servants to tend to her. Selfish woman. Did she love her mother more than him? Would she leave him if not for the vow? Daniel’s face hardened, his jaw tightened as the doubts threatened to plunge him back into the ice he’d lived in for the past six months.