Page 1 of Snowed In With the Dragon Kings

1

Elara

The snow is the pretty kind today. Soft, lazy flakes drift down between the rooftops and catch in my cloak, and none of them are in any hurry to get where they're going.

I wish I could say the same. My basket is digging into my hip, my toes went numb somewhere around the candlemaker's, and I still have one more stop before I can go home and thaw out.

Even so, I slow down. It's hard not to.

The whole village smells like woodsmoke and cinnamon, and there's a garland nailed over every shop door like the solstice might forget where we live. Red ribbons hang in the windows. Little bells jingle whenever somebody goes in or out of a shop, so the entire street sounds like it's giggling at a private joke.

I love it. Truly.

What I don't love is how the women outside the butcher's shop go quiet when I walk by. I know that silence. It's the sound of people counting how many winters I've been unmarried.

Too many. They can count.

"Morning, Elara," one of them calls. "Still carrying your own basket?"

"Still got two arms." I lift it higher so she can see. "Turns out they work fine without a husband attached."

Her mouth puckers like she bit a lemon. I give her my sweetest smile and keep walking.

Solstice is supposed to be about light and family and eating until you can't move. For most of the village, it is. For me, it's the time of year when everyone remembers I'm a quarter of a century old and nobody's managed to marry me off yet. Like I'm a wheel of cheese that's been sitting on the shelf too long, and they're all wondering when I'll start to smell.

It's not as if I haven't had offers. I've had plenty. Some of the men were arrogant. Some were so lazy I'd have ended up doing their work on top of mine. And more than one seemed far more interested in my cottage than in anything I had to say.

So I said no. Every time.

Apparently that makes me “difficult.”

I don't think I'm difficult. I just won't marry a man I don't love, especially when I can take care of myself. I sew. I gather and sell herbs. I'll help with anybody's harvest or mend anybody's coat if the coin is fair. My aunt raised me to work hard and never wait around for someone else to fix my problems, and I've been doing exactly that since she died.

Around here, the elders seem to think my independence is a phase. Everyone does. They talk about it like it's a rash I'll grow out of if I just stop scratching.

The bakery is my last stop. When I push the door open, warmth rolls over me like a quilt fresh from the fire, and I nearly groan out loud.

"There she is!" The baker's wife bustles out from behind the counter, flour on her apron and her cheeks round and pink from the ovens. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten us."

"Never. You're the only reason I come into town."

"Flatterer." She's already reaching for a loaf. She's known me since I was knee high, which, as far as she's concerned, gives her the right to know everything about me. My business. My suitors. What I had for supper last night. She means well, mostly, but there's not a secret in this village that hasn't passed over her counter at some point.

"Are you excited for the festivities?" she asks, wrapping the bread in cloth.

"Who isn't? The whole village looks like someone sneezed evergreen all over it. I love it." I grin. "I'm planning to eat my weight in spiced apple tarts and dance with anyone who doesn't step on my feet."

She laughs, but then her face goes soft in a way that makes me brace myself. "It must be harder this time of year, though. Since your aunt passed."

There it is.

"A little," I admit, but I make myself keep smiling. "But she'd have hated me moping around about it. She always said nobody's coming to fix sad for you, so you'd better fix it yourself."

"That sounds like her."

"It does." I swallow past the tightness in my throat. Every solstice since she died, my cottage has felt too big and too quiet. I don't say that part out loud. Nobody wants to hear it, and I don't want to say it.

The baker's wife pats my hand and starts chatting about the price of flour, and I'm nodding along when the heat comes.