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It is impossible.
He doesn't care what Snow says that she can and can't do. (And she woke, no, was awakened, from something like death, so he ought to believe what she is telling him, but he is of little faith.) He has seen Ravenna conquer too many would-be heroes, break their hearts and hopes like twigs, laying the land to waste. Still, if anyone can do this, it’s Snow, his dark haired girl-woman with chewed up fingernails and a will as unbreakable as iron, but the moment she is not standing right next to him, his faith fades.
And she lives! She lives and breathes, and as he rejoices, he fears for her again. Fears for what may yet happen to her. Fears for the abyss that threatens him when she's pulled away from him once more. She has too fast become his anchor, his bright light. She's given him his life back, even though he thought it lost forever. And he gave her life in return, somehow. He does not know how it worked, but she was dead to the world and now she is not, and he knows, from the depths of his soul, that it is his doing.
There is laughter in the barracks, fragile attempts to lighten the heavy mood of the eve of battle.
"Perhaps Lord William kissed her!" someone says, and it met with roaring laughter, and Eric listens, because William did kiss her, long ago, on the forest floor, but what difference does that make now?
"What makes you say that?" Someone else, more sober, asks. A third voice pitches in, launches into the metaphysics of magic and of learned men and women, about enchanted, death-like sleeps, and about kisses of true love. He talks and talks, but that is the core of it. The sleep, the kiss, the love. The breaking of a curse.
Eric closes his eyes, his thoughts both heavier and lighter than before. In time, the talkers silence to sleep before tomorrow’s ride. But Eric cannot rest; his mind is a beehive, the memories buzzing and never calming. Snow hiding under the tree roots. Snow calming the troll. Snow sleeping, wrapped in his blankets, under his watch. And finally her lips, cold under his. She deserves so much more, yet he continues to be drawn to her, against his better knowledge, like a moth to a flame, thought this flame is without malice.
He might die tomorrow. He means to protect her in this life, but he will also not hesitate to lay down said life to spare hers. A life for a life, a fair exchange. And if he does, she will never know what happened, never understand what difference her mere presence has made. He thinks, again and again, of her quiet, serious face, her bony elbows, her red lips.
Determined, Eric rises from his blankets and starts walking down the corridors towards the center of the keep.
It is not until he reaches her chamber — far from the barracks, uncomfortably close the duke and his son’s quarters — that he asks himself what he means to do, what words to use. He holds his palm flat to the door, not knocking, imagining Snow sleeping, rolled up on her side, a tuft of hair twisted around her fingers...
The door opens, and she is standing there, saying nothing. Then she motions at him to come inside and closes the door behind him once he has. It is dark, the chamber lit only by the dying embers in the fireplace and a single candle. Snow climbs up on the windowsill, her legs dangling below the hem of the white gown she’s still wearing, although now with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders to keep the chill at bay. Someone dressed her body in that gown when she was still believed dead — but Eric cannot let his mind stray to that time, it still smarts, even as she is beside him, alive and breathing.
“I was thinking,” Snow says, then, as if finding him by her door was not surprising in the slightest, “about tomorrow.”
Eric is puzzled. She hasn’t had second thoughts, has she? They all depend on her —
“You don’t think I can do it.”
Wait, what?
“I have no doubt that you can do whatever you set your mind on,” he tries, forcing a smile. And there it is again, alive and well: his faith, fueled by hers. But then he pauses, trying to impress the import of what he has to say by sheer will. “But at what cost?”
“I already paid my price.”
And so she has. Perhaps.
“I’m still here, though,” she continues “and this had to end, this tyranny, this winter, all of this death.”
She gestures towards the window as she is talking, towards the world outside of the walls of the keep, and Eric walks up to lean against the cold wall next to her. He takes his hand in hers, conjuring up bravery from he knows not where.
“Your highness...”
“Don’t call me that. Not when we’re alone.”
“Snow. Look at me. I’ve been through this before - war, more of it than I care to think of. Everyone does not make it out alive. If I don’t...”
“Hush.”
“No, please, this is important, “ he can barely see her eyes in the dim light, and it is a blessing. He tries again.“When you were... sleeping, earlier.”
“Everyone believed me dead.”
Why is she so intent on making this even more difficult that it has to be? Eric does his best to reassemble what remains of his resolve. It takes a moment or two longer than he would like, and as he can see that he is smiling through the darkness, he loses his composure again. Her smile grows wider.
“I thought you told me you had laid down the bottle,”
Eric stops again, more than a little affronted. He was still drunk when she rose and rallied the people, yes, but that was hours and hours ago and he has since bathed and dined. Surely there is nothing about his current demeanor indicating drunkenness?
“I had, then I hadn’t, and now I have again. What of it?”
“You must know that this whole land is steeped in magic,” she says, instead of answering. “My mother had her own magic, as did my father, in a way. I was told stories as a child, before…” she trails off, then clears her throat.
“And Ravenna, of course, wields magic as a weapon. I was a fool to be duped by her illusion, I should have know, I had read about enchanted sleeps. That’s what I told myself when I woke up. I used to know of the poisons that caused them, and about the antidotes.” She pauses again, her eyes still on his face. She smiles. “I do not think brandy was one of them, yet that was the taste on my lips. Can you explain that, huntsman?”
There is very little he can say that won’t either ruin the moment or turn it outrageously inappropriate. Her hand is still resting against his, though, and in the end, he settles for raising it up and lightly, barely noticeably, pressing his lips to her fingers. This much, propriety can account for. This much, he is allowed.
When he looks back at her face, she is still smiling, though not as widely. It is a small smile, almost secret. Her eyes meet his, linger for a second too long.
With a last surge of resolve, Eric manages to force a “goodnight, Snow,” out. Then he bolts for the door, pausing only briefly to look back at her pensive face as he’s closing the door behind him.