Shadewood no space in your broken veins

She barely felt the cold, now.

It felt as though her heart was sparking, flames were rising and dancing to illuminate the darkness - she felt them creep through her belly and flicker through her chest, felt them licking even at the tips of her toes, listening to her king's words. There was anticipation, too, and for a moment the snowbird pulled herself from his embrace simply to peer at him, to wonder with a silent tongue what was on his mind. Eyes of dark cerulean were focused on him, and only on him - nothing else mattered. Not right now.

Only him.

Soft ivory draped her ears, and they shifted to hear him better, all senses honing in and waiting to listen to what he had to say - when it came, her chin inclined a fraction to the side, and she felt an odd jumble of emotions. It was as though she had given him a key; a key wrapped so tight in silk but protected with a box of steel, and as she opened it, secrets would pour out one by one. As though his book was defended by a ravenous, raging river, but she'd somehow found the stones to cross and reach it. "Raziel," it felt new in the air, unfamiliar, but somehow familiar all the same. And, with a blink of her gaze, she discovered that she liked the name... loved it, really. It suited him - the side she'd come to know and hold so dear.

"And...I want to marry you."

Her breath caught in her throat, taken aback by the suddeness of such a statement - but she found her heart swelled and beat faster, carried along by the luminescence of his eyes and the thrumming of his own heart as she leaned back into his embrace. Following the path that simply felt right. For a while she was rendered speechless, just listening to the whistle of a distant bird among the clouds, and watching as her breaths gasped into the air and then were sucked back in only a brief second later. Only then did she speak.

"...And I want to marry you, too. I've never been more certain of anything in my life."