She ignored the flint he offered her, and instead held out her hand over the flame. She too was shaking, but her intentions required less exact skill, and more brute force. She took a calming breath and reached for the part of her soul that was hers, but not. It answered, frenetic and charged and hot to the touch. She pulled, letting it roll down her arm toward the carefully arranged pile of wood, and she fixed her eyes on the kindling at the base.

With a quick jolt, her arm seized with the changing pressure, and from her palm came a small streak of white-hot skyfire. It blasted the kindling she had been aiming for, charring the ground around it. But it did the deed. Several of the larger pieces of wood burst into flame.

Kiran grabbed her by the shoulders, dragging her back a few paces and out of the reach of the popping, crackling fire that had sprung to life in moments. He grabbed a few heavier logs he had stored nearby, throwing them atop the flame, and in no time, a roaring fire blazed before them, pouring off heat that slowly began to work past the cold that had claimed every inch of Aurora’s body.

They laid out the clothes they had already removed over the large rocks that surrounded their sanctuary, and when there was nothing left to do, she turned to Kiran. He rubbed at the back of his neck, unclothed but for the pants he still wore.

He cleared his throat. “It would be best if we took off all our wet clothes.”

Aurora nodded, knowing he was right.

“We can stay in separate places,” he offered. “I will stay behind that rock,” he said, gesturing to an area farther away from the fire that would leave him cold for much of the night, she guessed. “You can stay on this side. Hopefully by morning at least some of these pieces will be dry enough to wear again.”

“That is silly,” Aurora answered. “You need to be by the fire. You will catch your death all the way over there.”

“Then we will sleep on opposite sides of the fire. And I promise not to look.”

“Now you are being ridiculous. You know very well that the smartest thing to do is for us to share body heat. Besides, it is not as if we have not slept side by side.”

Not to mention the kiss in the river, which neither of them had mentioned since they managed not to die afterward.

“Yes, well, that was before. And we were never…” He made a gesture that she guessed referred to their soon-to-be states of undress.

“Before what?”

“Before you were a princess.”