Maximilian had gone unusually quiet.
For a moment, he simply looked down at the gloved hand resting over his chest, as though feeling something there only he could understand. Then he smiled faintly.
"Anywhere," he said softly.
The brothers frowned.
Maximilian lifted his gaze toward the endless white horizon where the mountains disappeared into the snowfall.
"I just want to see her face."
The wind moved quietly between them, cold and sharp against their skin.
"I want to lie on her lap while she holds my face…" A small smile touched his lips, gentle and almost boyish. "That's enough for me."
Because he had already lived through losing her once.
He had already held Catherine in another lifetime while the light slowly disappeared from her eyes. He still remembered the helplessness of it—the warmth leaving her body while he could do nothing except hold her tighter, as though love alone could force fate to change its mind.
