His eyes met mine, gray caught somewhere between storm and surrender. For an instant, I thought he might kiss me again—might undo the apology still forming on his lips—but he stepped back. The air rushed in, cold and hollow where his body had been.
The frost pillar behind me glistened with melted water, small rivulets sliding down its side like tears. He watched one fall before saying, almost to himself,“I warned you about warmth.”
“And yet you keep bringing it,” I said.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Because I forget what it costs.”
He turned before I could answer, the long fall of his cloak whispering across the floor. Each step away seemed to pull the temperature down a little more until my breath came out white again.
When he reached the end of the corridor, he stopped—but he didn’t look back. “Sleep,mortal,” he said softly.
Then he was gone.
I pressed trembling fingers to my lips, the taste of frost and fire still there, unwilling to fade. The corridor was silent except for the slow drip of thawed ice and Fenrir’s distant huff, as though even he didn’t know whether to follow or guard.
I stayed there until the frost began to reclaim the warmth he’d left behind.
Chapter twenty-six
Kaelith
Ididn’t hear my boots against the marble. Didn’t feel the cold that licked at the edges of my gloves. The only thing I could feel was the echo of her—the heat that refused to fade no matter how deep into Winter’s spine I went.
I’d kissed her.
Not a slip of control, not a miscalculation—no, I’dchosenit. Every inch, every breath. And now the choice burned behind my ribs like fire trapped in glass.
By the time I reached the outer gallery, the frostlight had dimmed to a low, unsteady pulse. The runes in the walls flickered in sympathy, like they knew what I’d done. The Hold itself felt… wrong. Restless.
I stopped by the archway that overlooked the courtyard. Snow drifted down in thin spirals, catching on the wind. My reflection in the ice-paneled window stared back at me: the Frostbound Heir, his jaw clenched, his eyes unrecognizable.
“Fool,” I muttered. The word ghosted the air in a puff of mist.
But even saying it didn’t make the image of her fade—the sound of her breath when I touched her, the warmth of her skin under my hand, the way her voice had cracked when she’d said my name.
Kaelith.
It had sounded different in her mouth. Too human. Too alive.
The enchantment’s pulse stirred beneath my skin, faint but steady. I’d felt it for weeks now—an unfamiliar thrum that wasn’t mine, as if someone else’s magic had crept into my blood and decided to stay. I’d told myself it was exhaustion. That I was stronger than whatever Queen Sareth’s letters carried.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw her.Not as she was at the feast or in the frost corridors—but as she’d looked when the cold had given way to warmth. The mortal who had no right to exist in this realm, and yet had somehow made ithers.
A low sound left me—something between a curse and a laugh. “This is madness.” The same thing I’d said when I dragged my nose along her throat. She’d smelled divine. Enough to make me believe.
The frostlight above me flared in answer to my spoken words.
“Control yourself,” I hissed under my breath, pressing a gloved hand against the nearest wall. Frost spread from my palm in thin, precise veins, stabilizing the light. But my hand trembled anyway.
I needed distance. I needed order.
And yet every step I took back toward my chambers felt like a retreat I couldn’t afford.
The door to my chambers slammed shut behind me.
I leaned back against it, breath coming slower than it should.
