My pulse steadied for the first time all night, a strange, dangerous calm settling over me. “So be it,” I murmured.
If Sareth’s curse meant to make me her puppet, she would find Winter’s heir harder to bend than she thought.
But as I rose and left the chamber, the mark on my wrist still pulsed faintly with gold.
And deep down, I knew the curse hadn’t made me want her.
It had only given me permission.
Chapter twenty-seven
Kael
Ishouldn’t have been there.The corridor wasn’t mine to walk, not at that hour, not when the Hold was busy reacting to Kaelith’s actions and even the frostlight dimmed to a nervous glow. But curiosity had always been my worst habit, and lately my brother had been giving me reasons to indulge it.
The air was colder than usual. I followed it—his magic leaves a trail, a quiet hum under the skin if you know what to feel for—and turned the last corner just as the frostlight flared.
Kaelith stood with the mortal.Katria.
They were close enough that their breaths mingled—cold and warm weaving in a small, suspended storm. She said something I couldn’t hear. He answered in that quiet way of his, voice low and cutting, the kind that slides under armor. And then—gods help me—he reached for her.
Not the calculated gesture of a prince commanding obedience.Something human.Hungry.
The kiss was nothing like I’d imagined Kaelith capable of. It was unguarded, desperate, all the tension of a thousand unsaid things breaking at once. In that moment, the corridor looked alive: frost melting on thewalls, light bending around them, the air itself shimmering with unnatural warmth.
I felt it hit me in the chest.A single, painful thud that wasn’t quite jealousy—at least, not yet. It was shock. Disbelief. That my brother, carved of ice and law, could lose himself so completely.
Thencame the jealousy. Slow, hot, and treacherous.
She leaned into him. Mortal, fragile, defiant as ever. Her fingers brushed his collar, and I saw his jaw soften, his hand slide to the back of her neck like he’d forgotten what restraint meant. Every inch of him screamed control—and yet there he was, breaking every rule he’d ever taught me.
I wanted to look away. I didn’t.Icouldn’t.
Something about the sight burned straight through me: her warmth against his cold, the way he trembled—not from weakness but from feeling. I’d spent my whole life standing beside that kind of control, envying it, trying to match it. And now, in one stolen moment, he’d traded it all for the touch of a mortal who didn’t even belong here.
When he finally broke the kiss, his forehead stayed against hers. I could see the faint tremor in his shoulders, the breath that caught before he spoke. Whatever he said was too soft to reach me, but it didn’t matter. The damage was done.
I pressed my back against the stone, out of sight. The frost bit through my sleeves, reminding me that I shouldn’t be here—that I was witnessing something private, something dangerous. But the image wouldn’t leave me. It was seared into my mind: Kaelith, the Frostbound Heir, undone by a mortal girl who looked like sunlight trapped in snow.
I laughed under my breath, a quiet, bitter sound. “Well, brother. You finally bled.”
When their voices faded and their footsteps retreated, I stayed where I was, watching the frost crawl back over the walls as the corridor healed. The Hold seemed to sigh, settling back into silence, but I couldn’t.
The heat in my chest wouldn’t cool.And somewhere beneath it—beneath the sting of jealousy, the curiosity, the ache—something new began to spark.
I wasn’t sure yet if it was desire or defiance.Only that it felt dangerously close to both.
When I finally moved, the frost beneath my boots cracked loud enough to make me wince. The corridor was empty now, but the air still carried her scent—something clean, human, threaded with herbs and heat. It clung to the walls like memory.
I dragged a hand through my hair and exhaled slowly. “You idiot,” I muttered, though I wasn’t sure which one of us I meant.
Kaelith, who’d finally let himself feel something real, or me—for standing there like a fool, watching it happen.
The frostlight along the wall trembled faintly, reacting to my pulse. I pressed my palm against it, forcing it still, and stared at my reflection in the ice. The face looking back wasn’t much different from his: same jaw, same eyes, same cursed blood. But where he was Winter incarnate—sharp, disciplined, cold—I looked … wrong here.
Too alive.Too bright.
Half Summer, half nothing.
