The days blurred together after that night, a stretch of blue and white where time felt suspended. I tried to pretend it didn’t matter—that his distance meant I could breathe again—but every time I walked past the corridor where he’d kissed me, my heart made a liar of me.
He had kissed me like a man drowning. And then he’d disappeared.
I stirred the tea Maeryn brought me, the steam curling like ghosts from the cup. The warmth didn’t reach my fingers. It never did here.
“Drink before it cools,” she said softly, folding fresh linens beside the hearth.
“I think it’s already cold.”
“Everything is,” she murmured.
I glanced toward her. Her expression was distant, listening to something I couldn’t hear. “Has it always been like this?” I asked. “So quiet?”
She hesitated before answering. “When Winter goes silent, something is coming.”
That didn’t help my appetite. I set the cup aside and rubbed my thumb over the scar on my palm—the one from the thawfire trial, the one that still pulsed sometimes when I couldn’t sleep.
The quiet pressed in, thick as snow. Even Fenrir seemed unsettled. He’d taken to pacing the room’s edges, ears twitching toward the walls as if he could hear something I couldn’t.
I stood, crossing to the window. Beyond the glass, the courtyard stretched, pale and endless. Frostguards moved like shadows, their armor glinting silver-blue. The only color came from Kael.
He was training again, bare-armed despite the cold, sunlight catching on his hair until it glinted metallic. He moved like a dancer pretending to be a soldier, graceful. Each strike of his blade left a shimmer in the air, faint trails of heat bending the frost.
I told myself I wasn’t watching him. That I was only looking for Kaelith, though I already knew he wouldn’t be there. He’d vanished into duty, or regret, or both. I tried—and failed—to ignore the twinge in my chest.
Maeryn noticed where my eyes lingered and made a quiet sound in her throat that might have been amusement. “Careful,” she said, folding the last of the linens. “The younger prince burns hotter than he seems.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Looking?” she asked. “No, of course not.”
I turned away from the window, cheeks warm despite the cold. “Do they always spar like that?”
“When the walls feel close,” she said. “Or when they need to remember what they’re fighting for.”
“And what is that?”
She gave a small, unreadable smile. “Dependswhich brother you ask.”
The door creaked as she left, her footsteps fading down the corridor. I stood there a while longer, alone with the stillness and the sound of my own heart.
I told myself again that Kaelith’s silence shouldn’t matter. That I’d been nothing more than a distraction—a mortal curiosity, a warmth he wanted to understand until it frightened him.
But it did matter. It mattered too much.
Because no one tells you what comes after the fire.How the quiet feels like punishment.How even your own heartbeat sounds too loud.
Fenrir settled beside me with a low huff, his fur brushing my hand. I sank to the floor and rested my forehead against his. “I’m fine,” I whispered, though my voice didn’t sound like mine. “He’ll come to his senses.”
Fenrir huffed again, unimpressed.
I looked back to the window. Kael had paused in the courtyard, blade lowered, his gaze lifted toward the tower. The sunlight hit him full, turning his hair to fire.
And for one impossible second, I could’ve sworn he was looking at me.
I thought I’d only imagined it—that flicker of eye contact in the courtyard, a trick of light and guilt—but when the knock came an hour later, I knew I was wrong.
Fenrir growled once, low in his throat. The door opened anyway. Kael didn’t bother waiting for permission.
