“She touched the Dreamstone,” Kaelith said, before I could speak again. “It answered her.”
The Frostfather’s expression twisted, somewhere between awe and fury. “Impossible.”
“I saw it myself,” Kaelith continued. “The chamber was dormant. When she entered—”
The king’s voice cracked like thunder. “She’s a blight. A flaw in the Veil. Seal her before it spreads.”
I flinched. Seal me? Like a crack in the wall?
Kaelith moved instantly, placing himself between us. The guards hesitated, confused by his defiance.
“With respect,” he said, and his voice—sounding calm, low, lethal—made the frost tremble, “if she awakened it, she might also calm it. Killing her risks severing the link.”
“She’s mortal. Mortalsunmakewhat they touch.”
“Not this one.”
That last line landed like a confession. The silence that followed was unbearable. The Frostfather’s mouth twitched, his breath forming strange, half-shaped sigils that evaporated before they meant anything.
“You forget your place, my son.”
Kaelith didn’t move. “My place is at the Veil’s edge, guarding what remains of our realm. If the Dreamstone stirs, it’s my duty to learn why—not destroy the only lead we have.”
The worddestroyechoed too long, bouncing off the walls in a dozen fractured tones before dying.
The Frostfather’s expression went slack, eerie. “Duty,” he repeated, as if tasting it. “You speak of duty while the mortal stains the ice with her heat.”
Something inside the king cracked; I could hear it in his breathing. He looked not at me now, butthroughme—and whatever he saw there terrified him.
“Get her out of my sight,” he snarled. “If she breathes the same air as my Court again before I command it, I’ll bury you both beneath the frost.”
Kaelith bowed his head just enough to pass for obedience. “As you wish, Father.”
He turned to me, his expression unreadable, voice low enough that only I could hear. “Don’t speak. Don’t look back.”
I didn’t. But I felt it—the weight of the Frostfather’s madness pressing against my spine as we left the chamber, the faint sound of cracking ice following us like laughter.
When we reached the corridor, Kaelith’s composure fractured. Frostlight pulsed weakly down his wrist, dimming as he exhaled.
“He would have killed you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Then why didn’t you let him?”
His gaze lifted to mine. “Because, Katria…” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “Because the Court needs you alive.”
But his voice betrayed him. It wasn’tthe Courthe meant.
Kaelith didn’t speak as we climbed.
The corridors curved endlessly upward, carved through the spine of the Hold, the frostlight shifting from cold blue to a pale silver sheen. Hissilence was worse than anger; it had weight. Even Fenrir’s claws made no sound, as though the hound understood that one wrong step might break whatever fragile peace held him together.
When we reached the upper level, Kaelith stopped before a narrow door inlaid with mirrored glass. It was the room next to mine. He pressed his gloved palm to it, and the surface shimmered before melting open.
I stepped inside and forgot how to breathe.
The chamber was nothing like the rest of Winter. The walls glowed faintly, as if remembering light from somewhere far away. A small fire—no larger than a candle’s flame—burned in a glass sphere beside the hearth. It shouldn’t have existed here at all.
“This is your room?” I asked, still dazed.
