I pulled on my gloves, forcing my fingers still long enough for the frostlight to calm. The light dimmed obediently, pretending to sleep. Pretending, as I did.
“Control,” I breathed. “You are Winter. Remember that.”
But even as I said it, the frost beneath my boots glowed faintly gold—not Winter’s color at all but the hue of a spark. Her spark.
And deep in the ice below the Hold, something answered.
Chapter thirty-one
Kaelith
By the time I reached the throne hall, the frost along the corridor walls had stopped pretending to sleep. It hissed in recognition when I passed, light crawling up the columns like veins of lightning under glass. The guards watched me with wide eyes but said nothing. They knew better. They couldfeelit—the way the air around me bent out of rhythm.
The doors opened on their own. The sound cracked like ice splitting on a river.
Unkempt, the Frostfather sat slumped on his throne, crown askew, frostlight bleeding from the seams of his armor. His breath misted unevenly, words forming in it before he even spoke. Fragments of sentences. Fragments of sanity.
“My son,” he said. “The Hold trembles. The Veil cries. What have you done?”
I bowed low, forcing the motion through locked muscles. “The Dreamstone stirred, Father. The mortal’s touch woke it.”
“Mortal,” he repeated, as if tasting the word. “Infection. I can smell her on you.”
His eyes burned white for a heartbeat then cleared. “Containment,” he whispered. “Before the frost breaks.”
I held my ground. “Katria is not the cause. She’s the key. The Stone responds to her, not against her.”
He laughed, and the sound fractured the air. “You think you understand the Stone better than its king?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Of course not, Father.”
The Frostfather leaned forward, fingers digging into the armrest until cracks webbed through the ice. “You’ve grown reckless.”
“Perhaps.”
He tilted his head, studying me. “Or corrupted.”
The accusation struck colder than the air. “By what?”
“By warmth.”
That word—so simple, so human—fell from his lips like a curse. I said nothing. He smiled then, thin and cruel. “Deliver her to the Council at dawn. They will decide what remains of her.”
I straightened. “And if I refuse?”
“Then I will assume you share her taint.”
The frostlight surged around his throne, crawling up the walls in jagged patterns. He looked magnificent in his ruin—half king, half storm. I bowed once more to hide the tremor in my hands.
“As you command.”
When I turned to leave, Chancellor Torrin was already waiting by the door. His expression was smooth as polished ice, voice low and venom-sweet. “A tragedy, my lord. Some infections cannot be cured.”
I met his gaze. “You mistake her for a disease. She is the symptom of something much older.”
He smiled thinly. “I take comfort in your poetry, prince. It makes your downfall sound so much prettier.”
I kept walking. I didn’t look back.
