But as I reached the stairwell, the frost beneath my boots cracked again—tiny fissures forming a word I hadn’t seen in centuries:
“Run.”
The word still glowed beneath the ice when I reached the landing—faint, golden, wrong.Run.No fae magic bled gold. That was mortal color, mortal pulse. Hers.
The frost underfoot dimmed as I turned toward the east corridor, every instinct braced for ambush. The Hold’s silence had changed. It wasn’t still anymore; it was listening.
Assassins in Winter never made noise. Theyremovedit.
The corridors curved downward into shadow, frostlight flickering in uneven lines along the walls. Every few steps the glow would die, plunging me into half-darkness, as if the Hold itself wanted to hide what it knew. My pulse measured the distance between torches. Thirty heartbeats, silence, then another faint gleam of light. The rhythm was wrong.
Something had broken that rhythm.
I reached for the hilt at my hip. The frost responded—thin filaments of silver webbing outward, forming a low shimmer around my hand. The runes etched into my sword flared once, then dulled again. Even the blade could sense it: blood about to be spilled.
At the next junction, I caught a flicker of movement. Two shadows glided past the frostglass wall ahead, their reflections warped by the ice. I pressed myself to the stone, waiting for sound. Nothing. Just the faintest drag of a boot across frozen floor.
Torrin had moved faster than I thought. He’d never waste the Council’s time with trials when poison or steel would suffice.
The Frostfather’s command still burned in my ears—deliver her to the Council at dawn—but Torrin wouldn’t wait for dawn. Dawn risked questions. Dawn risked me.
The frost at my feet shivered.Go.
I moved. Fast. Quiet.
Through the lower stairwells, across the echoing bridge that overlooked the underhalls. The Dreamstone’s light flickered far below, faint as the dying pulse of a star. I could feel it calling to her still—proof that wherever she was, she hadn’t stopped being a danger. Or salvation. I no longer knew which.
The first assassin stepped from the archway at the far end of the bridge. Pale-blue frost-colored armor, hood drawn low, a curved blade of condensed frost in his grip. Another emerged behind him, then a third, their movements precise, synchronized.
“Prince,” the lead one said, voice muffled by his mask. “Orders are to remove the corruption.”
“I wasn’t aware you took orders from anyone but me.”
“The Chancellor outranks sentiment.”
His blade caught the light. “Step aside.”
I didn’t. My own sword hissed free. The air around us contracted, frost rising in sharp spirals from the bridge. For one frozen heartbeat, none of us moved.
Then I breathed once—and the world snapped.
Frost erupted from my boots, crawling up the walls, spearing outward in razor-sharp veins. The nearest assassin leapt back, but too late; the ice caught his ankle, shattering bone. He fell, blade clattering across the bridge. The second came from the right—fast, silent, deadly. I turned into the strike, caught his wrist, and drove the hilt of my sword into his chest. The frost answered the impact with a burst of light. He fell without a sound.
The third hesitated. “My lord—”
“Tell Torrin,” I said, voice steady, “if he wants her blood, he can come spill it himself.”
He faltered. That was all I needed. The frost climbed him like a living thing, locking him in place, eyes wide. I left him there. He’d thaw. Eventually.
By the time I reached the next hall, the frostlight in the walls had gone dim again, as if the Hold were ashamed of what it had just done.
I was shaking. Not from fear. From the echo of it—the pull that kept dragging me toward her.
She would be in my chamber still, asleep or pretending to be. Maeryn might be with her. Fenrir certainly would. And if Torrin’s men reached her before I did—
I pushed harder, boots skidding on the frost-slick steps. The air ahead shimmered faintly with heat, which was wrong—nothing in the Hold shimmered with heat. Not unlessshewas there.
The door was ajar. Frostlight leaked from the crack in uneven pulses.
