Before I could move, Kaelith’s hand closed around my wrist. “She’s fine.”
His grip wasn’t cruel, but it burned cold. I met his gaze, saw the storm behind it—the same one that had touched me before the kiss. The same one that terrified him.
“Let go,” I whispered.
For a moment, he didn’t. Then his jaw flexed, and he released me, stepping back as if the touch had scalded.
Kael watched, amusement flickering again. “Watch out, Brother. You’re cracking.”
Kaelith’s answer was quiet, dangerous. “And you’re trespassing.”
“Then lead the way out,” Kael said. “Unless you’re too distracted.”
Kaelith didn’t rise to it this time. He turned sharply and started toward the tunnel ahead, the frostlight following in long, shivering threads. Fenrir padded at his side, tail low, eyes fixed on me as if warning me to keep up.
Kael lingered a moment longer, his warmth brushing my arm. “Don’t mind him,” he murmured. “He’ll thaw. Eventually.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant Kaelith’s temper or his heart.
When we finally followed, the brothers walked on opposite sides of the passage—two halves of Winter’s sky: one bright and burning, the other dark and frozen. And I walked between them, the air thick with words none of us dared say.
The tunnels spat us back into the open like the forest itself had exhaled us.Cold air knifed across my face, sharp and merciless after the close heatbelow. The aurora had shifted again—no longer crimson but a ghostly white, streaked with threads of gold. Snow fell in soundless flakes that glowed faintly before vanishing.
Kael was the first to speak. “Well,” he panted, wiping frost from his brow, “that was unpleasantly close.”
“Stay alert,” Kaelith said. His sword was still drawn, the blade humming with a low, restless light. “We’re not clear yet.”
Fenrir padded ahead, sniffing the air. The forest was quiet—too quiet. No wind, no branches creaking, no distant cry. Just silence.
“Kaelith?” I whispered. “Where are we?”
He turned slowly, eyes scanning the horizon. “This isn’t the Frostwood anymore.”
“But it’s the same trees—”
“No.” His gaze lifted toward the shifting sky. “Look.”
The aurora wasn’t moving normally—it waslooping, repeating its patterns over and over. The same ribbon of light folded across the heavens three times in the span of a breath. My stomach twisted.
Kael drew his sword again, flame light spilling into the snow. “Brother,” he said softly, “what did you drag us into?”
Kaelith didn’t answer. Because this time, I think, he didn’t know.
The snow beneath my boots began to shimmer, gold veins threading through it like veins in marble. Every sound dulled. Kael’s voice faded to a whisper. Kaelith’s outline blurred. The world rippled.
And then—stillness.
The trees turned silver. The air thickened, muffled. Every falling flake hung frozen mid-air, suspended in light. My heartbeat echoed far too loud in the silence.
“Kaelith?”
No answer. Kael was gone. Fenrir, too. Only the faint impression of their outlines remained in the frozen air.
Something moved through the stillness—a figure woven from starlight and shadow, neither man nor mist. He walked as though the ground didn’t notice him. His eyes were every color and none. When he spoke, his voice rippled like the surface of water touched by wind.
“You have come far for one who was never meant to walk here.”
I swallowed hard. “Who are you?”
