Kaelith inclined his head slightly. “Exactly.”
Kael sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “You mortals really do have a death wish.”
I managed a faint smile. “Maybe we just don’t like waiting for it to find us.”
Kael studied me for a long moment before shaking his head. “You’re both insane. Fine. But when ourfather”—he spat the word—“tries to freeze us in the courtyard, I reserve the right to sayI told you so.”
Kaelith’s reply was flat. “You always do.”
For the first time since the dream, Kael laughed—a real one, brief but bright. “Then it’s settled. Straight into the storm.”
Kaelith turned toward the east, toward the horizon where the Hold’s faint silhouette gleamed like a jagged crown of ice. His expression was unreadable, but his voice carried an edge of finality.
“Into the storm,” he agreed.
The wind shifted, stirring the snow around our boots. Fenrir gave a low, uneasy whine and began to walk, tail low. Kael adjusted his cloak, muttering something about frostbite and family curses. I followed between them, the Dreamkeeper’s words still echoing inside me.
If you wish to keep her, you must learn to lether go.
And as the bleeding aurora began to stretch wider across the sky, I wondered which of them the warning was truly for.
The sky was breaking when we crossed the last ridge of the Frostwood.
At first, I thought it was dawn—silver light bleeding through the clouds—but dawn never looked like this. The aurora churned in slow spirals, ribbons of red and white tangled together, their edges tearing like cloth caught on thorns. Every few heartbeats a pulse rippled through it, silent but deep enough that I felt it inside my ribs.
Kael strode ahead, his hair catching every flicker of crimson until it looked like fire caught in motion. He’d stopped joking an hour ago. Even his easy warmth couldn’t fill the silence that followed us.
Kaelith stayed behind me, a shadow in black and frost-bitten steel. The light from the sky glanced off the edges of his armor, outlining him in fractured silver. For a moment, he looked less like a man and more like something the world itself had carved to remember winter by.
“The Veil,” he said at last, voice quiet but cutting through the wind. “It’s visible even here.”
I looked up again. The pulsing glow had deepened, spreading veins of light across the heavens. “Is that … normal?”
“No.” He didn’t look at me when he answered. “It shouldn’t breathe.”
The word made my skin prickle. The Frostwraiths that had followed us vanished at the border hours ago—as though even they refused to step closer to what waited ahead. Fenrir padded at Kaelith’s side, ears pinned back, a low growl rumbling from his throat that never fully stopped.
Kael glanced over his shoulder, forcing a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Lovely welcome home, Brother. Your kingdom always so cheerful?”
Kaelith’s answer was a dry look. “You didn’t have to come.”
“And miss the fun?” Kael’s grin sharpened. “Not likely.”
The two of them were a study in opposites: Kael moving through the cold as though warmth followed him, Kaelith carrying frost that seemed to quench even the air. Between them, I felt like a spark trapped in glass—small, bright, and in danger of going out.
The first sight of Skadar Hold stole the breath from my lungs.
It rose from the ice like a mountain grown hollow, its spires jagged and glass-bright, the walls carved with runes that pulsed faintly beneath the aurora’s bleeding light. It looked alive and wrong at once—too much beauty balanced on the edge of collapse.
The banners that hung from the outer towers were frozen mid-flutter, stiff as spears. The air around them hummed with tension, a faint vibration that made me shiver.
Kaelith slowed as we neared the gates. “Stay close to me,” he murmured.
I almost laughed. “Did you think I planned to walk in alone?”
His gaze flicked toward me, unreadable, then away again.
The gates creaked open before us. No horn sounded, no herald greeted the Frostbound Heir. The guards stood in silence, frost clinging to their lashes. One met my eyes for half a heartbeat and immediately looked down. I caught the whisper he breathed when he thought I couldn’t hear it.
