I nodded, throat dry. “Why?”
“Because the King’s madness listens for truth—and twists it.”
Kael blew out a low whistle. “Charming family reunion.”
“Kael,” Kaelith warned.
“I know, I know.” He spread his hands. “Silence. Ice. Biting tongues. I’ll behave.”
Maeryn almost smiled, but it vanished as quickly as it came. “The Chancellor waits with him. He means to make a show of this.”
Kaelith’s jaw tightened. “He’ll regret it.”
She stepped aside, gesturing toward the tall, frost-edged doors at the corridor’s end. Beyond them, the light was blinding—pure white and too still.
“The king will see you now,” Maeryn whispered.
I followed as Kaelith started forward. Each step echoed against the marble and came back to me distorted, like another heartbeat out of sync with my own. The closer we came to the doors, the heavier the air grew—pressure building, magic coiling, waiting. Even Kael’s usual grin had thinned into something cautious.
At the threshold, Kaelith paused, head bowed for a single breath. Then he pushed the doors open.
Cold rolled out of the throne hall like a tide.
The Frostfather sat at the far end of the chamber. From a distance, he might have been a statue carved of glacier crystal, motionless upon athrone that climbed halfway to the ceiling. Only his eyes proved he was still alive—two pale fissures burning faint blue, fevered rather than cold.
Chancellor Torrin stood at his side, black-robed and smiling. His voice filled the hall before we’d even finished crossing it.
“My king, the Frostbound Heir returns from his disobedience—with the mortal he swore to discard.”
Kaelith didn’t stop walking until he stood at the foot of the dais. He bowed, shallow but deliberate. “Father.”
The word cracked the silence like a fault line.
The Frostfather’s gaze shifted. “You bring the Veil’s infection beneath my roof.” His tone rasped, each syllable edged with frost that powdered from his lips. “Did you think the storm would not follow?”
Kaelith straightened. “The storm followed because you sent men to kill her. They failed. I brought her back because running would have done worse.”
The Chancellor gave a soft, poisonous laugh. “Worse than treason?”
Kaelith’s eyes flicked toward him, glacial. “Worse than ignorance.”
The king’s fingers flexed against the arm of the throne; frost spider-webbed outward with a brittle hiss. “Silence.” He turned his gaze on me. “Come forward.”
Kaelith moved slightly, instinctively, as if to block me, but I stepped around him before he could. The air grew heavier with every step. The floor beneath my boots shone with a thin film of ice; my reflection trembled there, caught between human and something else.
When I stopped a few paces away, the Frostfather leaned forward. “So this is the creature my son defends.”
“I’m not a creature,” I said before I could stop myself.
The Chancellor’s smile widened. “Presumptuous for a mortal.”
Kaelith’s voice snapped through the room, low and dangerous. “Enough.”
The Frostfather’s attention swung back to him. “You would correct my councilor in my hall?”
“I would correct a liar anywhere.”
For a long, terrible moment, the only sound was the soft drip of melting ice from the vaulted ceiling. Then the king spoke again, quieter, worse. “You mistake infection for cure, Kaelith. You’ve let warmth touch you, and now the frost wavers. Do you feel it? The walls bleed light because of her.”
