“Feeling warm.”
The question broke something small and unguarded inside me. I turned to her fully then, unable to keep the distance any longer.
Her eyes lifted to meet mine, wide, searching, steady. The aurora light caught in them—gold turned to embers.
My throat worked before my voice did. “Every day.”
Her lips parted, a breath too sharp, too human. The kind of breath that could undo kingdoms. The kind that made me want tolet it.
Outside, the Sea of Glass groaned—a long, low crack running through the ice like a warning.
I told myself it was only the wind that trembled, not my hands.
The wind rose, scattering fine snow across the stone. It hissed along the railing like breath through teeth.Katria didn’t flinch; she only leaned forward a little, hair sweeping against the fur lining of her cloak. Light from the aurora threaded through it—gold, then red, then white again.
I wanted to tell her to step back. I wanted not to care if she fell.
Instead, I said, “You shouldn’t be out here this long. The cold seeps into bone before you realize it.”
She glanced sideways, half a smile ghosting her mouth. “And yet you stay.”
“I’m fae. We’re built for it.”
Her gaze traveled over me once—gauntlets, pauldrons, the dull glow that still crawled along my wrist. “You say that as if it’s a blessing.”
“It was meant to be.” My words came slower than I intended. “Until I realized blessings can frostbite too.”
For a while, neither of us said any more. The sky pulsed crimson again, thin fractures webbing across the Sea of Glass below. I could feel them—each crack a faint vibration in my chest, in the runes along my armor. The world was breaking with the same rhythm as my restraint.
She turned to face me fully, the wind tugging her cloak open just enough that I caught the shimmer of pale fabric beneath. I looked away too late.
“Kaelith.” My name from her lips still felt dangerous. “Do you ever get tired of pretending you don’t feel anything?”
The question landed where armor couldn’t reach. “Feeling,” I said, “is what kills men like me.”
“Then you’re dying already.”
I laughed once, too quietly. The sound startled us both. “You should fear me more.”
“I don’t.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
“Maybe.” She stepped closer, until her breath mingled with mine in the cold. “But you don’t sound like you believe that.”
The air between us thinned. I could see the pulse at her throat, the small hitch of her chest when she breathed in. My gloved hand lifted of its own accord before stopping an inch from her shoulder. The leather creaked faintly; frostlight flickered along my knuckles.
“Kaelith,” she whispered, “you’re shaking.”
I swallowed. “You should go inside.”
Her eyes searched mine. “You meanweshould.”
The words struck with a warmth I hadn’t earned. I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move. The control I’d built my life on narrowed to a single breath that refused to leave my lungs.
A low rumble rolled through the cliffs—distant thunder, though there were no storms in Winter. The Sea of Glass flared brighter, a wide vein of white racing toward the shore.
Her fingers brushed mine—bare skin against cold leather. The contact was nothing, a mistake of distance, yet it seared straight through me.
