“Not yet.”
The Sea of Glass below groaned. The crack that had split it earlier widened, light spilling through the gap. The glow painted her skin in pale fire. I wanted to believe the light belonged to her.
Her voice came quiet, steady. “If this ends everything, do you still wish you’d kept your distance?”
I looked down at her, the wind stealing whatever mask I had left. “Distance never saved anything.”
She reached up then, the back of her fingers grazing my jaw. The touch was barely there, but it burned more than any flame.
The frostlight surged in answer—bright, uncontrollable—and I heard the tower sigh, the walls stretching as if they, too, wanted to move closer.
Her eyes flicked toward the light, then back to me. “You’re trembling again.”
“So are you.”
She smiled faintly.. “Then we’re both fools.”
The word lodged in my chest. I caught her wrist, gentle but unyielding, and pressed my palm against hers. The heat of her skin broke through every layer between us; I felt the magic in her pulse, quick and frantic, answering mine.
The world tilted. The cracks in the Sea flared brighter, threads of fire lacing upward through the air.
“Kaelith,” shemurmured, “the sky—”
“I know.”
I didn’t look away from her. The roar outside dimmed, leaving only the sound of our breath and the slow, traitorous rhythm of two hearts finding the same beat.
Her hand slid higher along my chest until her fingers brushed the line of my throat. My pulse jumped under them.
“Tell me to stop,” she whispered.
I should have.
Instead, I closed the last inch between us—breath to breath, almost touch, the heat of her body pressing through the cold. The frostlight around us fractured, scattering across the walls like glass in sunlight.
Then the first drop of melted ice hit the floor with a hiss. The sound broke something in both of us.
The tower had gone too still. Even the wind waited.
Her face was inches from mine, every breath she drew brushing my skin. Frost melted wherever it touched as the aurora’s color spilled across her shoulders and turned her hair to pale fire.
The last thing I wanted was to move; the last thing I could do was stand still.
My hand rose to her cheek before I gave it permission. The leather of my glove rasped against the fabric of her cloak, then against her skin—warm, impossibly soft. The touch was meant to steady her, but it was my pulse that stumbled.
She looked up, eyes wide enough to hold the entire storm. The world shrank to that gaze: no court, no Veil, no crown—just the quiet ruin of two people standing too close to fate.
“Kaelith,” she breathed, and my name felt new in her mouth, gentler than it had ever sounded.
“Don’t,” I managed. “If you say it again, I won’t—”
“Won’twhat?”
The question shattered whatever distance we had left. The frostlight around us pulsed once, twice, each beat matching the erratic rhythm of my heart. I could feel it answering through the walls—the very bones of the keep thrumming with the same fever.
I stepped closer. The cold should have bitten through her; instead, the warmth between us spread, pushing the chill back like a tide. My breath hitched.
“We shouldn’t be this close,” I said, though the warning was a whisper, already dissolving.
