I traced the edge of an ice-bloom with my bare fingertip. It didn’t melt, but the frost fogged faintly where I touched it, as if startled by warmth. For a place that had mastered stillness, this one felt almost too silent. Even the air waited.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
His voice came from behind me—smooth, low, too close. I turned.
Kaelith stood near the entrance, armor half-shed, frostlight lines dimmed. The look he wore was unreadable, though exhaustion shadowed the edges of it. He wasn’t supposed to be out here either.
“I could say the same to you,” I said.
“I’m not the one disobeying orders.”
I gestured toward the frozen flowers. “Then consider it a study in cultural botany.”
His brow arched. “Does defiance count as botany?”
“Depends on the gardener.”
For a moment, the air between us softened—not warmer, but less hostile. Then he stepped closer, and the garden seemed to shrink around him. His boots made no sound on the frost; the only sign of his movement wasthe faint brightening of the light that traced his gloves. Without thinking, I reached to touch it, curious whether it was cold, too.
“You were warned to stay indoors,” he said, his jaw tightening at the sight of my hand on his, then he pulled away.
My cheeks heated at what I’d done. “I was restless.”
“That restlessness could cost you.”
“And silence could kill me,” I said quietly. “Your court already decided I’m dangerous. I might as well look the part.”
He stopped an arm’s length away, gray eyes catching the aurora overhead. In their reflection, the colors looked wrong—violet turned to smoke, green to steel. “They fear what they don’t understand.”
“Then you must be terrified of me.”
That earned a sound like a breathless laugh. “Hardly.”
“Then what are you?”
He hesitated, and for once, his composure didn’t hold. The line of frostlight running from wrist to fingertip brightened once, then steadied. He clasped his hands behind his back, as if to hide them.
“Cautious,” he said finally. “That’s all.”
“You don’t look cautious.”
“How would you know what I look like?”
“Because I’ve seen how you don’t look at me,” I said, the words out before I could stop them. “You look past me, like you’re afraid to see what’s actually there.”
He went very still. The frost nearest his boots cracked faintly. Then, slowly, he took one step forward. “That’s because mortals mistake observation for interest.”
“Do they?” I asked. “Or do you?”
He didn’t answer. His gaze lingered, moving from my eyes to my mouth and back again, and for the first time, I felt something in the air that wasn’t cold—it waspressure. The kind that builds before thunder.
Fenrir’s distant bark echoed through the halls, sharp and sudden. Kaelith blinked, as if waking. The light on his glove dimmed; the temperature dropped back to Winter.
“You should return inside,” he said, voice flat again. “Before someone notices.”
I didn’t move. “You still haven’t answered me.”
“I don’t intend to.”
