“That’s avoidance, not authority.”
“And that,” he said, turning toward the archway, “is precisely why you’re a problem.”
I smiled faintly. “You sound almost fond when you say that.”
He froze at the threshold, just long enough for the silence to thicken again. Then, without looking back, he said, “Don’t mistake tolerance for fondness, Katria Vale.”
The way he said my name—soft yet dangerous—undid every ounce of that warning.
He left before I could reply.
The frost-blooms beside me began to drip, each droplet catching light before freezing again midair. I touched one. It stung.
Chapter eight
Kaelith
The Frostfather’s hall was colder than memory.
It always was, but tonight the cold bit deeper—into thought, into bone—until even the air seemed to ache. The walls were black ice veined with threads of silver light, pulsing faintly to some rhythm older than time. When I crossed the threshold, the runes etched in the floor flared once beneath my boots, acknowledging blood, not allegiance.
My father sat upon the throne of Winter, motionless. The frostlight from the crown above him spilled down his face like thin rivers, carving hollows beneath his eyes. Once, he had looked unbreakable. Now he looked carved by the same hands that had shaped the palace—beautiful, cruel, and slowly eroding.
“The council has been dismissed,” I said, my voice carrying too cleanly through the chamber. “Their conclusions were … inconclusive.”
He didn’t respond at once. His fingers tapped against the arm of the throne, a sound like falling ice. “You defend the mortal,” he murmured at last. “Even now.”
“I defend reason,” I said. “The tremor predated her arrival. It only worsened last night. There is no proof she caused it.”
“No proof,” he echoed, soft as a crack before collapse. Then his gaze lifted, silver bleeding through the gray of his irises. “Kael.”
The name struck sharper than cold.
“I am Kaelith,” I said quietly.
He blinked, as though startled by the correction. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Kaelith.” He smiled faintly—wrongly. “You both serve me still.”
I bowed my head to hide the expression that wanted to surface. “Your orders?”
“The mortal must be tested.” His voice gained weight with the words. “If the Veil quakes when she breathes, then she is the crack itself. Do what must be done.”
The command hit like frostlight through the spine. “Father—”
“Do not question me.” The silver in his eyes flared. “Winter holds. It must hold. Seal the fracture, my son. Seal it.”
He looked past me when he said it. Notatme. Past me—toward something I couldn’t see.
The air thickened; frost gathered along the seams of his armor where flesh should have been. When he exhaled, the mist formed symbols in the air—frozen mid-shape, lingering too long before fading. Words of old Winter, distorted, senseless.
He had begun to decay from the inside out.
I sank to one knee, the gesture automatic. “As you command,” I said. It tasted like ash.
The silence that followed stretched until it became unbearable. When I rose, his eyes were closed again, lips moving soundlessly through whatever litany he repeated to keep himself intact. Perhaps he didn’t even know I’d left.
Outside, the hall breathed frost with every step I took. I stopped midway down the corridor, one gloved hand pressed to the wall until the cold steadied me. The light running from wrist to fingertip flickered erratically—brighter, dimmer, bright again. I clenched my fist to smother it, but the glow bled through the seams like stubborn truth.
This was control, I told myself. The illusion of it, at least.
