Chapter ten
Kaelith
The guards obeyed before I finished the command.“The mortal remains under my supervision,” I said, and the echo of authority carried farther than my conviction. They bowed, left, and the door sealed behind them with a sound that might have been relief.
Silence settled—a rare, living thing—and the frostlight dimmed to a soft hum, reflecting in the water still pooling across the floor. The trial’s heat lingered here, thin but undeniable, and it made the air heavy in my chest.
I carried Katria to my chamber. She had lost consciousness shortly after what happened, and I didn’t know what was wrong with her.
She lay on the divan where I had set her. Her skin, once bloodless, now glowed faintly beneath the pale light. I could see the pulse at her throat. It shouldn’t have been possible. No mortal survived the Trial of Thaw. The ice always won. Yet she breathed, shallow but steady, and Fenrir lay beside her like a sentinel carved from storm.
I stripped away the last of my armor, each clasp releasing with a small hiss. Metal hit the stone with muted rhythm—familiar, steadying. My gloves came last. When I peeled them away, the line of frostlight that marked my skin flared bright and erratic, as though the magic itself wanted to escape.
I crouched beside her and let one hand hover above her ribs. The heat coming off her skin stung my palm. I reached anyway.
Frostlight gathered at my fingertips, pale and thin. I directed it toward her like a breath—magic meant for healing, for balance. The air between us shimmered then resisted. Warmth pushed back, and the light faltered. Then the burn deepened until I had to draw my hand away.
The frost had always obeyed me. But now? Now it recoiled.
I tried again. This time, I forced the energy slower, tracing careful sigils in the air above her chest. The cold met the warmth, warred for a moment, and then settled into an uneasy truce. Steam rose where the magic touched her, curling upward like faint smoke.
She shifted, murmuring something I couldn’t catch. I froze, watching her lips form half a word.Home,maybe. Orheat.
The faint gold shimmered under her lashes—residue of thawfire. I should have looked away. I didn’t. My mind cataloged details to disguise what it wanted: pulse rate, temperature variance, the pattern of breathing. Observation disguised as control.
Still, her presence pulled at something low in me, something I’d spent years freezing into obedience. Every inhale drew her scent—herbs and smoke and the faintest trace of the mortal sea. I tried to blame the warmth for clouding my head.
“You should be dead,” I whispered. The words fogged in the air between us. “What are you?”
Her answer was a faint sound, not words, but it steadied my heartbeat all the same. I forced myself to step back.
Fenrir’s eyes opened—one gleaming shard of pale light. He watched me without moving, judgment in silence.
“She lives,” I told him, voice rough. “Be satisfied with that.”
He blinked once. Then his head sank back onto his paws.
I turned toward the basin and plunged my hands into the water. The shock of it cleared my mind, but when I lifted them out, droplets turned to vapor before they fell. Gold, not silver, shimmered beneath the skin of my wrists.
That should have been impossible.
I stared until the glow faded, replaced again by the familiar pale light of Winter. The illusion of calm returned—thin, fragile, and already fraying.
Katria shifted again, the smallest sigh leaving her lips. My body reacted before thought: I moved to steady her, fingers brushing her shoulder. Warmth shot up my arm, startling enough that I jerked back.
Then the frostlight along the room’s edges flickered once, like a heartbeat trying to match mine.
I stood still until the trembling passed.
Night came slowly in the Winter Court.It didn’t fall—it thickened, seeping into corners until every breath sounded too loud. I sat in the dark beside the frostlit window, watching the light die inch by inch across the floor.
Katria slept. Fenrir didn’t. The hound’s eyes glowed faintly in the dark, pale and watchful. Every time she shifted, he flicked an ear then looked at me as though daring me to move closer.
I hadn’t tried to write the report my father asked for again. The ink had frozen solid the first time I set pen to page, the nib locking in a thin sheet of ice. A warning from my own magic, perhaps. Or from whatever ruled it now.
I told myself I would try again when my hands stopped shaking.
They hadn’t.
