I stopped. He nearly walked into me. The frost at my feet cracked in a neat circle.
“I didn’t know you were in Winter,” I said.
Kael smiled, all easy charm. “That was the idea.”
“Why?”
“Because Father asked me to investigate the disturbances along the Veil.” He tilted his head, feigning thought. “And because I was curious. Word travels fast, even in Summer. A mortal survives Winter’s trial? The frost burns? You have to admit, it’s an irresistible story.”
“She’s not a story.” I wondered who had spread the news so quickly for my brother to magic his way here.
“No, she’s a question.” He stepped closer. “And I like questions.”
The temperature dropped with my patience. Frost spread from my boots, but Kael didn’t seem to notice. His warmth pushed back against it, gold meeting blue, the air shimmering faintly where our magic collided.
He smiled again, softer now. “I meant what I said in there. Let me speak with her. You catch more truth with kindness than with a blade.”
“You mean you’d rather charm her than interrogate her.” A muscle in my jaw ticked.
“Same result, better company.”
“Denied.”
“You’re protective already.” His tone was teasing, but his eyes studied me too closely.
“I’m cautious,” I said. “There’s a difference.”
Kael laughed, the sound rolling through the cold like sunlight off ice. “You always were bad at lying to yourself.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re not like him,” he interrupted quietly. The words landed harder than his laughter ever could. “But you should know—the more you deny warmth, the faster it finds you.”
That silenced us both. Somewhere deep in the palace, ice cracked, a long, hollow sound like a glacier splitting in two. The frostlight along the walls pulsed once, gold threaded through blue before vanishing.
Kael exhaled, fogging the air. “You should sleep, Brother. You look haunted.”
“I am,” I said before I could stop the truth from slipping out.
He regarded me for a long moment, no mockery now, just something unreadable. Then he nodded, half-smiling again. “Then I’ll leave you to your ghosts.”
He turned down a side passage, his armor catching what little warmth the palace had left. I watched until the sound of his steps faded.
The silence that followed wasn’t peace. It was pressure, the kind that builds before something gives way.
The frostlight on my glove flickered again, uneven, and the Dreamkeeper’s voice whispered from memory:Every storm needs warmth to end it.
I looked at my hand, at the faint gold bleeding through the seams, and wondered if the storm had already begun.
The corridors emptied as I walked, my breath the only sound left to measure distance.Each step struck a different note—ice, water, ice again—as if the palace itself couldn’t decide what it was anymore. The frostlight along the arches flickered, pulse for pulse with my own.
I’d learned to live inside silence long ago, but tonight it pressed closer, shaped by too many thoughts I refused to finish. Every word my father had thrown at me still echoed:infection, fracture, seal her.The worst part was how much of it I’d almost believed.
A thin crack followed me down the wall, fresh, bright, and still whispering heat. The magic that should have stayed dormant in the stone now bled like veins of gold through glass. My doing. My failure. Both.
I reached my wing of the palace and paused outside the doors. The guards straightened, but I waved them off. They didn’t need to hear the way the frost hissed when I exhaled.
Inside, the air was warmer than it should have been. I stripped off my gloves and watched light spill across my palms—blue laced with gold, steady now, no longer pretending to hide. Her touch had left that stain. The Dreamkeeper’s words circled again, relentless:Every storm needs warmth to end it.
