I wanted to argue, to call it manipulation or prophecy, but the frost on my sleeves had already begun to melt.
I sat, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. The desk beside me still held the reports I’d meant to write, ink frozen solid in its well. The nib of the quill was trapped in a thin sheet of ice, the words refusing to take shape. Maybe that was mercy.
The door hinges creaked. A page hovered there—young, nervous, eyes wide with the kind of fear that didn’t belong to him alone.
“Your Highness,” he said softly. “The mortal is awake.”
The air thickened, the gold under my skin brightening until the boy took an involuntary step back.
“Did she ask for me?” I asked.
He hesitated. “No, my lord. But she … she looked as though she might.”
That shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.
I turned my hand, studying the light pulsing there. “You may go.”
The boy fled. His footsteps faded quickly, swallowed by the corridors.
I stood for a long time without moving, torn between two equal dangers—seeing her again and not seeing her at all. My control had already cracked; one more look at her might finish the breaking.
Still, the thought of her alone in that chamber gnawed at the edges of restraint. I could almost feel the pulse of her warmth through the walls, the faint, steady rhythm of thawfire breathing somewhere close.
I drew my glove back on. The frostlight dimmed to obedient blue. A lie made visible.
The corridor outside glimmered with thin rivulets of melted frost. I stepped into it, and with each stride the water froze again beneath my boots, sealing every trace of gold behind me. For now, at least.
Distance was the answer, the only way to keep myself—and my Court—from unraveling. The mortal was nothing to me.
The more I told myself that, the more I believed it.
Chapter thirteen
Katria
They said the Winter Gardens were where the frost bloomed even when the world slept.
It was true, in a way. The air inside glittered with colorless light, reflections fractured through hundreds of crystal petals. Each bloom looked carved from ice and dream—delicate, precise, impossible. I stepped carefully, half afraid the ground itself might shatter.
The guards followed close, their footsteps dull against the frozen path. Maeryn lingered near the entrance, clutching her shawl tighter. “You may walk the east wing,” she said softly. “Nowhere else. They said it’s for your safety.”
“Is it?”
She didn’t answer. Her gaze darted toward the frost walls, as though expecting them to listen.
I left her by the fountain—a sculpture of a fae woman bent over still water—and moved toward the nearest archway. Frostlight filtered through the glass ceiling, turning the air pale blue. For the first time since arriving here, the cold didn’t bite. It just… lingered, waiting.
When I reached to touch one of the blossoms, frost melted beneath my fingers. The nearest guard inhaled sharply. I withdrew my hand. “Relax,” I said. “It’s a flower, not a blade.”
He didn’t respond. None of them did. I’d grown used to that kind of silence—the kind that made you feel like an echo.
“They’ll never tell you this,” a warm voice said behind me, “but they’re afraid you’ll melt the whole place by accident.”
I turned.
A man leaned casually against a pillar of clear ice, light breaking across the golden threads of his armor. His smile was easy, bright enough to belong to a world that hadn’t forgotten the sun. Even the air around him felt warmer, softening the frost nearby.
“Don’t look so startled,” he said, pushing away from the pillar. “I don’t bite. Well—not without invitation.”
