The guards left me outside my chambers without a word, and Maeryn was already waiting inside.
She didn’t ask what had happened. Her eyes said she already knew.
“Sit,” she murmured, drawing the chair closer to the fire that never gave heat. “Your hands.”
I didn’t realize how badly they shook until she said it. She unfastened my gloves and turned my palms upward. Thin red lines marked where the frost had touched.
“It could have been worse,” she said. “He could have meant it.”
“He did,” I whispered.
She gave a slow nod, neither agreeing nor denying. “Perhaps.”
She dabbed some pale salve onto the burns. It smelled faintly of mint and something sharper, metallic like snow.
“Does he do that often?” I asked.
“The Frostfather?”
“Yes.”
Her gaze dropped. “Winter breaks in its own ways. His are louder than most.”
I didn’t press her. The air had gone heavy with something unsaid.
When she finished, she replaced my gloves and stood. “You should rest. The Court saw you stand. That will be enough gossip for a night.”
Before I could answer, a soft knock sounded at the door.
Maeryn hesitated. Then she opened it.
Kael leaned against the frame, arms crossed, the faintest smile playing at his lips. “I come bearing sympathy,” he said. “And possibly sarcasm. I haven’t decided which yet.”
Maeryn’s mouth twitched. “Try to make it the former, if you can.”
He stepped inside with a kind of effortless confidence the room didn’t know what to do with. His presence felt like a small act of rebellion—warmth where none belonged.
“Father’s in rare form tonight,” Kael said, glancing toward me. “You made quite the impression.”
“I seem to be doing that a lot lately.”
“That’s one way to put it,” he muttered.
He took the seat across from me without asking, propping his elbows on his knees. “You stood longer than most fae manage their first audience. You should count that a victory.”
“It didn’t feel like one.”
“Victories rarely do.”
Maeryn cleared her throat, discreet as ever. “Don’t keep her long, my lord.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, though his grin suggested otherwise.
When she left, the silence between us was gentler than it had been in the hall. Kael studied me for a moment, his copper-hued hair catching the light, eyes glinting like amber beneath frost.
“You’re trembling,” he said softly.
“It’s cold.”
