I could feel it, a slow warmth crawling through my pulse, whispering her name like it belonged there.
Katria.
I should have sealed the rest away.Locked the box, called for a courier, sent it straight to the archives.
But, unbidden, my hand reached for the second letter.
It pulsed faintly against my fingertips. The seal was darker this time, pressed deep enough that the wax glittered like blood under frost.
I cracked it open.
My dearest Kaelith—
I almost stopped there.Dearest.The word made the room tilt.
The mortal’s arrival coincides with the Dreamstone’s stirring, does it not? Curiosity must tempt you. But beware desire—it never stays curious for long.
A muscle jumped in my jaw. I read the next line anyway.
How strange that your people call her “the spark.” Do they know sparks devour when starved of air? Perhaps you do.
I exhaled through my nose. The breath came out warmer than it should have, steaming against the air.
The frostlight near the ceiling dimmed, edges bleeding gold.
I told myself it was anger. That was safer. Anger I could categorize.
I straightened the page with unnecessary care. “The queen is baiting me,” I said aloud, voice low. “She’s testing for weakness, not affection.”
But my pulse betrayed me—steady, then too fast, then slower again, like something trying to sync with a rhythm outside my body.
Does she still defy you, Frostbound Heir? Or has she learned that warmth and obedience often come together?
The words burned through me.Heat—not metaphorical,literal—spread up my throat. I could taste metal.
“She defies everyone,” I muttered. “It isn’t personal.”
But the air disagreed. The frost on the table began to melt in a thin circle where my hand rested. I jerked it back, flexing my fingers.
The enchantment had learned me too well. It didn’t force feeling—it borrowed what already existed and turned it inward, amplifying it until thought fractured under its weight.
Desire is not weakness. It’s leverage.
My breath caught. The letters blurred. Her name tried to surface again, but I bit it back hard enough to taste blood.
“Not now,” I said between my teeth.
Fenrir lifted his head, watching me with the wary patience of a creature who’d seen this before in others and hated it every time.
“I know,” I told him. “I know what it is.”
But even naming it didn’t sever it. The heat coiled deeper, twining through muscle and memory, until the room seemed smaller, the walls closer. Until my blood burned.
I forced myself to breathe—slow in, slower out.Discipline, Kaelith. Command the body and the mind will follow.
It didn’t.
I saw her anyway: the dress she wore to the feast, that night in the corridor, the moment before distance, the way she’d looked at me—not afraid, not pleading, simplythere.Defiant and alive.
