The brazier flared without warning. Flames licked up, gold and white, devouring the parchment. I hadn’t moved to light it, but the letter curled to ash just the same.
The scent of Autumn leaves flooded the air—then vanished.
I stood frozen, heart pounding in my throat, watching gold fade back to silver.
“You don’t belong in my veins,” I whispered. “And yet here you are.”
Fenrir whimpered once, low. His breath clouded the air, frost swirling around him like snow caught in a storm.
“I’ll contain it,” I told him. “It’s only influence. It will fade.”
But I already knew it wouldn’t.
The fire was beneath the frost now. And it had learned my name.
Silence returned after the fire died.It didn’t feel like victory.
The frostlight along the ceiling flickered erratically, struggling to remember what color it was meant to be. Gold pulsed faintly through the blue like an infection.
I should have left. Reported to my father. Written to Kael about the border disturbances. Anything except this—standing motionless in a room that felt too small to contain what I now felt.
The heat under my skin refused to fade. I could feel it in my throat, my wrists, the pulse that refused to steady. The enchantment hadn’t left with the smoke. It had found purchase.
I pressed my palm flat to the frostglass window, forcing myself to breathe through the burn. The ice beneath my hand crackled, a thin fracture line blooming outward.
“Contain it,” I murmured. “Discipline. Command the body and the mind will follow.”
But the mind didn’t follow. It lingered—stubborn, treacherous—on the mortal girl.
On her voice, cutting through a hall full of cruelty.On the way her breath had caught when I’d almost kissed her.On the way she’d looked at me—not like a prince, or a weapon, or something to fear.Like I was human.
I dug my fingers into the window’s edge until the frost bit deep. The pain helped, for a moment. Then it didn’t.
Fenrir padded closer, nails clicking softly against the frostglass floor. He whined low, the sound almost questioning.
“I know,” I said quietly. “It isn’t supposed to happen.”
He pressed his head against my arm. For a second, I let him.
The fire in my veins didn’t ease.
“I can’t let her stay,” I told him. “I can’t let her leave.”
The contradiction sat heavy in my chest, breathing like a secondheart.
I took another breath—deep, useless. The frostlight rippled faintly, catching the reflection in the glass: pale skin, gray eyes rimmed in gold.
Gold. That wasn’t frostlight. That was her color.
A quiet laugh escaped me before I could stop it. It didn’t sound like amusement. It sounded like surrender.
“I burn in a kingdom of ice,” I said, barely a whisper. “And she’s the only thing that feels real.”
The air stilled around the words, as though even the frost understood the danger in them.
Fenrir whined again, then pulled back, uneasy. His reflection shimmered in the glass beside mine—two creatures made for Winter, standing in a room that no longer obeyed it.
I turned away from the window. The frost along my palm was melting, droplets sliding down like tears I refused to shed.
