“Yes, my lord,” came the reply. Boots thudded across the courtyard. Steel scraped. The air filled with the sound of order rebuilding itself.
I was too wired for the monotony of it to calm me.
I caught fragments of what the soldiers whispered as they carried the wounded past:
“The mortal drove it off.”“Her hands burned like sunlight.”“Maybe the Frostfather will—”
“Enough,” I snapped. The word froze midair.They fell silent.
Fenrir padded to my side, fur spiked with ice. His growl was low and uncertain. He’d fought beside me for decades—had never flinched from frost or flame. But now his ears twitched toward the snowfield beyond the wall, hackles rising.
I followed his gaze.
Beyond Skadar Hold, the horizon glowed faintly red.
At first I thought it was dawn breaking early. Then the color deepened, rippling upward. It looked alive as it bled across the sky until it filled the clouds.
A crimson aurora.
It shimmered above the Hold like a wound in the heavens, its light reflecting off every frozen surface. I’d never seen one this far south. No one had.
Fenrir whimpered once, softly, like he understood before I did.
The storm had changed something.
I turned to the commander beside me, who looked one breath away from crossing himself. “Report to the Frostfather,” I ordered. “Tell him the Wraiths breached the wards.”
He hesitated. “And the mortal?”
“She is not your concern.”
But she was mine.
I looked down at my glove again. The faintest line of steam still curled from where I’d touched her skin. The memory hit like a physical blow—her pulse racing beneath my fingers, the way she’d looked up at me, defiant even when terrified.
My heart had been pounding long before I reached her.
I exhaled sharply, forcing my focus back to the field. The aurora’s light reflected across the ice, tinting everything blood-red. I’d fought wars, facedtempests, watched men turn to statues of frost mid-scream—but this? This felt different.
The world was bleeding color it was never meant to have.
Fenrir brushed against my leg. His breath misted once, then settled. He looked toward the Keep’s high balconies, where faint movement flickered—a pale figure framed against the light.
Her.
She shouldn’t have been up there. But of course she was.
I clenched my fist, the leather groaning around the heat still coiled beneath it. I could almost hear my father’s voice:Winter must not love.
No, it mustn’t.
But for the first time in centuries, I wasn’t certain that meant I couldn’t.
The crimson light reached her before I did.
It poured across the balcony like spilled wine, catching in her hair until it glowed pale gold against the night. She stood at the railing, hands resting on cold stone, her cloak shifting in the wind. Even from the doorway, I could see the faint tremor in her shoulders. The kind born of exhaustion, not fear.
I told myself I’d come here to reprimand her—to remind her what disobedience meant in Winter—but the lie dissolved as soon as I saw her.
