Finally, Serath inclined his head. “Then think quickly. His Majesty grows impatient. If the mortal proves useful, exploit her. If not—dispose of her before she infects the palace with sentiment.”
I rose. “Understood.”
My chair scraped against the ice, the sound loud enough to echo. I walked out before any of them could speak again. Behind me, the frost re-formed where the heat of my hand had melted it. Ahead, the corridor stretched, empty and blue.
The mortal’s footprints were gone, yet I kept seeing them. Each one a small rebellion I couldn’t seem to erase.
The palace was quieter at night, though silence in Winter was never simple absence. It breathed—slow, steady, aware. Frost thickened along the corridor walls, veining outward from the core of the keep as if the castle itself were alive and thinking.
My footsteps didn’t echo. The sound was swallowed before it could return to me.
The doors to the Frost Throne opened without touch, their runes pulsing once in recognition. The chamber beyond stretched wide and pale; aurora light spilled through the ice in rippling bands. My father sat on the throne’s high step, posture too perfect to be human, the crown of light hovering just above his head. Frost bled from his fingers in quiet lines across the stone.
“You were slow,” he said. His tone was even, almost gentle, and that was what made it dangerous.
“The council detained me.”
“Excuses.” He didn’t raise his voice. “Warmth disguised as reason. You’ve learned nothing from their chatter.”
I bowed my head a fraction. “The mortal envoy arrived without issue. The council has already begun—”
“The council.” He breathed the word like a curse. “They whisper that I’ve gone deaf to the frost. But the frost hears me, Kaelith. It told me about her.”
The hairs along my neck lifted. “About the envoy?”
He smiled, a small thing that cracked the ice on his lips. “She burns too bright for this realm. The Veil murmured her name before she crossed. Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
I held still. Every instinct told me to. The frost around the throne had begun to crawl, slow and deliberate, like something alive listening for a lie.
The frost along the steps crackled softly, threads of light crawling toward me like veins searching for warmth. I didn’t move.
“She burns too bright,” my father repeated, eyes fixed on something past me, maybe on the memory of her. “You saw it too. I can smell the warmth clinging to her.”
“I saw a frightened envoy,” I said carefully. “Nothing more.”
He tilted his head. “You lie badly, my son. The frost told me how you looked at her.”
My throat tightened. “The frost tells many things.”
“It never lies.” His fingers flexed against the armrest, and the air between us dimmed. “The Veil whispers that the Dreamstone sleeps behind mortal eyes. That girl crosses our gate and suddenly the silence screams. Coincidence?”
Aurora light rippled along the walls; the pillars answered with a low, glassy hum.
“You’re hearing echoes, not warnings,” I said. “The ice carries every sound that’s ever touched it. You’re mistaking ghosts for truth.”
He leaned forward, smiling faintly. “Then prove me wrong. Watch her. Listen. If the frost spoke falsely, I’ll melt it myself.”
I bowed my head. “As you wish.”
The hum faded. Frost stilled. For a heartbeat he looked almost human again, tired and proud. Then the light shifted and I remembered the truth: the frost never slept, and neither did his suspicion.
The Frostfather’s gaze pinned me where I stood. “You will keep her close,” he said, each word striking like falling ice. “She will think it mercy. Let her. You will learn what warmth hides beneath her skin.”
The frost beneath my boots hissed. “And if she hides nothing?”
“Then she becomes an example.”
The pillars around us shuddered; a fine dust of ice drifted down like ash. I held his stare until the chill cut into my lungs. “Understood.”
