A quiet unease settles over me as I clear away the cold food and set his dinner aside. I will keep it warm until he comes. I wait in the kitchen, minutes stretching into hours while the hearth crackles softly. Shadows creep along the walls as the fire burns lower, the castle growing quieter with every passing moment. Luceran never appears.
Eventually, hunger gnaws at me. I eat his dinner myself, slowly and guiltily, then clean the dishes until the kitchen shines. Still, there is no sign of him.
By the time I climb the stairs, exhaustion weighs on every limb, the silence of the castle too large and too hollow. It feels like a tomb, and when I am completely alone, I feel like a ghost trapped within its walls, my only companions the howling wind and the patter of falling snow.
I open the door to my room and stop dead.
Every window has been boarded shut.
Wood nailed over the panes from the inside, thick planks covering every trace of moonlight. Even the balcony doors are sealed tight.
It is a gut-deep confirmation that last night truly happened. That I stood on the frozen lake. That something spoke with my father’s voice. That a creature not human and not Fae rose from the black beneath the ice and tried to lure me into its jaws.
Which means Rollin was telling the truth.
The Aurevault sits on the very same bank as this castle. It looks over the same lake, shares its shadow, and whatever lurks beneath it, and what I saw was no miner’s hallucination, no trick of the dark, no ghost story clung to by frightened men.
Rollin called it a demon. The thing that sent him screaming from Vein Three. The whisper that knew his name. Is that what it is? Should I call it that too?
I thought it was my father on the ice. Gods help me, I wanted it to be him so desperately that I let myself believe. I miss him so much it hurts, and every day here begins with the same question. Did he even make it home? I have no way of knowing, no way to help him, no way to be certain that everything I sacrificed actually saved him.
I would do anything to see him again. Anything to know he is safe.
But I do not think Luceran will ever let me go. Not when I have already been so much trouble, a constant annoyance, more than he ever bargained for. I wonder, briefly, whether these boarded windows are meant to keep out the demon that knows my name, or to keep me locked away where I cannot cause any more mischief.
When I go to sleep, I am grateful that I am not woken by its voice again.
By dawn, the routine begins anew.
I wash up and choose my clothes for the day from the dozens of beautiful garments lining the wardrobe, a far cry from the two dresses that hang at home. I hate that I am beginning to enjoy it, the way the wool warms my skin, the pleasure of tracing the fine embroidery at the neckline and cuffs. It feels like admiring the gold bars of a cage.
When my hair is braided over my shoulder, I walk to the door and pause, my gaze fixed on the handle. Will it be locked? I have been allowed to roam, within limits. Has that changed now that the windows and balcony have been boarded shut?
But when I test the door, it clicks easily and swings open. Relief loosens something tight in my chest.
I go downstairs to prepare breakfast, but before I can even light the stove, the sharp neigh of horses slices through the quiet. Hooves clap against stone.
My head snaps toward the sound.
I hurry from the kitchen, past the dining hall, and reach the castle entrance just in time to see the carriage turning the corner and vanishing through the gates. Luceran’s silhouette behind the frosted windows is unmistakable.
I inhale slowly, then turn back into the empty castle.
It is clear he doesn’t want to see me.Clear he doesn’t want to speak to me.
I should be relieved by the distance.But instead of reprieve… it aches.A quiet, humiliating ache.
I returnto the tower and bury myself in the same endless loops of parchment and ink. Another day of work. Another night in which Luceran does not return, at least not before I close my eyes and slip into sleep.
I do not hear the voice at the window again, not once over the nights that follow. Whether the boards truly keep out the sound, or whether the demon simply does not return, I cannot say. All that remains is the whisper of wind and the hush of falling snow.
The days begin to bleed together.Wake. Work. Sleep.And all without seeing him.
But that does not mean he’s gone from me.He lingers in my thoughts, in the edge of every dream.
Sometimes he is the Fae male, tall and powerful, beautiful in a way that aches. Every sharp angle of him seems carved with an artistry that feels cruel to the rest of the world. The stir he awakens in my stomach is unbearable on certain nights, the heat that follows a quiet agony I crave more than I will ever admit, even to myself.
Other times, he is the winter wolf, massive and brutal, pinning me to the ice beneath the weight of something feral and hungry. Something I should not want. Fangs and fur and claws. And yet, at times, that heat coils through me even more fiercely.
