Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The cold always found me in my sleep. It seeped through the cracks of the palace walls, through the layers of blankets I wrapped around myself at night. But this cold was different—it was alive, crawling up my skin like frost creeping across glass. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
I was standing on the edge of a frozen lake. The surface was smooth, perfect, like glass, but the ice beneath my feet groaned with every step, as though something deep below was stirring. The sky above was a dark, swirling abyss, no stars, no moon, just a vast void of nothingness.
And there she was.
Aeliana stood on the other side of the lake, her pale gown fluttering like a ghost in the wind. Her hair was silver-white, just like mine, and her eyes glinted with the same sharpness. She wavered, her form shimmering like a mirage, as if she wasn’t entirely here… or entirely there.
“Sister,” she whispered, her voice carrying across the frozen expanse like the softest snowfall. It was gentle, familiar. The sound of home.
I swallowed, my breath fogging the air as I stepped forward, my boots crunching softly against the ice. “Aeliana?”
Her smile was faint, but it was there—a warmth that cut through the cold, even if just for a moment. “I wondered when you’d find me.”
I froze, my heart stuttering in my chest. “Find you?”
The ice beneath my feet groaned, splintering slightly, but I stayed where I was. The cold wasn’t painful, though it was everywhere, sinking into my skin. Aeliana took a step toward me, and though she flickered like a candle caught in a draft, I felt the strength in her presence.
“I miss you.”
“And I miss you,” she replied, her tone soft but certain. She flashed again, her form becoming translucent for a heartbeat before she solidified once more. “But I’m still here.”
We stood there, staring at each other across the frozen lake. It wasn’t the first time I’d dreamt of her since she’d gone, but this time… this time felt different. There was a pull between us. It wasn’t just grief. It wasn’t just the hollow space she’d left behind. It was more.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why do you keep coming back?”
Aeliana’s gaze softened, and the wind shifted, carrying her voice to me in the faintest whisper. “Because you need me.”
I frowned, taking another cautious step forward. The ice cracked again, but I ignored it. “I need you? I’m… pretending to be you. Living a lie. How is that… how is that what either of us wanted?”
Her figure tilted her head, a sad smile playing on her lips. “You’re not pretending, Elara. You’re becoming.”
Becoming? My mind reeled, trying to grasp the meaning behind her words, but they slipped through my fingers like snowflakes in the wind. “Becoming what?”
Aeliana didn’t answer. Instead, she knelt down, pressing her hand against the ice. The frost beneath her palm seemed to ripple, spreading out in delicate, intricate patterns, the tendrils of ice winding their way toward me. Slowly, they reached my feet, climbing up my boots and snaking around my ankles, freezing me in place.
“I’m still with you,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, but I could feel the warmth in her words. “I always will be.”
I shivered, the cold creeping higher, but it wasn’t the same bitter chill of winter. It was… comforting, in a strange way. Like an embrace. Like something familiar wrapping itself around me, grounding me in the vast emptiness of the dream.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I murmured, the words spilling out before I could stop them.
Aeliana looked at me with a tenderness that made my chest ache. “You won’t.”
The ice between us shimmered and pulsed, like a heartbeat, and I felt it deep within me—a soft, steady rhythm. One pulse. Then another. And another. My heart, and hers. Together.
I blinked, and in that instant, Aeliana flashed again, her form becoming faint, translucent. “Don’t look for me in the past,” she said. “Look forward.”
“Forward where?” I asked, the panic rising in my chest as she began to fade.
Her eyes, though distant, gleamed. “Find what’s been hidden. Where the light is kept.”
I swallowed, trying to hold onto her, trying to pull her back. “What does that mean? Aeliana, wait ? —”
“The library,” she whispered, her form dissolving into a thousand snowflakes. “The answers are there. You know where to look.”
And then, just like that, she was gone, and I was alone on the ice, the world around me silent and still. The cold settled deeper into my bones, and the frozen lake beneath me shimmered with cracks, like the surface was about to give way.
The sunlight was already well into the room by the time I woke, its warmth brushing against my skin, though the lingering cold of the dream still gnawed at me. The remnants of frost in my mind, the strange pull of Aeliana’s words—the library—had left me unsettled, my heart racing faster than it should after a night’s sleep.
I sat up, feeling slightly disoriented. The window was cracked open, and the warm air carried the scent of blooming flowers from the gardens below. Sunlight streamed through the window, casting long, soft shadows across the room.
On a small table by the window, a tray of food waited, steam still curling up from the bowl of porridge. Next to it, a folded note. I recognized Bertha’s handwriting immediately.
Visiting the dressmakers for the final touches on your gown! You’ve got a fitting tomorrow morning, so don’t you even think about running off!
I couldn’t help but smile at her usual whirlwind energy. Bertha treated everything with the seriousness of a military general planning a battle, and my wedding gown was no exception. But the lightheartedness didn’t reach my chest—Aeliana’s voice still loitered in my mind.
As I stood, stretching the stiffness from my body, I heard Rhydian’s familiar voice, soft and close, though I knew he wasn’t here. “Are you all right?”
I paused, glancing around the empty room, a habit I hadn’t shaken even though I knew how his power worked. His voice wasn’t in the room—it was in my mind, a trickle of magic that let him communicate from afar. And in moments like these, it was oddly comforting. He was never far.
“I’m fine,” I whispered back, though my mind was anything but calm. I hesitated, then added, “I’m going to the library. I need to check something.”
“The library, huh? You? Since when are you a scholar?”
I smiled faintly, pulling on a simple gown. “I just… I need to find…a book? Or maybe a note? Can you meet me?”
“Can’t,” he replied. “I’m investigating something. But I’ll be listening. Just call if you need me.”
The warmth of his presence faded from my mind, and I was left in the quiet of the room, the morning light now fully casting the chamber in a golden glow. I pulled my hair back, grabbed a muffin, and slipped out of the door, moving into the bright, endless corridors of Emberfall’s castle.
I passed through several wide hallways, my footsteps echoing faintly as I moved. Emberfall seemed endless—an intricate maze of light and grandeur, each corner more magnificent than the last. My fingers brushed against the smooth marble banisters as I descended a staircase, the sunlight filtering through the high, stained glass windows, casting the floor in a kaleidoscope of colors.
After what felt like an eternity, I finally reached the double doors of the library. They were massive, carved with the same sunburst sigil that seemed to follow me throughout the palace. Solen, the sun god, loomed above me, his golden gaze watching silently as I pushed open the doors and stepped inside.
The library wasn’t what I had expected.
I had thought it might be dim, stuffy, filled with the dusty weight of history. Instead, it was a place of light and life. The shelves, towering and intricate, stretched far above me, made of pale wood that gleamed under the sunlight pouring through the immense stained glass windows. The glass was colored, depicting stories of battles and kings, and the light that filtered through them painted the room in shades of gold, amber, and rose.
I wandered further inside, running my fingers along a shelf, the smooth wood cool beneath my touch. Scrolls and tomes, some ancient and worn, others newly inked, filled every inch of space. And then, I saw her.
A woman sat at one of the tables, bent over a pile of books, her fingers moving quickly as she jotted notes into a worn journal. Her hair, a dark brown, was pulled back into a messy bun, strands escaping here and there as if her thoughts were too preoccupied for such mundane things as appearance. She was muttering softly to herself, her lips moving as her fingers worked furiously over the page. I paused, watching her for a moment. She was so engrossed in her work she hadn’t even noticed me enter.
I hesitated before stepping forward, remembering everything Bertha had taught me about the wives. One of them was a scholar. “Lady Therynne?”
She froze mid-sentence, her quill hovering above the page, and slowly, she looked up. Her glasses sat slightly askew on her nose, and she blinked at me as if it took her a moment to process that someone else had entered the room. When she finally focused, her eyes narrowed. “Oh. You’re… the new wife.”
I nodded, feeling slightly awkward under the intensity of her gaze. “Yes, I’m?—”
“Aeliana, yes.” She cut me off, though it didn’t feel rude. It was as though she had merely completed a sentence she’d already started in her head. Her attention flipped back to the notes in front of her for a moment, then back to me, as if deciding which deserved more of her focus.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, though her tone lacked the usual pleasantries of such a greeting. It was flat, factual, like she was stating the obvious, not something that required any further conversation. Her fingers tapped against the table absentmindedly, and I noticed the ink stains that smudged across her fingertips. “What brings you here?”
“I… was hoping to find something. Old records, maybe. About Icespire.”
Therynne’s head tilted slightly, her brow furrowing in concentration. “Icespire,” she repeated, her gaze shifting slightly as if filing the information away in some mental catalog. “What era?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s… complicated. I had a dream, and?—”
“A dream?” Her eyes lit up suddenly, and she stood quickly, her quill still held tightly in her hand. “Dreams can be… interesting. They can mean many things, though not all dreams are premonitions. Some are just… reflections of the subconscious, or, in certain magical cases, they can reveal—” She cut herself off, blinking rapidly. “Sorry. You said you were looking for something specific?”
She wasn’t like the other wives. There was no politeness, no thinly veiled intrigue or judgment.
“Yes,” I said, trying to keep up. “I need to find… something about Icespire’s history. It’s related to the royal family.”
Therynne nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing slightly as she mentally sorted through the information. “History of Icespire’s royalty. Hm.” She spun on her heel, moving quickly toward one of the towering shelves. Her movements were abrupt, efficient, as if her body were just an extension of her thoughts. “There are several volumes on northern royal lines,” she muttered to herself, her fingers running along the spines of the books as she searched. “Though not many request them.”
I followed her, feeling more and more out of my depth with each passing second. When she finally selected a book, her fingers barely brushing against its worn leather cover, she turned back to me, her expression more focused than ever.
“I don’t know what you’re looking for,” she said.
I shifted uncomfortably as Lady Therynne handed me the thick, weathered volume. The cover, its leather faded and cracked from centuries of use, bore the emblem of Icespire’s royal line. It felt impossibly heavy in my hands, the weight of it sinking into me.
The truth was I didn’t know what I was searching for. Not really.
“I… I’m not sure,” I admitted.
Her eyes flipped from me to the shelves as if sifting through a mental catalog of possibilities. She hummed quietly under her breath, an almost rhythmic sound.
“Well,” she said, practical and no-nonsense, “we’ll need more than that. What exactly happened in the dream?” Her fingers started tapping, the motion seemingly second nature, as though it helped her process every word I spoke.
I blinked, caught slightly off guard by her directness. “The dream?”
“Yes, the dream,” she said, her fingers now moving faster, her eyes locking onto mine like she was already running a silent analysis. “You wouldn’t be here if it didn’t mean something. Let’s not waste time—tell me exactly what you saw.”
I hesitated but only for a moment. The dream was still vivid in my mind, its cold presence lingering in my chest. “It was… my friend,” I said, carefully choosing my words. “We were standing on ice. She was there, but… she kept flickering. Like she wasn’t entirely real.”
Therynne’s eyes glimmered with recognition, her fingers tapping faster against her palm as if spurring her mind to work even faster. “And?”
“She said I had to look forward, not back,” I continued, trying to piece it together as I spoke. “She talked about finding the truth… in the library. And there was ice. It was spreading everywhere, like it was coming from her. She also mentioned where the light is kept.”
For a long moment, Therynne said nothing, her mind clearly racing ahead as she processed the fragments of the dream. Her fingers tapped in an erratic pattern against her palm, then slowed, her expression growing more focused.
“Hmmm. Prophecy, maybe,” she muttered, almost to herself. “Dreams involving ice… light… someone from the past. That usually suggests some sort of future vision or prophecy.”
She turned sharply and began pacing along the shelves, her movements quick and efficient. “Ice… spreading. That often ties to the royal families, especially Icespire.” Her voice picked up speed, her eyes darting over the spines of the books as she mentally cataloged possibilities again. “And the reference to light being hidden. Your dream likely contains fragments of a larger truth—prophecies usually do.”
I hesitated, watching her move through the rows of ancient texts. “You think it’s a prophecy?”
Therynne’s fingers brushed along the spines of the books as she moved, her pace quickening. “I don’t think anything yet. I’m analyzing the data based on what you’ve told me. Dreams involving recurring symbols—ice, light, a figure who isn’t fully there—they often tie back to prophetic visions. We’ll need to dig deeper.”
She stopped abruptly, plucking a large tome from one of the higher shelves. The worn pages rustled as she flipped through it rapidly. She seemed to be moving through the book at an impossible speed, her mind already several steps ahead.
“Here,” she said finally, stopping on a page filled with ancient script. “Prophecies recorded from Icespire’s archives. Most of it is fragmented—wars and political upheavals destroyed much of the original texts.” She squinted slightly, adjusting her glasses as she skimmed the brittle pages.
I took a step closer, trying to make sense of the delicate script. “Can you read it?”
Therynne glanced at me briefly, her tone almost dismissive as she replied, “Yes. It’s an older northern dialect. I’ve studied it extensively during my time in Emberfall’s archives.” She continued reading, her eyes scanning the page as though the words were already forming connections in her mind.
After a few moments, she stopped, tapping her finger against the parchment with newfound intensity. “Here. It mentions ice spreading across the kingdom, freezing everything in its path. ‘A winter without end, borne of royal blood, will freeze the light itself.’” She glanced up at me, her eyes gleaming with an almost excited curiosity. “Does that sound familiar?”
My stomach churned as the weight of the words sank in. “That… sounds like my dream.”
“Exactly,” Therynne said, the tapping of her fingers becoming more rapid now. “This prophecy likely ties to the vision you experienced. The ice, the light, your connection to this figure… it’s all linked.”
I swallowed hard. “But what does it mean?”
Therynne closed the book with a snap, her eyes locking onto mine with unwavering focus. “That’s what we need to figure out. Prophecies are rarely straightforward. They come in fragments, scattered across time. But they’re never without purpose.”
Her tone was calm, almost clinical, but her eyes burned with the thrill of discovery. She smiled faintly, a brief glimmer of satisfaction crossing her face. “Come,” she said, pulling another book from the shelf. “Let’s see what else we can find.”
Therynne’s fingers traced the curling script on the brittle pages, her eyes narrowing in concentration as she began to translate the ancient prophecy. Her voice was steady, almost detached, as though this was simply another puzzle for her to solve.
“‘A winter without end… borne of royal blood,’” she murmured. “‘It will sweep across the lands, freezing the light… encasing the sun… until the frozen crown breaks, and shadows spill from the ashes.’” She paused, tapping her finger lightly against the page. Her tapping quickened as she continued. “‘The light must be kept where it can burn brightest… hidden until the time of thaw… when fire and frost meet, only then will the balance be restored.’”
The prophecy seemed to speak of endless cold, of a light extinguished and buried under ice—so much like my dream.
“Does it continue?” I asked.
Therynne nodded, though she didn’t look at me, her focus still on the text. “Yes, but it’s fragmented. Parts of it are missing. Many prophecies recorded during Icespire’s early reigns were damaged, lost during the wars. But this… this piece is remarkably intact.” She flipped to the next page, her brow furrowing as she scanned more of the faded script. Her lips moved silently, reciting each word as though calculating its significance.
Her fingers stilled on a particular phrase, and she looked up, her eyes glinting with that same astute, analytical focus. “The term ‘frozen crown’—it appears several times in different prophecies related to Icespire. It’s often symbolic of the royal bloodline, but there’s debate among scholars as to whether it refers to a physical crown or a metaphorical one. In some interpretations, it means the monarchy themselves, in others, the ice magic that courses through the royal blood.”
Her words spilled out quickly, each sentence flowing into the next as she continued her explanation, her mind clearly fixated on unraveling the prophecy. “And the line ‘when fire and frost meet’—that’s common in many prophecies dealing with kingdoms like Icespire and Emberfall. There’s speculation that it refers to a merging of the two realms—fire representing the sun and light, frost representing the ice and cold of the north. But the phrase ‘balance restored’ implies that something was unbalanced to begin with.”
She paused only for a breath, eyes darting back to the page. “And ‘shadows spill from the north’—that’s a less common phrase, though we’ve seen similar language in old accounts of the first Icespire kings. It likely refers to an external threat, potentially magical in nature. There were theories, mostly unproven, of dark magic buried deep beneath the ice in the north, predating even the Icespire dynasty…”
She continued to flip through the pages, each word prompting a deeper analysis. Her fingers drummed against the table as she spoke, as though they couldn’t keep still with the pace of her thoughts.
“Wow,” I breathed, trying to keep up with her train of thought. “You’re… brilliant.”
Therynne finally looked up, blinking as though she’d only just realized I was still there. “I’ve studied the history of Icespire extensively,” she said simply, though there was a faint gleam of pride in her eyes. “Understanding the past is crucial to predicting future outcomes.”
I couldn’t help but smile, despite the seriousness of the moment. Her passion for knowledge, her relentless curiosity—it was inspiring in its own way. “How long have you been married to the king?”
Therynne glanced down at her hands, fingers still lightly tapping against the open book. “Two years,” she answered, though there was no warmth in her tone. It was a fact, nothing more.
“Two years?” I echoed, curious. “And… do you like it here? I mean, being married to him?”
She blinked again, her focus narrowing back to me with a slight furrow of her brow. “The king’s alliance granted me freedom to study in Emberfall. I was given access to libraries and archives I otherwise wouldn’t have had in my previous life.” She spoke of it almost mechanically, her tone devoid of personal attachment.
I pressed on, hoping to get something more personal out of her. “And the other wives? Do you get along with them?”
She straightened slightly, her gaze growing colder, more distant. “I don’t… engage in relationships for the sake of social niceties.”
Her fingers stopped tapping, and she pushed her glasses up her nose. “I came here to study, to learn. Not to form attachments. The other wives… they have their roles. I have mine. My work is my focus. That’s all.”
Her words were final, cutting off any further questions I might have had. It was clear she didn’t want to discuss the other wives—or her personal life—at all. There was a certain precision in the way she spoke, a rigid boundary drawn around herself.
I swallowed, nodding slowly. “I understand. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I don’t mind questions, as long as they pertain to my work.” She glanced back down at the book in front of her, her fingers resuming their tapping. “Now, let’s continue. There’s more to uncover in these fragments.”
And just like that, the conversation switched back to the prophecy, the intensity of her focus unwavering.
I watched her for a moment. Therynne existed in a world of her own making—one built from ink, parchment, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge. There was no room for friendships or personal attachments, no space for the politics and games that filled the rest of the court. She was a scholar, and that was all she needed to be.