Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Katria
When I woke, the air didn’t bite.
For a long, confused moment I lay still, waiting for the cold to find me again.
It didn’t. The chill here was gentler, layered under the smell of metal and something faintly sweet—melted frost, maybe.
My body ached in places I couldn’t name.
Every breath scraped raw, as if my lungs hadn’t yet remembered how to breathe normally.
Fenrir’s shape lay at the foot of the bed, one massive paw stretched toward me. His fur steamed faintly where the light from the window touched it. He was breathing, slow and steady, and the sound anchored me.
The rest of the extravagant, unfamiliar room shimmered with contradictions.
The walls were carved ice, but drops of water slid down their surfaces, catching the weak light in trembling silver threads.
Frostlight still pulsed in the ceiling like the beat of a slowed heart, yet the air held warmth that didn’t belong in Winter.
I shifted, and the sheet stuck to my skin.
Damp. The memory of heat returned all at once—the circle, the screaming cold, the burst of gold that shouldn’t have existed.
I sat up too fast. The world swam.
A low creak came from the door, followed by soft footsteps. Maeryn entered, carrying a basin that smoked faintly from the chill outside. Her expression, when she saw me upright, was something between surprise and dread.
“You’re awake,” she said, setting the basin down. “The Court said you wouldn’t be.”
“They were nearly right.” My voice rasped; I cleared it. “How long?”
“Two nights.” She wrung a cloth, eyes flicking everywhere but at me. “The heir ordered you not to be disturbed. He”—she hesitated—“stayed until dawn the first day.”
I didn’t know what to do with that. “And now?”
“He was summoned to the throne hall this morning.” Her tone carried the kind of careful neutrality used for dangerous gossip.
The basin steamed between us. I reached for the cloth, and Maeryn flinched before catching herself. “Your skin,” she murmured. “It’s warm.”
“Shouldn’t it be?”
“In Winter, warmth draws attention.” She tried to smile and failed. “Everyone’s talking about the thawfire. Some say you called it. Others say you carry it.”
I forced a laugh that didn’t sound human. “And what do you say?”
She dipped the cloth again, eyes down. “I say the Court thrives on silence until it doesn’t.” It was an echo of her earlier words but not an answer.
When she turned away to tidy the table, I studied my hands. The faint gold mark at my wrist—where Kaelith had touched me—still shimmered when the light caught it. I rubbed at it until the skin reddened. It stayed.
Memories of the Trial of the Thaw flashed before my eyes in quick succession. I didn’t know how that fire had appeared, but I intended to find out. The vague recollection of Kaelith carrying me here, of his scent, filled my mind.
“What will they do with me?” I asked.
Maeryn paused. “That depends on whether the heir returns with mercy or orders.”
I almost asked which was worse but bit my tongue. Sharpness would buy me nothing here.
She finished folding the linens, smoothed her skirts, and said quietly, “If anyone else enters, say as little as you can. You don’t want the walls to hear. They will surely be listening now.”
When she left, the silence felt thicker. Even Fenrir didn’t move.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The floor should have frozen the soles of my feet, but instead it was cool—pleasantly so. A bead of water dripped from the ceiling and hit the stone with a hiss. I watched it for too long, hypnotized by the small defiance of melting.
The window drew me next. Frost patterned the glass in intricate fractals, each one pulsing faintly with frostlight.
Beyond them, the courtyard lay buried in snow so pure it hurt to look at.
And yet—there, near the statue of the Frostfather—dark streaks cut through the white.
Not shadow. Not soot. Something in between.
Ash.
I pressed my palm to the window. The glass was warm where it met my skin. When I pulled away, a single flake drifted through a crack in the frame and landed on my hand. Gray, weightless, cold.
Ash in the snow.
I didn’t know whether to fear it or take comfort in the proof that something here could still burn.
By the time Maeryn’s footsteps had fully faded, the silence had changed.Not empty—watchful. The air here always seemed to listen.
I tried to stand. My knees protested, but the thought of staying still felt worse.
I needed to see where I’d been caged. The chamber was large, but the walls deceived the eye—half ice, half mirror.
Every time I turned, another reflection followed, pale and wavering, as if a dozen versions of me were trapped behind glass.
The bed sat near a tall frost-crystal window. Beside it stood a table of carved whitewood, its surface damp with condensation. The rest of the space was bare except for Fenrir, whose yellow eyes tracked every step I took.
“I’m not planning to escape,” I murmured. My voice startled me—it sounded smaller than I’d meant it to. “Even if I were, there’s nowhere to go.”
He blinked once, slow, then lowered his head again, unconvinced.
I reached the door. When I tried the handle, it didn’t move. Frost webbed instantly across the metal, spreading in fine veins that met my fingertips and hissed. I pulled back, flexing my hand.
So that was the answer. I wasn’t a guest. I was a sealed thing.
Pressing my palm flat to the door anyway, I tested the temperature. The ice there wasn’t the ordinary kind; it pulsed faintly, like it recognized me. The pulse synced with mine for half a beat, then stopped.
The frostlight above me flickered, I stepped away, heart racing.
When I turned, my reflection rippled in the wall—a distortion moving through glass, quick as breath. Nothing followed, but the sense of being seen didn’t leave.
I busied my hands with the basin Maeryn had left.
The water had gone cold, but I washed the remnants of sleep from my face anyway.
My reflection blurred with every movement.
When I wiped the mirror dry, another shape seemed to fade from behind it—a shadow like a tall figure, gone the instant I focused.
It wasn’t the first time the palace played tricks. I didn’t need it to start whispering now.
I sank back onto the bed. The mattress gave under my weight, warm from the lingering heat.
Someone had laid a folded cloak across the footboard—black, trimmed with silver thread.
His. It smelled faintly of frost and pine and something sharper, metallic.
I stared at it too long before forcing my gaze elsewhere.
If Kaelith had ordered me confined, it made sense he wasn’t here. Still, the absence pressed like a bruise I couldn’t name. The last time I’d seen him, his face had been carved of composure—but I remembered the tremor in his voice when he’d said, Breathe. I remembered the heat that had answered it.
The frost along the window shimmered again, pale light trembling between blue and gold. The same unstable color I’d seen in the circle when everything went wrong.
“Don’t,” I whispered to the empty air. “Not again.”
It steadied, as if it had listened. That frightened me more than the flicker itself.
I lay back, exhaustion pulling harder than fear.
The ceiling above was carved with constellations I didn’t know—patterns etched in ice, faintly luminous.
As I watched, a thin crack split one of them in two.
A droplet fell, landing on my wrist right over the faint gold mark his touch had left.
The warmth from that mark hadn’t faded in the hours—or days—I’d been asleep.
It pulsed now, soft but insistent, like memory refusing to die.
The thought came unbidden: Maybe he stayed away because he felt it too.
The air responded with a single tremor, the sound of ice shifting deep within the walls. I told myself it was coincidence. Winter’s palaces settled like any structure.
But when I finally closed my eyes, the last thing I felt was warmth at my wrist, spreading inward until sleep took it.
And somewhere far away, or maybe just beyond the wall, something sighed—as though exhaling the name of the one who had left me behind.