Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Katria
“Up,” Maeryn said softly, stepping inside my chambers with her usual grace. Her hair was bound tight, a single braid streaked with frostlight ribbon. She always looked composed, like she’d been carved from the same cold the palace was built from.
I sat up, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “You’re early.”
“It’s late for a morning the Court has demanded.” Her tone carried no reproach, only a matter-of-fact air.
Behind her, two attendants wheeled in a silver rack hung with fabrics that glimmered faintly, the colors shifting with the frostlight.
“Those can’t be comfortable,” I said.
“They’re not meant to be,” Maeryn replied. “They’re meant to keep you still.”
I blinked. “Still?”
“Movement draws attention. Attention draws speculation. Best to appear unremarkable.”
Her logic was so flawless it almost sounded kind. Almost.
The attendants set the rack beside the frost mirror and left without a word. Silence followed, soft and weighty. Even the air here felt trained.
Maeryn began selecting fabrics—pale silver, muted blue, a single thread of black at the hem. “Winter favors precision. Color speaks louder than voice. Too much warmth and they’ll take it as defiance.”
I couldn’t help myself. “What about too little?”
Her lips curved slightly. “They’ll think you’re mocking them.”
It wasn’t a joke, but it almost sounded like one.
She helped me stand, her hands cool but steady. As she tightened the corseted bodice, I asked, “Do all of you dress like this?”
“Only those the Court wishes to see.”
“And the others?”
“They serve unseen.”
The words lingered longer than they should have.
Maeryn guided me to the mirror. I hardly recognized the reflection staring back—the same blonde hair pinned in an intricate coil, silver circlet resting against my temple, a faint shimmer of frostlight tracing the edges of the fabric.
I looked ... quieter. Contained. Aside from the spill of my breasts hoisted up by this insufferable corset.
Maeryn adjusted the circlet, her expression unreadable. “There. The frostlight in this will steady your pulse. It helps when the Court looks too closely.”
“Because that happens often?”
Her gaze flicked to mine in the mirror. “When something new walks among old things, they look very closely indeed.”
Something in her tone made me still. Not a threat, a warning wrapped in empathy.
I nodded, though my stomach tightened. “You talk about them like you’re not one of them.”
Maeryn smiled faintly. “Perhaps I’ve lived here long enough to know better.”
She stepped back, studying me as though ensuring I wouldn’t crumble. “When you stand before them, don’t meet the Frostfather’s gaze unless he speaks to you. Keep your hands visible. Speak clearly, but never quickly.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes.” Her eyes softened, briefly human. “Don’t let them see you shiver.”
Maeryn didn’t rush me. She simply opened the door and waited, hands folded neatly at her waist until I stepped forward.
The corridor beyond was long and narrow, its walls veined with silver light. The frost here wasn’t solid—it moved, almost imperceptibly, like breath caught beneath glass. Every few steps, the shimmer of runes traced up from the floor to the ceiling, vanishing as quickly as they appeared.
I kept my hands at my sides as she’d instructed, though I wasn’t sure whether it was the etiquette or the temperature that made my fingers stiff.
“Do the halls always do that?” I asked quietly as we walked.
“The runes listen,” Maeryn said. “They track presence, not sound. Winter prefers to know where its own are.”
“And where its prisoners are,” I murmured before I could stop myself.
Her glance was swift but not cruel. “Best not to use that word here. Even truth can sound like rebellion.”
I fell silent after that, letting her lead.
We passed servants gliding through side doors, their faces hidden by frostlight masks.
None spoke. None bowed. Their silence wasn’t submission—it was something colder, a kind of practiced absence.
I realized, with a small chill, that it was deliberate.
This was a place where emotion was an intrusion.
Maeryn’s voice cut through the quiet. “You’ll enter from the east wing. Keep your steps even, eyes forward. The Court values grace as much as loyalty.”
“Loyalty to whom?”
“To Winter.”
“Not the Frostfather?”
She hesitated—the faintest pause in her stride. “The two were once the same thing.”
Her phrasing made my skin prickle. “And now?”
She looked ahead again. “Now they are … separate matters.”
We descended a staircase carved from ice so clear it reflected everything—walls, ceiling, us. For a dizzying second, I saw dozens of Maeryns and Katria Vales walking downward in mirrored steps. I tried not to look too closely; the reflections moved just a fraction slower than we did.
When we reached the landing, Maeryn slowed and gestured toward a set of towering doors etched with faintly glowing sigils. Frost clung to the handles in elegant spirals.
“The great hall,” she said softly. “When you enter, remember what I told you.”
I nodded, adjusting the fall of my sleeves. “Don’t look at the Frostfather unless spoken to. Keep my hands visible. Speak clearly but not quickly.”
A small smile tugged at her mouth. “You learn fast.”
“Fear’s a good motivator.”
Her expression softened again. “Not fear. Caution. There’s a difference, and one keeps you alive longer.”
She turned toward the doors, but before she pushed them open, I asked, “Maeryn—how long have you served here?”
“Long enough to know Winter never forgets a name once it learns it.”
Then she pushed, and the doors opened without a sound.
The great hall of the Winter Court was made of silence.
It wasn’t the kind of silence that begged to be broken; it was the kind that owned the space, carved into the ice and air and everything in between.
Light spilled from a thousand suspended crystals, refracted through the frost until it painted the walls in shards of blue and silver.
The ceiling arched impossibly high, veined with pale light that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat just below hearing.
The floor was glass-smooth, mirrors layered with frost so fine it caught the hem of my dress when I walked.
Every sound I made felt wrong inside that stillness.
Rows of nobles stood on either side of the long aisle leading to the dais. Their clothing gleamed with threads of starlight, their faces sharp and beautiful and utterly detached. Their eyes—too bright, too pale—followed me as if cataloging every flaw.
No one whispered. The quiet itself was judgment.
I walked where Maeryn’s hand guided me, step after careful step. My pulse thudded loud in my ears, but I held my head high. The frostlight circlet hummed faintly against my temple—steadying, just as she’d said. I clung to that rhythm.
At the edges of my vision, I caught movement.
Kael leaned against one of the silver pillars, copper glints in his hair catching the frostlight.
He wasn’t dressed like the others; his uniform was looser, warmer, sunlight dulled into bronze.
When our eyes met, he gave a half-smile—small, teasing, but not cruel.
As if to say You’ll survive this. Probably.
It shouldn’t have helped. But it did. I inhaled a shallow breath, turning my gaze forward.
Then the air shifted. The temperature dropped so sharply my breath turned to mist. Every noble bowed in unison, their movements seamless, mechanical.
At the end of the hall, on the throne carved from solid ice, sat the Frostfather.
He looked carved from it too—regal, terrible, endless. His skin was the color of moonlight through snow, his eyes shards of silver without a hint of warmth. And when he spoke, his voice split—one echo too many.
“Bring her forward.”
The words rippled through the hall. The runes along the floor flared briefly beneath my feet, then dimmed.
Kaelith stepped from the shadows beside the throne.
He was as I remembered—composed, unreadable, cold as the air he commanded. Frostlight ran like veins through the black of his armor, pulsing once when his gaze found me.
He didn’t move closer.
My feet carried me forward without asking permission from the rest of me. The sound of my heartbeat filled the space where no one else breathed. Maeryn stopped just short of the dais, bowing deeply, and I followed, lowering my head but not my eyes.
The Frostfather’s gaze was heavy enough to feel.
“The mortal,” he said, as if the word itself tasted strange. “The offering Hollowmere sent to appease Winter’s hunger.”
The crowd murmured faintly, a ripple of motionless sound.
I swallowed hard. “I didn’t come to appease anyone.”
Kaelith’s head turned slightly at that—the barest motion, but I saw it.
The Frostfather’s lips curved. “Defiance is a flame. Do you know what flame becomes, here?”
“I know it burns,” I said. “Even when you can’t see it.”
The echo that followed wasn’t laughter, but it was close enough to chill me.
The Frostfather leaned forward, eyes catching the frostlight. “Let us see how long yours lasts.”
The throne room’s silence fractured into sound.
It wasn’t a roar or a whisper but something stranger—a hum that seemed to come from the walls themselves. The frostlight deepened, the color shifting toward gray-blue, as though the castle were drawing breath.
Maeryn stepped back, her bow held until the Frostfather gave a barely perceptible nod. Then she melted into the shadows of the hall, leaving me alone at the center.
I had thought I understood cold. I was wrong.
Here, cold wasn’t temperature; it was presence. It sank beneath the skin, quiet and watchful. The throne itself radiated it, an impossible stillness that pressed against my ribs until my lungs forgot how to move.
“Name,” the Frostfather said.
His voice echoed twice—once in this world and once in something deeper.
“Katria Vale,” I said, and was proud that it didn’t tremble.