Chapter 17 #2
At the far end of the hall, the Frostfather’s throne loomed—carved from solid ice, faceted so sharply it threw back the frostlight like a hundred tiny mirrors. The king sat still within it, pale eyes reflecting nothing at all.
And beside him stood Kaelith.
He was dressed in deep-slate armor edged in silver, runes faintly alive beneath the surface. A faint halo of frostlight traced his shoulders, a mark of both power and warning.
He didn’t look at me at first. But when he did, it was like the whole room tilted.
His gaze caught mine across the distance—cool, assessing, almost cruel. Then it faltered, the smallest hitch in his composure, so brief I might have imagined it.
He looked away too late.
The frostlight along his wrist flared bright and sharp before dimming again. The nobles noticed. They always noticed.
Kael appeared beside me, all sun-warm charm and trouble. “Ignore them,” he murmured under his breath, offering me his arm. “They whisper because they envy your warmth.”
“They whisper because I’m not supposed to be here,” I said, taking it anyway.
“Both can be true.”
As he guided me toward the lower tables, I felt Kaelith’s gaze again, heavier this time.
When I glanced up, he was still watching—expression unreadable but his focus absolute.
The line of his throat, the flex of his jaw, the way his gloved hand tightened briefly against his side—all of it spoke of restraint stretched thin.
The Frostfather raised a glass, his voice echoing through the hall like the cracking of ice. “To the fragile truce that binds mortal and fae. May it not shatter under its own weight.”
Laughter followed, soft, hollow, and practiced. My throat ached with the effort of not reacting.
Kael leaned close enough for his breath to warm my ear. “You’re holding your own.”
“I don’t feel like I am.”
“That’s how you know you are.”
I managed the faintest smile, even as my skin prickled beneath Kaelith’s stare. He hadn’t moved from the dais, but his presence filled the room as surely as the cold. And when the music shifted, I saw his knuckles pale against the goblet in his hand.
At first, the feast was almost beautiful.
The tables glittered with dishes carved from translucent ice—frozen petals, crystal fruits, wine that shimmered like liquid frost. Nobles toasted with voices too sweet, too careful, each word polished until it gleamed.
It was all so dazzling it almost disguised the cruelty underneath.
Almost.
I’d barely taken my seat when a noblewoman drifted toward me, her gown the color of snow caught in moonlight. Her smile was soft and poisonous.
“I’ve been dying to meet you,” she said, voice lilting. “The mortal healer who warms our prince’s hall.”
“I don’t warm anything,” I said carefully.
“Oh, I think you do.” Her gaze slid to Kaelith—still standing beside the Frostfather, still watching. “The frostlight trembles when you enter a room. Tell me, is it true human tongues can taste the difference between ice and snow?”
Laughter rippled through the nearby tables, soft and sharp as broken glass.
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Most of us are too busy trying not to starve.”
The smile faltered. It was the smallest victory, and it cost me every ounce of calm I had.
The fae recovered quickly. “How quaint. I suppose you’ll find our ways confusing, then. All this splendor—so unlike your humble mortal hearths.”
“Confusing, no,” I said. “Transparent, maybe.”
The laughter that followed was quieter this time—uncertain, edged with something like admiration. Her smile tightened.
Before she could answer, the Frostfather’s voice rolled over the hall.
“To the truce that endures,” he said, lifting his glass. “And to the mortal who embodies it.”
Every gaze in the room turned to me.
Kaelith’s expression didn’t change, but the air near him seemed to strain—frostlight pulsing faintly, as if reflecting something beneath the surface.
A noble across the table leaned forward, eyes bright with mischief. “Tell us, mortal. Does the Frostbound Heir find your warmth … endearing?”
I froze.
The laughter this time was open, unkind, echoing through the hall like shattering ice. Kaelith’s gaze snapped toward the speaker.
“Enough.”
His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. The sound struck like a physical force, low and resonant, making the air itself bow.
The laughter died instantly. A thin layer of frost crawled up the sides of every glass until the wine froze solid.
Kaelith’s gloved hand was still around his goblet—now a shard of frozen blue. His jaw was locked, his composure fractured.
The noble swallowed hard. “We only—”
Kaelith’s gaze silenced him before the words could finish.
The Frostfather’s pale eyes gleamed with something between amusement and warning. “My son forgets himself,” he murmured.
“Perhaps,” Kaelith said evenly, “the Court forgets its manners.”
The temperature dropped further, frostlight flickering like dying stars. No one spoke.
I sat very still, pulse hammering, aware that every eye in the room was now divided between us—the mortal and the heir who’d just broken his perfect calm.
Kaelith turned away first. “Enjoy your feast,” he said to no one in particular, and set his goblet down hard enough for it to crack.
Then he left the dais, the frost fracturing beneath each step.
Kael exhaled softly beside me. “Well,” he muttered, “that went better than it could’ve.”
I shot him a look. “Better?”
“He didn’t kill anyone.”
“That’s your standard?”
“In this Court? It’s a high bar.”
I tried to smile, but my throat felt tight. When I looked back toward the doors Kaelith had disappeared through, the frost still shimmered faintly in his wake, a path cut by anger and something far more dangerous.
Something that wasn’t cold at all.
The corridor outside the feast hall was cooler than the room I’d left, and quieter too.
Kaelith’s footprints were still visible in the frost, each one a perfect imprint, the only evidence he’d ever lost control at all. I followed before I could talk myself out of it.
He didn’t get far. He stood at the base of one of the great frostglass pillars, hands braced on the edge of a marble balustrade, head bowed slightly. The air around him shimmered faintly with cold.
“Prince Kaelith,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
He didn’t turn. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“And you should? Aren’t we both expected at that dreadful feast?”
The pause that followed was taut. Then he exhaled, a thin plume of mist escaping his lips. “You shouldn’t have followed me.”
“I didn’t come to thank you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
His head lifted at that, though he still didn’t face me. “Good.”
“Because that was humiliating,” I said. “I didn’t need your rescue.”
He turned then, like a cat stalking prey. “You think that was rescue?”
“I think it was unnecessary.”
His eyes caught the frostlight, gray and sharp as cracked ice. “You would have let them continue?”
“I would have handled it.”
“They would have destroyed you.”
I took a step closer. “You don’t get to decide what destroys me.”
His jaw tightened, the muscles along it flexing once. “Someone must.”
“Then maybe it should be me.”
That pulled his attention fully. His expression flickered—a flash of frustration, or admiration, or both. “You have no idea what you invite when you speak like that.”
“Maybe not,” I said quietly, blowing out a breath.
For a heartbeat, everything stilled. The frostlight dimmed.
He moved before I saw it—one step closer, then another, until he was standing directly before me. His breath fogged between us, mingling with mine. The heat in it shouldn’t have existed here, but it did.
“You should hate me,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“I tried.”
His eyes flicked to my mouth, then back. His gloved hand rose—hesitated—stopped inches from my jaw. I could see the faint tremor in it, the thin layer of frost spreading from his fingertips into the air between us.
“Don’t,” he murmured, and I didn’t know whether it was meant for me or himself.
“Don’t what?”
A sharp exhale fled his lips, a war raging in his eyes.
He reached for me—or maybe I leaned toward him first, I couldn’t tell. The distance between us vanished to a breath, his control unraveling thread by thread. My hand reached up to his chest, my palm flat against its solid ridges.
Then, with a sound like ice fracturing, he pulled away. The air rushed cold where he’d been.
Frost spidered across the wall beside me, glowing faintly gold where his presence lingered.
He turned his back. “You don’t belong in Winter,” he said hoarsely. “And I am a fool for forgetting that.”
“Maybe Winter’s the fool,” I whispered. “For thinking it could stay frozen forever.”
He froze, shoulders rigid, and for a moment, I thought he might turn back. But he didn’t.
I stood there long after he’d gone.
The frost on the wall still glowed where his hand had been—not silver, not blue, but faintly gold, as if Winter itself hadn’t decided what to do with the warmth he’d left behind.
It pulsed once, then dimmed, but didn’t fade. Neither did the heat in my chest.
My pulse felt too loud in the silence. Every inhale scraped against the air, brittle and thin. The gown’s cold weight pressed against my skin, but all I could feel was the ghost of his nearness—the space between us that hadn’t existed for one impossible heartbeat.
I should have been angry. I told myself I was.
Angry that he’d humiliated me in front of the Court. Angry that he’d treated me like something fragile to protect, then something dangerous to avoid. Angry that he’d walked away first.
But beneath it all was something else—something I didn’t have a name for.
When I reached my chamber, Maeryn was waiting, expression unreadable, eyes flicking over me with the precision of someone counting bruises.
“You shouldn’t wander the halls after a feast,” she said softly. “Winter likes to keep what wanders.”
“I’m not lost,” I said.
“No,” she murmured. “But he is.”
I froze. “What?”
She busied herself with the fire—or the illusion of one; it glowed but didn’t warm. “The prince. He’s been losing his way since before you arrived. You’ve simply given it shape.”
“I don’t understand.” Before I could ask more, she was gone, the door closing with a whisper that sounded too much like a warning.
I sat on the edge of the bed and unfastened the frost clasps at my throat. My reflection shimmered faintly in the mirror opposite—pale skin, flushed cheeks, eyes that still looked like they were searching for him.
“He is made of winter,” I whispered to the woman in the glass. “And I am becoming a flame.”