Chapter 20 Katria
Chapter twenty
Katria
The sound split the sky—low, guttural, and wrong.
It wasn’t the usual horn used for drills or the changing of guards. This one carried through the walls like thunder trapped in the stone.
I bolted upright. My breath clouded in the air, and the frost along the mirror’s edge trembled as if listening.
Then came the second call—louder, desperate—followed by shouting in the courtyard below.
The door burst open. Maeryn stood there, pale as the frostlight behind her. “Stay inside,” she said. “Do you understand me? Bar the door if you must.”
“What is it?”
“Frostwraiths.” Her voice broke on the word. “A patrol’s returned—half dead, and they’re bringing the storm with them.”
She was gone before I could ask another question, skirts vanishing into the hall’s shadow.
The room suddenly felt too small. The air itself had weight. I pressed a hand to the window’s frostglass and saw motion in the distance—guards running along the battlements, the faint shimmer of runes igniting like lightning strikes in the snow.
I could’ve stayed. Should’ve stayed.But when the next scream rose, sharp and human, instinct pushed me out the door.
The corridors were a blur of white and movement. Servants fled inward; soldiers sprinted toward the outer gates, armor clattering. I caught pieces of their words as I ran.
“Broke through the ward—”“Three men frozen standing—”“Get the Heir! Now!”
By the time I reached the lower courtyard, snow was falling hard and fast, almost sideways. The wind howled through the iron arches, carrying voices that didn’t belong to any human throat.
The patrol stumbled through the gate—seven soldiers, only three still on their feet. Their armor smoked faintly with cold, steam rising from beneath the plates as if the frost itself had burned them.
I pushed through the chaos, ignoring the shouts to get back. One man collapsed near the wall, skin so pale it looked carved from marble. I fell to my knees beside him.
“Don’t touch them!” someone shouted.
Too late. My hands were already on his throat, searching for a pulse. His skin was freezing, but beneath it—there. A faint rhythm. Barely.
“Hold still,” I murmured. The words fogged between us, and I didn’t care who heard. I pressed my palms flat against his chest, rubbing briskly, trying to stir heat into the muscle.
A hiss of warmth flared through my fingertips, sharp and unbidden, but it worked.The soldier gasped. Color crept back into his lips. His eyes fluttered open in disbelief.
“What—” he began.
“Breathe,” I said, grabbing his arm. “You’re alive. Stay that way.”
He blinked once, then clutched my wrist like a lifeline.
A shadow fell over us. I looked up and saw him—Kaelith—framed in the archway.
The storm bent around him. His armor was darker than the snow, his eyes sharper than the wind. He didn’t shout, didn’t move fast, but everything near him reacted—frost retreating, air sharpening, soldiers straightening as if his presence alone anchored the chaos.
“What are you doing here?” His voice cut through the noise.
“Helping,” I said.
“I gave an order.”
“I can help.”
The courtyard froze. No one spoke. Even the wind hesitated, unsure which of us it feared more.
Then Kaelith exhaled, not quite a sigh, not quite surrender, and turned toward the open gate.
“Then help quickly,” he said, drawing his blade. “They’re not done with us yet.”
Suddenly, the wind changed.
It wasn’t just cold—it was wrong.It was the kind of cold that felt alive, twisting through the courtyard as if it were searching for something.
Kaelith raised his hand, and the remaining guards fell back in perfect formation. Lines of runes lit along the outer wall, and the gate shuddered shut with a sound like a glacier splitting.
“Shields up,” he ordered. His tone didn’t rise, but every soldier obeyed instantly. I’d never seen authority like that, so quiet yet absolute.
For a moment, I thought the danger had passed. Then the wind screamed.
It came barreling through the cracks in the gate, whipping snow into blinding arcs. The temperature dropped so fast my breath turned solid in the air. The torches guttered out, and every rune faltered.
And then I saw them.
The Frostwraiths didn’t move like living things. They didn’t have faces—just smooth planes of ice shifting beneath a layer of mist, their shapes more suggestion than form. They drifted through the storm, tall and narrow, leaving ripples of silence in their wake.
One passed directly through a torch still struggling to burn. The flame froze mid-flicker, then shattered into a thousand glittering shards.
Kaelith stepped forward, frostlight flaring along his armor. His blade ignited in his hand—not fire, not ice, something in between, pulsing faintly with the rhythm of his heartbeat.
“Hold formation,” he said. “Do not break ranks. Do not—”
The nearest Frostwraith struck.
It hit like lightning, a wave of wind and shards, knocking three soldiers off their feet. One screamed as frost climbed his skin like veins of glass.
Kaelith spun, bringing his sword down in a clean, blinding arc. The air cracked, a burst of white radiating from the impact. The wraith split in two, but instead of dying, it dissolved into snow, reforming yards away.
It was playing with him.
I ducked behind a low wall, heart hammering. The soldier I’d saved earlier was struggling to crawl away. His breath came in ragged clouds. I reached for him again, tearing fabric from my cloak to wrap around his hands.
His pulse fluttered weakly beneath my fingers. “Stay awake,” I whispered. “You’re not dying on me now.”
Another scream broke the air. I looked up and saw a guard flung against the far wall, motionless. Kaelith barked an order—two words I didn’t understand—but the runes along his arm flared bright enough to sting my eyes.
It seemed like the storm obeyed.
The snow froze midair, suspended like glass dust. Every wraith went still.
Kaelith turned toward me then—eyes rimmed with faint light, jaw tight. “Get back inside!”
“I can’t!” I shouted. “They’re—”
One of the Frostwraiths turned its head. If it could see, I felt its gaze. The air around me thickened, colder than breath. Kaelith’s eyes flicked toward it—then back to me, realization dawning.
“Stay still,” he said sharply. “Don’t move.”
The wraith glided closer, the snow around it whispering in circles. It stopped halfway across the yard, as if scenting the air.
Shoulders tense, Kaelith moved between us, blade raised. His voice dropped to something quiet and dangerous. “You’ll touch no one under my guard.”
The wraith lunged. The sound was thunder and ice and screaming wind.
Then the world shattered into sound and motion.
Kaelith moved faster than I thought possible. One heartbeat, he was still; the next, he was a streak of light and frost.His sword met the Frostwraith mid-lunge, the impact sending shockwaves through the yard. The creature’s shriek wasn’t sound—it was pressure, a vibration that rattled my bones.
Every rune in sight flared to life, the snow lifting in spirals. The wraith reformed again, taller this time, as if it had learned his rhythm.
Kaelith’s power tore through the storm in arcs of blue-white. His armor caught the light, edges glowing like a constellation of knives.He didn’t just fight; he commanded. The air itself seemed to bend to his will.
But for all his control, the Frostwraiths were multiplying. Three. Four. Seven. Each one stronger, faster, hungrier.
A shout from my left broke my focus—the soldier I’d tended earlier was on his knees, another wraith closing in.Kaelith saw it, too.“Vale! Stay back!”
But the man’s face—the sheer, terrified humanity of it—broke through reason.I ran.
My boots slipped on the ice. Wind sliced at my face. The wraith turned, mist curling toward me like a reaching hand.I didn’t think. I just moved.
I slid to my knees beside the soldier, grabbing his arm to pull him away. His breath hitched; frost was already crawling up his skin.
“No, no, no—come on,” I muttered, trying to warm his chest the way I had before. My palms burned. A faint orange glow flickered against the white snow.
Heat. Real heat. It spread from my hands into his body, steam curling where the frost retreated.
The wraith hesitated. Its faceless head tilted toward the light.
Then everything froze.
The storm stopped moving. Every flake of snow hung suspended in the air, every breath caught mid-exhale.Only the wraith and I moved—and Kaelith, across the yard, frozen in disbelief.
The wraith’s gaze locked on me. It drifted closer, cocking its featureless head as though I were something it recognized.A low hum filled the air, resonant and deep—the same pitch that had haunted my dream.
The Frostwraith reached out. My instinct screamed to run, but I couldn’t move. Its hand—if it was a hand—hovered just above mine. The air between us shimmered with heat and cold colliding.
And then, as if exhaling, the creature dissolved.
Not shattered, not slain—simply gone.
The snow fell again in silence.
I didn’t realize I was shaking until Kaelith’s hand caught my wrist.“What did you do?” His voice was low and unsteady.
“I—” My throat felt dry. “I saved him.”
The soldier coughed weakly beside us, alive, and Kaelith’s grip tightened. His hold on me was desperate, not harsh. “No mortal should be able to touch one and live. You shouldn’t even—”He stopped, glancing at my hands.
The skin where the wraith had hovered still glowed faintly. A trace of light pulsed beneath it, something warmer than frostlight.
Kaelith stared, eyes wide, the storm’s reflection burning in them. “You’re changing.”
Before I could answer, a horn sounded from the wall—the all-clear.
He released me so abruptly that I nearly fell.“Get inside,” he said, voice raw. “Now.”
“Kaelith—”
“Go.”
I went.
But as I crossed the threshold, I felt it again—that faint hum under my skin. The wraith’s parting breath.It wasn’t gone.
And neither, I suspected, was whatever it had woken.