Chapter 21 Kaelith #2
A moment later, boots struck the stone. A guard skidded to a halt behind the wolf, breath visible in ragged bursts.“My lord,” he gasped. “The southern wards—fractured. The Frostfather commands you to the hall.”
I didn’t move. The world was still heat and heartbeat and the ghost of a touch.
“Now,” the guard said again, softer. Fear laced the word.
Finally, regretfully, I stepped back. The cold rushed in to fill the space I’d stolen, but Katria’s eyes stayed on mine, searching for something I couldn’t give.
“Stay inside,” I said. It came out almost gentle.
She whispered, “And if I don’t?”
“Then Winter won’t be the only thing trying to kill you tonight.”
Fenrir whined once as I turned away. The aurora flared brighter, a vein of crimson splitting the sky. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.
But long after I’d left the balcony, I could still feel the ghost of her warmth on my hand—and the crack it had left inside the frost I called a heart.
The throne hall had always been cold, but that night it felt like a tomb.
The crimson light from the aurora bled through the high windows, staining the frost like blood. The colors shouldn’t have reached this deep into Skadar Hold, but even the walls had begun to disobey their maker.
My father sat upon the throne of frost, glass, and bone, a figure carved from the ruin of winter itself. His eyes followed the red light like a man watching his own blood leave him.
“You’ve brought chaos into my house,” he said.
“I brought order,” I answered. “The Wraiths are gone.”
“They’re not gone.” His voice cracked like thin ice. “You cannot kill what answers to Winter. You can only mislead it. And you’ve done that poorly.”
I said nothing.
The Frostfather rose slowly, every movement purposeful. Frost gathered at his feet, spidering outward in veins across the floor. “Tell me what you touched.”
I kept my tone level. “The enemy.”
“The mortal,” he corrected. “Tell me what you touched.”
The question slithered under my skin, cold and knowing.
“She was in the courtyard,” I said. “I pulled her from the path of a wraith. Nothing more.”
His mouth curved—not a smile, not yet, but something that wanted to be one. “Your lies have always been elegant, my son.”
“I don’t lie.”
“Then you’re worse than I thought. You believe your own restraint.”
The air thickened. The frost underfoot creaked as it climbed the walls. Fenrir growled softly beside me but didn’t move. He’d learned long ago that the Frostfather’s madness was not to be challenged—only endured.
My father stepped closer. His breath came out in ribbons of silver vapor, curling toward my face. “The wards have broken. The sky burns red. Frostwraiths stalk my own halls. And all of this began when you brought her here.”
“She saved lives tonight.”
“She endangered every one of them.”
“She—” I caught myself. The word burned on my tongue before I could shape it into something dangerous.
He tilted his head, studying me. “Say it.”
“She’s not the cause,” I finished, voice low.
“You think you can lie to Winter itself?”
His hand snapped up, and the air shattered. Frostlight burst around me, constricting like chains. The temperature dropped until even breath became shards of glass. I didn’t flinch. I wouldn’t give him that.
“Do you feel that?” he asked. “That is the weight of your lineage. Every oath you’ve ever sworn freezing to keep you still. And yet…”
He leaned in close enough that his eyes reflected mine. What I saw there wasn’t power. It was hunger—the need to control what he feared was slipping away.
“You bring a sickness to this court,” he whispered. “A warmth that does not belong. Seal her. End this.”
I forced a breath past my teeth. “If she’s truly what you claim, killing her won’t stop it. It will start it.”
His eyes flashed white. “You forget your place.”
“No,” I said quietly. “I remember too well.”
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of frost cracking. Then he laughed—a sound without humor, echoing through the hall like something fractured and hollow.
“Defiance suits you poorly, Kaelith.”
He turned away, ascending the steps to his throne again, motion slow and heavy with age and madness. “You think you can protect her,” he said. “But Winter devours everything it touches. Even its heir.”
He waved a hand dismissively. The frostlight snapped free, leaving the air to collapse back into cold.
“Go,” he said. “Before I remember what I made you for.”
Outside the hall, the world felt quieter but no safer.
The crimson aurora still painted the snow in streaks of red and gold. I stood beneath it until the burn in my lungs dulled, until I could almost convince myself that my hands weren’t shaking.
Fenrir paced beside me, low growls rumbling in his throat. The air smelled faintly of iron and ozone.
I reached for the nearest wall, pressing my palm against the stone. It should have been cold. It wasn’t.A faint warmth pulsed there, steady and impossible—the same rhythm that haunted my hand since the battle.
Her warmth.
It lingered on the walls of Skadar Hold now, echoing through the runes that once obeyed only me. She was rewriting the Court without knowing it.
And my father was right about one thing.
I couldn’t protect her forever.
But I could delay the world from finding out why I wanted to.