Chapter 22 Katria
Chapter twenty-two
Katria
The Hold felt different after the crimson aurora.
The air had always been cold here, but now it carried a strange kind of weight. Every sound seemed sharper. Every whisper lingered a heartbeat too long. Even my guards, who followed behind me, whispered under their breath.
I’d been given a little freedom, or maybe it was just that no one had interfered yet—but I noticed that there were a couple places that no one stopped me from exploring in the castle: the Winter Gardens and the balcony near my room.
When I left the balcony—which had become my safe place lately—and stepped into the corridor, conversation stopped.
Servants turned away, pretending to polish crystal sconces or carry trays that were already empty.
I could still feel their stares against my back—quick, darting, afraid to be caught.
“The mortal summoned the fire.”“The Heir defied the Frostfather for her.” “The Frostfather won’t suffer it.”
The whispers followed me like a draft under the door. I told myself they were just words, but they carried weight in this place.
Brushing off my unease, I wrapped my shawl tighter and kept walking.
The light filtering through the tall windows had a faint red tint, the last remnant of the aurora.
It shouldn’t have lasted this long—shouldn’t have happened to begin with, based on the rumors floating around.
Even the snow outside shimmered like embers.
When I brushed my fingers along the frozen railing, the ice melted beneath my touch, leaving a glistening trail that refroze the moment I drew my hand away. I tried again. Same thing.The palace was reacting to me. Or maybe it was just coincidence.
Fenrir lay sprawled near the base of the stairway, a mass of white fur against the gray marble. He lifted his head when I passed, eyes catching the faint light like shards of silver.
“Good morning,” I said softly. My voice sounded small in the vast corridor. “Or whatever hour passes for morning in this frozen place.”
He blinked once and set his head back down. Some part of me relaxed. I assumed that a snowhound’s indifference was safer than its affection.
The same couldn’t be said for the people here.
At the next landing, two attendants in pale-blue uniforms fell silent as I approached. One murmured something under his breath before ducking his head. I caught only a fragment—“unnatural.”They didn’t meet my eyes when I passed.
I wanted to say something sharp, to demand what they meant, but I didn’t. I’d learned another rule of Winter: Words were currency, and I couldn’t afford to spend mine carelessly.
The farther I went, the more the Hold seemed to hum around me. The faintest vibration underfoot, pulsing in time with the ache in my palm where I’d touched the frostfire the night before.
When I reached my chambers, Maeryn was already there, setting a silver tray on the table.
Steam curled from a pot of pale tea and a plate of bread that looked too fine to eat.
The scent of strange herbs filled the air, ones I didn’t recognize.
But I supposed that it was foolish of me to expect the fae plants to be anything like what I was used to back home.
Maeryn poured some of the steaming tea into a small cup.
“You didn’t have to bring that yourself,” I said.
She smiled faintly, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I thought it best to keep the servants from deciding what’s safe to touch.”
I sat down, the legs of the chair creaking against the stone. “They think I’m cursed.”
“They think you’re something,” she said gently. “Here, that’s enough.”
I looked up sharply. “Enough for what?”
“To make people afraid. To make others curious. Both are dangerous in this Court.”
The tea’s steam ghosted against my fingers, warmer than I expected. I wanted to ask if she believed the rumors too, but her expression told me she didn’t. Or maybe she just pitied me too much to say.
When I didn’t answer, she poured herself a cup and sat across from me. “You know,” she said softly, “people are talking about what you did, how you saved that soldier.”
I met her eyes. “What are they saying?”
Her smile faded. “Some speak your praise.”
“You don’t sound pleased.”
“Others claim that the warmth will doom us all.”
I blew on the tea and took a sip. The flavors exploded on my tongue, at once both sweet and bitter. “And what do you say?”
Her gaze fell to the frostfire in the hearth. “It doesn’t matter. I only know that the prince won’t stand for the whispers much longer.”
“Which prince?” I asked.
Her smile returned, turning conspiratorial. “Both, perhaps.”
I didn’t know how I felt about that. It was one thing to capture the attention of a fae—even more so when two circled you. And like sharks drawn to blood, I knew that this Court would rip me to shreds for it.
My mind drifted back to Kaelith on the balcony, how he’d seemed about to kiss me.
As torn as I was about being here, about this dangerous realm and its cruel people, they’d still treated me far better than the humans had in Hollowmere.
They fed me, clothed me, and taught me their ways, which was more than what I could say about where I’d come from, where the only company I’d had was the puffmice in the cupboards, the tiny creatures whose fur puffed up when frightened.
Witch, my people had called me. Thaw, the Winter Court said. Here, they held a different kind of fear. Both were superstitious nonsense, in my opinion.
And yet I couldn’t deny the strange occurrences that were happening, and it was becoming harder and harder to dismiss as coincidence. Especially with the strange dreams.
The shard in my pocket was a condemning weight, a gallows above my head that I didn’t yet understand.
And I’d captured the fae princes’ attention, something that felt far more dangerous.
“Both, perhaps,” Maeryn had said.But her voice held something heavier than warning—resignation.
I set my cup down carefully, watching the tea ripple against the porcelain. “You make it sound like protection is a curse.”
“In Winter,” she said, “it often is.”
Her gaze drifted toward the frost-laced window, where sunlight struggled through clouds the color of slate. “The Heir doesn’t choose easily whom he guards. But once he does…” Her voice trailed off, a faint crease forming between her brows. “The Court takes note. So does his father.”
I swallowed. “You mean they’ll turn against me.”
She hesitated. “They already are. They just haven’t decided how loudly yet.”
The words should have frightened me more than they did. Maybe I’d grown numb to threat, or maybe I was just too tired to keep being afraid.
Maeryn sighed and brushed a hand across the table, tracing the edge of a thin layer of frost that had begun to form there. “You think the frost is cold, but it listens. It remembers what it touches. You stood beside him last night. That’s enough to make it remember you.”
“I didn’t ask for that,” I said quietly.
“Few do. Fewer survive it.”
Her tone was matter-of-fact, but I saw the flicker of emotion behind it—pity, or maybe understanding. She looked at me as if she’d seen this story before and knew how it usually ended.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The silence between us filled with the distant sound of dripping water, soft and steady. Somewhere, the ice was melting.
Finally, Maeryn said, “You shouldn’t walk the corridors alone for a while. Not until the frost stops whispering your name.”
I almost laughed, though there was no humor in it. “And when will that be?”
“When the Heir stops listening for it.”
I looked up sharply, but her expression had smoothed again, unreadable.
She rose, gathering the empty cups. “Eat something,” she said. “You’ll need your strength.”
“For what?”
Maeryn didn’t answer right away. She paused at the door, her reflection faint in the frostglass panel. “Winter is shifting,” she said finally. “When it does, things buried deep don’t stay buried long.”
Then she left, leaving the faint scent of jasmine and snow in her wake.
Great, I thought. Yet another cryptic answer. Winter seemed great at those.
I sat there for a long time after she was gone, tracing the rim of my cup and watching the frost creep slowly back over the table.
The Heir’s favor could be as fatal as his wrath.I didn’t know yet which one I had earned.
The frostgarden was the only place in Skadar Hold that didn’t feel entirely dead, where beauty didn’t feel as sharp and deadly.
Beneath the panes of translucent ice, faint glimmers of green shifted in the dim light, vines curling against their frozen prisons as if still reaching for spring. I’d started walking there when the corridors grew too heavy with stares.
Maeryn joined me without asking, falling into step beside me as if she’d known where I’d be.
She carried a small bundle of herbs in her apron, their color dulled by the cold.
I recognized half of them—frostmint, nightroot—but the rest were nothing I’d ever seen before.
One of them pulsed faintly, as if it had a heartbeat.
“What do you use those for?” I asked.
“Keeping things alive,” she said, tone dry. “Or convincing them to stay that way.”
We walked for a while in silence. Above us, frostlight filtered through the ceiling in fractured beams. It made everything look like glass that had once been water, like memory caught mid-breath.
Finally, I said, “Maeryn … what exactly did I see that night?”
Her brow furrowed. “You’ll have to be more specific. There was quite a lot to see.”
“The Frostwraiths,” I said. “The way the air … moved. It was like it knew where to strike. And when Kaelith fought—he didn’t just wield ice. It was as if the frost obeyed him. Is that what Winter’s power really is? Ice and obedience?”
She stopped walking. For a long moment, she said nothing, just looked at the frozen vines around us. Then, quietly, she said, “Ice is only what you see. Winter’s power runs deeper.”
“How deep?”