Chapter 24 Katria #2
His gaze shifted toward me as he added, “Even mortal fire bends to frost.”
Laughter rippled through the nobles, smooth and controlled. My face stayed still, though I felt heat crawl up my neck.
The Frostfather sat again, satisfied. Servants appeared like phantoms, bearing silver platters that steamed faintly in the cold.
The scents hit first—rich, spiced, layered with something wild and unfamiliar. The dishes looked almost too perfect to eat.
Slender cuts of venison glazed in frostberry wine, their surface shimmering with a faint blue sheen.
Roasted fowl with skins dusted in edible silver, stuffed with herbs that glowed faintly when sliced.
Shaved roots and winterfruit arranged in fractal spirals, each slice identical, impossible.
Bowls of deep-blue broth that smoked like mist, its aroma sweet and sharp enough to sting.
And at the center of the table, a whole white stag laid upon a bed of black ice, its antlers wound with tiny flickering runes.
I’d seen feasts in the mortal realm—harvest festivals, wedding tables—but nothing like this. This wasn’t food; it was art, or ritual, or both. The fae didn’t eat for hunger. They consumed to remember what power felt like.
Kaelith lifted his goblet without looking at me. The Frostfather mirrored him, and the Court followed like a single body.
“To Winter’s unbroken rule,” the Frostfather said.
A hundred voices answered. To Winter.
The sound struck like a blade of ice through the air.
I raised my own glass out of reflex. The wine inside shimmered faintly, turning from silver to blue as I tilted it. It tasted like nothing I’d ever known—cold and bright, leaving a sweet ache at the back of my throat. When I set it down, frost traced the outline of my fingertips on the glass.
Fenrir shifted beside me, a low growl rumbling through his chest. I followed his gaze to the nobles on the opposite side of the table—the noblewoman who had mocked me at the last feast, Lady Calenne, among them. Her smile was small, polite, and full of teeth.
“Be careful, mortal,” she called, her tone silk-wrapped steel. “The wine here bites back.”
Soft laughter followed, rippling through the hall like wind over snow. I forced a smile. “So I’ve heard. I’ve always been a fast learner.”
Her expression flickered—just briefly—and I felt a quiet, stubborn satisfaction take root. I wasn’t here to win, but I refused to lose easily.
The music swelled again, delicate and cold. Dancers began to move between the tables—frostlight shifting with their every turn, garments made of snowflakes that didn’t melt. Even the air sparkled.
And for a moment, I forgot to breathe.
It was too perfect, too polished. The beauty here had an edge. I could feel it pressing against my ribs, waiting to draw blood.
Conversation drifted through the hall like music—soft, precise, calculated. The Frostfather’s laughter rang once, low and sharp, a sound that cut through everything else.
Kaelith sat beside him, posture carved from discipline, but I saw the tension in the small things: the way his gloved hand gripped the stem of his goblet too tightly, how the frostlight along his armor’s edges pulsed out of rhythm before stilling again.
Every motion was controlled, and yet … not entirely.
I hadn’t noticed him look at me since the procession, but I could feel it—the weight of his gaze like cold sunlight, always near, never direct. I told myself I imagined it, that it was the Court’s scrutiny making my skin so aware, but when I dared glance toward him, his eyes were already there.
Gray, clear, and far too knowing.
I froze. He didn’t look away.
It was the same look he’d given me last night—when his restraint had broken, when his lips had met mine against the frost pillar and melted the air between us.
My breath caught. The memory rose too easily: the shock of heat against cold, the sound of his breath trembling against my mouth, the way the frost had dripped like tears around us.
My fingers brushed my lips before I could stop them.
His jaw flexed. Just barely, but enough.
He turned away, raising his glass as if to hide the motion, but the faint tremor in his hand betrayed him. The gesture shouldn’t have meant anything. To anyone else, it would’ve looked like composure. But I’d felt that control before—how close it was to collapse.
He’s made of winter, but the cracks are showing.
A soft voice pulled me back. “The mortal looks pale,” Lady Calenne said, her tone delicate and cruel in equal measure. “Perhaps she’s not accustomed to such refinement.”
Laughter rippled through the nobles around her. A few looked my way, pretending pity. I lifted my goblet and smiled faintly. “Perhaps I’m only overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.”
“The feast,” she said, “or the company?”
“The restraint.”
Her eyes flashed, sharp and cold. The nearest nobleman choked on his wine. Kaelith’s mouth twitched—almost a smile, quickly buried. The faintest flicker of warmth touched my chest before I could remind myself it was foolish.
The Frostfather’s voice silenced everything. “Lady Calenne, are we boring you again?”
A ripple of nervous laughter followed, but the king’s eyes didn’t leave me. They were pale and endless, like ice without depth. “And you, mortal? Tell me, do humans still trade prayers for miracles?”
I swallowed. “Sometimes.”
“Do they work?”
My fingers tightened on the goblet. “Not often.”
He smiled faintly. “At least we share that, then.”
The hall laughed again, obedient and fearful. I couldn’t tell whether it was me he mocked or his own gods.
Across the table, Kaelith’s jaw tightened once more.
The musicians struck a new melody—lower, slower, threaded with something that felt like warning. The frostlight in the chandeliers dimmed a fraction, turning the air a muted silver-blue. Then the Frostfather leaned back, satisfied. “Let the revels begin.”
The hall erupted into motion—more music, laughter, the flash of white silk and silver hair as fae rose to dance. The floor glittered as if made of starlight caught in ice.
I sat perfectly still, the world spinning quietly around me.
Fenrir’s head rested on my boots. His ear twitched once, and his tail thumped faintly—small comforts in a room full of predators.
Kaelith’s gaze found me again across the shifting light. His expression didn’t change, but the pulse at his throat was visible—steady, deliberate, too human for what he was.
When I lifted my glass, his eyes followed the motion. When I set it down, his followed that too. He was pretending to be indifferent, but I could feel the hunger in every glance.
And the worst part? I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to stop.
I couldn’t look away from Kaelith’s stare. The air between us stretched thin, full of things unsaid—too dangerous, too familiar. Then, mercifully—or not—a warm laugh cut through the chill.
Kael.
He appeared at my side with a goblet in one hand and a grin that belonged in a sunlit world. “Tell me, little flame,” he said, voice carrying just enough to draw attention, “has anyone warned you that refusing a fae at a feast is a grave offense?”
I blinked. “I wasn’t aware I’d refused anyone.”
“Not yet,” he said, setting down his glass and extending his hand, palm up. “But you’re about to.”
Every pair of eyes nearby turned our way. Heat flared at the back of my neck. I glanced instinctively toward the dais—Kaelith sat impossibly still, his gaze unreadable but unmistakably fixed on us.
“I don’t dance,” I murmured.
Kael’s smile deepened. “Then you’ve just been waiting for the right partner.”
I meant to say no. But the entire hall was watching, waiting for the mortal to falter, and something rebellious in me refused to give them that satisfaction. So, I set my hand in his.
The contact was immediate fire. His skin radiated warmth that chased away the chill of the room, and for a heartbeat, I thought I saw steam curl from where our palms met.
The crowd parted for us. Music shifted to a lilting, slower rhythm—strings and wind threading like breath through frost. Kael led easily, every movement fluid, confident. The kind of grace that made it seem as though the air itself wanted to please him.
“You burn hotter than you look,” he murmured, leaning close enough that his breath touched my cheek.
“Maybe you should stop testing the temperature,” I replied, trying for lightness, but my voice came out unsteady.
He laughed quietly. “Oh, I’m testing something.”
My heart thudded. His hand slid from my waist to my back, steady but not possessive, as he guided me through a turn that made the world blur. The silver lights caught the copper tones in his hair; his eyes glinted molten in the frostlight.
I felt Kaelith’s stare even before I saw him.
Across the room, he hadn’t moved from his seat, but the sharpness in his posture had changed. His jaw was set hard enough to cut glass. One gloved hand rested on the table, motionless, save for the faint twitch of his fingers—as though he fought the urge to crush the goblet there.
The Frostfather was saying something to him, but Kaelith didn’t answer. His attention was mine, and mine was trapped in return.
Kael twirled me, and my pulse surged. For a fleeting instant, the entire hall seemed to blur away, leaving only heat—his hand, my skin, the rush of forbidden air between us.
When he drew me back in, our bodies nearly touched.
His breath brushed the curve of my neck, warm enough to melt the cold clinging to my skin.
I felt the strength in his arm, the deliberate steadiness of his hand at my back—commanding but never cruel.
It burned through my shirt until I almost thought my skin sizzled.
He danced like someone born of sunlight, and I hated how easily he carried me with him.
“Careful with that heat of yours,” I whispered.
He smiled without pulling away. “I thought you liked danger.”
“Not when it looks like you.”
“Liar,” he murmured, low and teasing. The word echoed through me, true in a way I didn’t want to examine.
Laughter rippled somewhere distant, applause for another pair of dancers, but it felt far away.
Kael’s thumb brushed against the edge of my glove, just enough to find bare skin.
The contact was a spark, sharp and sweet.
I felt it race up my arm, settling somewhere behind my ribs, where it didn’t belong.
“I can feel you thinking,” he said, voice a soft dare. “Should I be worried?”
“That depends,” I said. “Do you usually dance with people your brother’s sworn to protect?”
He grinned, slow and wicked. “Only when they’re worth the trouble.”
I looked up at him—too long, too openly—and the air thickened.
The frostlight flickered above us, shadows gliding like restless birds.
Across the hall, Kaelith hadn’t moved. His stare anchored me as surely as Kael’s hands did.
The space between them—between us—felt like the thin stretch of ice before it breaks.
Kael spun me again, slower this time, his fingers tracing the faintest path along my palm as he turned me back toward him. The rhythm of the music swelled, layered and breathless, and for a moment I forgot who was watching, forgot the weight of eyes, the threat of the Frostfather’s silence.
The world narrowed to heartbeat and heat.
Kael leaned close enough that his lips nearly brushed my ear. “You don’t belong in a place that starves itself of warmth,” he said. “They’ll freeze you if you let them.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong—that I’d survived cold before. But the words caught somewhere in my throat, tangled with the wild, confused flutter that being near him always seemed to summon.
He pulled back just enough for our eyes to meet. There was something dangerous in his gaze—not lust alone, but curiosity, hunger, defiance. The kind that could start wars in a place like this.
I didn’t have time to answer.
Then a tug snapped me back to reality.
A sharp, tearing sound. Cold air against my shoulder.
I gasped and looked down. The strap of my gown hung loose, the delicate silk shredded like gossamer. Lady Calenne stood just behind me, her fingers still curved from the deliberate yank, her expression sweetly innocent.
“Oh,” she said, her tone syruped in mock surprise. “So fragile. Much like you mortals.”
Laughter rippled around her. The kind of laughter meant to wound.
Kael froze beside me, every trace of his easy charm gone. His hand hovered near mine as if debating whether touching me now would help or make it worse.
Before I could move, a shadow fell over us. The temperature dropped hard enough to sting.
Kaelith.
He’d risen from the dais, descending the steps like a storm wearing human shape. The Court fell silent one breath at a time. Even the music faltered.
Lady Calenne’s smile wavered, faltering entirely when Kaelith reached us. His presence filled the air—cold, absolute. His jaw was hard, his eyes a quiet, dangerous gray.
“Apologize,” he said.
The words were calm, but the frost beneath our feet began to crack. Hairline fractures spidered across the glass floor, glowing faintly.
Lady Calenne’s mouth opened and closed. “Your Highness, I—”
“Now.”
She paled. The frostlight around him pulsed once, then steadied, waiting on his command like something alive.
Her voice broke on the next word. “Forgive me, mortal. I meant no harm.”
I stared at her, then at him. Kaelith’s gaze flicked toward me—sharp, searching, not quite asking forgiveness but something close. Then he turned and walked away, every inch of him rigid restraint.
The Frostfather said nothing. No one did. But the message was clear: the Heir of Winter had chosen his line, and tonight, it wasn’t with them.
Kael bent close enough for only me to hear. “Well,” he whispered, wry and quiet, “seems my brother still prefers storms to diplomacy.”
I tried to laugh. It came out as a breath instead. Across the hall, Kaelith’s retreating figure vanished into shadow, but I could still feel the echo of his stare—the same one that had burned through me even before the feast began.