Chapter 28 Katria
Chapter twenty-eight
Katria
I hadn’t seen Kaelith since the feast.No word. No summons. Nothing.
The days blurred together after that night, a stretch of blue and white where time felt suspended. I tried to pretend it didn’t matter—that his distance meant I could breathe again—but every time I walked past the corridor where he’d kissed me, my heart made a liar of me.
He had kissed me like a man drowning. And then he’d disappeared.
I stirred the tea Maeryn brought me, the steam curling like ghosts from the cup. The warmth didn’t reach my fingers. It never did here.
“Drink before it cools,” she said softly, folding fresh linens beside the hearth.
“I think it’s already cold.”
“Everything is,” she murmured.
I glanced toward her. Her expression was distant, listening to something I couldn’t hear. “Has it always been like this?” I asked. “So quiet?”
She hesitated before answering. “When Winter goes silent, something is coming.”
That didn’t help my appetite. I set the cup aside and rubbed my thumb over the scar on my palm—the one from the thawfire trial, the one that still pulsed sometimes when I couldn’t sleep.
The quiet pressed in, thick as snow. Even Fenrir seemed unsettled. He’d taken to pacing the room’s edges, ears twitching toward the walls as if he could hear something I couldn’t.
I stood, crossing to the window. Beyond the glass, the courtyard stretched, pale and endless. Frostguards moved like shadows, their armor glinting silver-blue. The only color came from Kael.
He was training again, bare-armed despite the cold, sunlight catching on his hair until it glinted metallic. He moved like a dancer pretending to be a soldier, graceful. Each strike of his blade left a shimmer in the air, faint trails of heat bending the frost.
I told myself I wasn’t watching him. That I was only looking for Kaelith, though I already knew he wouldn’t be there. He’d vanished into duty, or regret, or both. I tried—and failed—to ignore the twinge in my chest.
Maeryn noticed where my eyes lingered and made a quiet sound in her throat that might have been amusement. “Careful,” she said, folding the last of the linens. “The younger prince burns hotter than he seems.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Looking?” she asked. “No, of course not.”
I turned away from the window, cheeks warm despite the cold. “Do they always spar like that?”
“When the walls feel close,” she said. “Or when they need to remember what they’re fighting for.”
“And what is that?”
She gave a small, unreadable smile. “Depends which brother you ask.”
The door creaked as she left, her footsteps fading down the corridor. I stood there a while longer, alone with the stillness and the sound of my own heart.
I told myself again that Kaelith’s silence shouldn’t matter. That I’d been nothing more than a distraction—a mortal curiosity, a warmth he wanted to understand until it frightened him.
But it did matter. It mattered too much.
Because no one tells you what comes after the fire.How the quiet feels like punishment.How even your own heartbeat sounds too loud.
Fenrir settled beside me with a low huff, his fur brushing my hand. I sank to the floor and rested my forehead against his. “I’m fine,” I whispered, though my voice didn’t sound like mine. “He’ll come to his senses.”
Fenrir huffed again, unimpressed.
I looked back to the window. Kael had paused in the courtyard, blade lowered, his gaze lifted toward the tower. The sunlight hit him full, turning his hair to fire.
And for one impossible second, I could’ve sworn he was looking at me.
I thought I’d only imagined it—that flicker of eye contact in the courtyard, a trick of light and guilt—but when the knock came an hour later, I knew I was wrong.
Fenrir growled once, low in his throat. The door opened anyway. Kael didn’t bother waiting for permission.
“Your guard dog doesn’t like me,” he said, stepping into the room with that easy grin of his. “Tragic, really. I was hoping to make a good impression.”
“Fenrir doesn’t like anyone,” I said. “He’s an excellent judge of character.”
Kael pressed a hand dramatically to his chest. “Then I must be terrible.”
“You said it, not me.”
His laughter filled the space the frostlight had left empty. It was startling—like color in a world drained of it. He crossed to the window where the thin winter sun still glowed through the glass, then turned toward me, his warmth pulling the chill out of the air.
“I thought you’d vanished,” he said.
“Maybe I did.”
“That would be a shame. You’re the only thing interesting left in this castle.”
I rolled my eyes, but the corner of my mouth betrayed me with the start of a smile. “Does that line work on everyone or just mortals who can’t escape?”
He leaned his shoulder against the wall, eyes bright with amusement. “Usually, they don’t argue this much when I’m flattering them.”
“Maybe they’re smarter than I am.”
“Or less brave.” His gaze softened. “Not many people talk to me without flinching.”
That quiet admission caught me off guard. Beneath the teasing, there was something raw—lonely, almost. Before I could answer, he glanced toward Fenrir, who still watched him with unblinking suspicion.
“You know,” Kael said, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “I think he likes me more than your other admirer.”
I froze. “My other—”
“Kaelith,” he said easily, as if it were nothing. “I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. It’s … unsettling.”
I turned back toward the window, pretending to study the ice. “He doesn’t look at me at all anymore.”
Kael’s tone gentled. “Ah. So that’s the problem.”
“There is no problem.”
“Mm.” He pushed off the wall and came closer, each step slow, unhurried. I could feel the heat from him before he was close enough to touch. “If you say so.”
He stopped beside me, close enough that the edge of his sleeve brushed mine. The contrast in temperature made me shiver—his warmth against the cold leaking from the windowpane.
“Are you always this forward?” I asked, trying to sound annoyed.
He smiled. “Only when it works.”
I looked up at him, meaning to scold, but the words caught. His eyes weren’t the icy gray of Kaelith’s; they were a warmer silver, rimmed in faint gold, like light striking water.
He followed my gaze to the frost forming at the corner of the glass. “It’s strange,” he said softly. “In Summer, the windows sweat from heat. Here, even light freezes.”
“You miss it?”
“Sometimes.” He reached out, brushing a bit of ice from the sill with his bare hand. The frost hissed and melted instantly. “The creatures there are loud and impossible. Dusk-lions, fire-drakes, birds that glow so bright you have to squint to look at them.”
“And here?”
He smiled faintly. “Here, the beasts are quieter. They hide under snow and wait for you to forget they’re there. When they strike, you don’t even hear the teeth close.”
“That sounds comforting.”
“Depends on which side of the teeth you’re on.”
He turned his hand, holding it palm-up toward me. Steam rose faintly from his skin where the ice had melted. “Go on. Feel it.”
I hesitated. “You’re trying to prove something.”
“Only that warmth isn’t always dangerous.”
Against my better judgment, I placed my hand in his. His skin was almost hot. The contrast made me gasp. He chuckled quietly but didn’t move away.
“See?” he murmured. “Not all things that burn are meant to hurt you.”
I pulled my hand back too quickly, the warmth lingering. “You sound like you’ve said that before.”
“Maybe I have.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The distance between us was barely the width of a breath, the kind of space that felt dangerous to cross yet impossible to ignore.
Kael’s gaze dipped to my mouth, then back to my eyes. I could feel the faint hum of his magic beneath his skin—steady, alive, utterly unlike the silence that followed Kaelith wherever he went.
He lifted a hand, slow, careful, and brushed his thumb along my jaw, just below my ear. The touch was light enough to question whether it had really happened, but my pulse answered for me.
“You’re not meant for cold,” he murmured. “I can feel you fighting it.”
“I’ve survived worse,” I whispered back, though my voice trembled.
“Maybe,” he said, his breath ghosting against my cheek. “But you don’t have to.”
We stood there for a moment, the air between us thinner than before, the silence threaded with something electric. Then Fenrir let out a sharp bark, breaking the spell.
Kael grinned. “He really hates me.”
“He has good instincts.”
He bent slightly, giving the hound a mock bow. “And I have patience.”
When he straightened, his gaze found mine again, softer this time. “Don’t let the cold make you forget what warmth feels like, Katria.”
He said my name like it mattered.
And before I could decide whether to answer, he turned and left, the air cooling in his absence.
Fenrir padded to my side and sighed—a sound that could have been reproach.
“I know,” I whispered, pressing my fingers to my palm where the heat still lingered. “I know.”
The next morning, I needed light.
Skadar Hold never truly saw the sun, only the filtered glow that crept through crystal walls. But in the east gallery, the frost had thinned enough that daylight spilled through the carvings in soft ribbons. It felt like standing inside a breath of gold.
I was tracing the edge of a mural—a direstag locked mid-leap—when a familiar voice broke the quiet.
“So that’s where you hide when you’re avoiding half the Court.”
I turned. Kael leaned in the archway, a study in contradictions: leather sparring jacket, snow-dusted hair, smile too easy for this place.
“Who says I’m hiding?” I asked.
He gestured lazily toward the window. “No one comes up here unless they’re hiding … or thinking too loudly.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s worse.” He grinned. “Means you’re feeling.”
I tried not to laugh. He had that effect—turning every wall into a suggestion.