Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Katria
The forest hadn’t moved since the dream broke.
Snow hung in the air in still, slow descent, and the aurora above us burned red enough to stain the world. I could still hear the Dreamkeeper’s voice in the back of my mind—soft as breath, heavy as judgment. If you wish to keep her, you must learn to let her go.
Kael was the first to speak. “Well,” he said, brushing frost from his sleeve, “that was mildly horrifying.”
Kaelith didn’t answer. He stood a few paces away, head bowed, glove pressed against the hilt of his sword like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. The frostlight along his wrist flickered with each unsteady breath.
Kael tilted his head toward him. “You’re quiet, Brother. That’s never a good sign.”
Kaelith finally looked up, eyes colder than the air. “We’re going back.”
Kael blinked. “What?”
“Skadar Hold,” Kaelith said, voice clipped. “We need to return.”
Kael gave a sharp laugh. “Brilliant. Straight back into Father’s frostbitten arms. Why not hang a banner that says traitor while we’re at it?”
“This isn’t up for debate.”
“Oh, I think it is.” Kael stepped forward, heat rippling faintly around him and the air steaming where his boots met the snow. “In case you’ve forgotten, he’s already half-mad and convinced you’ve doomed his kingdom. Walking back through those gates will only confirm it.”
“I need to face him.”
“You need to think.”
Kaelith’s jaw clenched. “I have thought. And what I saw out here—the sky, the Veil—it’s spreading. If we don’t report it, Torrin will twist the truth himself.”
Kael snorted. “And since when has your word mattered more than his?”
Kaelith’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind his eyes—weariness, regret, maybe both. “It’s not my word I’m protecting.”
His gaze shifted toward me.
The words I wanted to say froze in my throat. For a moment, none of us spoke. Even Fenrir stopped pacing, his ears flicking toward the stillness between us.
Kael exhaled, the warmth from his breath clouding the air. “You’re serious.”
Kaelith nodded once. “The Dreamkeeper said she was chosen before birth. That makes her the key to the Dreamstone’s awakening—and Father’s wrath will reach her whether she’s inside the Hold or not. At least within its walls, I can control who gets to her.”
Kael studied him for a long moment. Then, quieter, “You mean Torrin.”
Kaelith didn’t deny it.
Kael swore softly. “You’re going to get yourself killed trying to play honor in a game that’s already lost.”
Kaelith met his brother’s eyes, the faintest ghost of a smile there—bitter, humorless. “You’ve always mistaken restraint for surrender.”
“And you’ve always mistaken duty for salvation.”
Their stares locked—heat and frost, neither willing to yield. The aurora pulsed again above us, throwing streaks of gold across Kael’s hair and silver across Kaelith’s armor. For a heartbeat, they looked less like enemies and more like two sides of the same coin, forever spinning and never landing.
I finally broke the silence. “He’s right, isn’t he?”
Both turned to look at me.
“The Frostfather won’t stop,” I said. “If we keep running, he’ll just send more soldiers—or worse. At least in Skadar Hold, we’ll know where the danger is.”
Kaelith inclined his head slightly. “Exactly.”
Kael sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “You mortals really do have a death wish.”
I managed a faint smile. “Maybe we just don’t like waiting for it to find us.”
Kael studied me for a long moment before shaking his head. “You’re both insane. Fine. But when our father”—he spat the word—“tries to freeze us in the courtyard, I reserve the right to say I told you so.”
Kaelith’s reply was flat. “You always do.”
For the first time since the dream, Kael laughed—a real one, brief but bright. “Then it’s settled. Straight into the storm.”
Kaelith turned toward the east, toward the horizon where the Hold’s faint silhouette gleamed like a jagged crown of ice. His expression was unreadable, but his voice carried an edge of finality.
“Into the storm,” he agreed.
The wind shifted, stirring the snow around our boots. Fenrir gave a low, uneasy whine and began to walk, tail low. Kael adjusted his cloak, muttering something about frostbite and family curses. I followed between them, the Dreamkeeper’s words still echoing inside me.
If you wish to keep her, you must learn to let her go.
And as the bleeding aurora began to stretch wider across the sky, I wondered which of them the warning was truly for.
The sky was breaking when we crossed the last ridge of the Frostwood.
At first, I thought it was dawn—silver light bleeding through the clouds—but dawn never looked like this.
The aurora churned in slow spirals, ribbons of red and white tangled together, their edges tearing like cloth caught on thorns.
Every few heartbeats a pulse rippled through it, silent but deep enough that I felt it inside my ribs.
Kael strode ahead, his hair catching every flicker of crimson until it looked like fire caught in motion. He’d stopped joking an hour ago. Even his easy warmth couldn’t fill the silence that followed us.
Kaelith stayed behind me, a shadow in black and frost-bitten steel. The light from the sky glanced off the edges of his armor, outlining him in fractured silver. For a moment, he looked less like a man and more like something the world itself had carved to remember winter by.
“The Veil,” he said at last, voice quiet but cutting through the wind. “It’s visible even here.”
I looked up again. The pulsing glow had deepened, spreading veins of light across the heavens. “Is that … normal?”
“No.” He didn’t look at me when he answered. “It shouldn’t breathe.”
The word made my skin prickle. The Frostwraiths that had followed us vanished at the border hours ago—as though even they refused to step closer to what waited ahead. Fenrir padded at Kaelith’s side, ears pinned back, a low growl rumbling from his throat that never fully stopped.
Kael glanced over his shoulder, forcing a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Lovely welcome home, Brother. Your kingdom always so cheerful?”
Kaelith’s answer was a dry look. “You didn’t have to come.”
“And miss the fun?” Kael’s grin sharpened. “Not likely.”
The two of them were a study in opposites: Kael moving through the cold as though warmth followed him, Kaelith carrying frost that seemed to quench even the air. Between them, I felt like a spark trapped in glass—small, bright, and in danger of going out.
The first sight of Skadar Hold stole the breath from my lungs.
It rose from the ice like a mountain grown hollow, its spires jagged and glass-bright, the walls carved with runes that pulsed faintly beneath the aurora’s bleeding light. It looked alive and wrong at once—too much beauty balanced on the edge of collapse.
The banners that hung from the outer towers were frozen mid-flutter, stiff as spears. The air around them hummed with tension, a faint vibration that made me shiver.
Kaelith slowed as we neared the gates. “Stay close to me,” he murmured.
I almost laughed. “Did you think I planned to walk in alone?”
His gaze flicked toward me, unreadable, then away again.
The gates creaked open before us. No horn sounded, no herald greeted the Frostbound Heir. The guards stood in silence, frost clinging to their lashes. One met my eyes for half a heartbeat and immediately looked down. I caught the whisper he breathed when he thought I couldn’t hear it.
Witch.
Kael’s shoulders tensed beside me. “Friendly lot.”
“They’re afraid,” I whispered.
“Of you,” Kaelith corrected. “Or what they think you’ve done.”
The words stung more than they should have. I wanted to ask if he believed them too, but his jaw had already set in that familiar line that meant I wouldn’t get an answer.
As we crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped so sharply my breath came out white and slow. Even Fenrir hesitated, hackles raised. The Hold seemed to exhale a sigh that rolled across the courtyard—part welcome, part warning.
The courtyard of Skadar Hold closed behind us with a sound like a glacier sealing shut.
Inside the walls, the air changed. It pressed closer, colder, heavy with the taste of metal and old magic.
Runes glowed faintly under the snow, tracing veins of light through the stones.
Every footstep echoed, followed by another half-step that wasn’t ours—as if the Hold itself was listening and repeating.
No one spoke. The guards along the ramparts watched in silence, their faces pale beneath frost-rimmed helms. Each time I met a pair of eyes, it dropped away again. Not reverence—fear.
Kael muttered near my ear, “You’d think we’d brought the plague.”
Kaelith’s answer came low. “In their minds, we did.”
A pair of doors loomed ahead, carved from dark ice shot through with veins of silver. Beyond them lay the inner ward. As the gates creaked open, a wave of cold rolled out so sharp it stung my teeth.
Inside, the grandeur of Winter spread before us: columns of blue glass rising like frozen trees, corridors arching high enough to swallow echoes.
The light from the aurora bled through narrow windows, turning everything the color of bruised moonlight.
Beauty and menace intertwined until I couldn’t tell them apart.
Our steps carried us deeper. The farther we went, the louder the whispers became—thin, overlapping, impossible to tell apart. My name surfaced among them, distorted, half-sung. Katria Vale. The mortal. The witch.
Kael glanced at me. “Ignore them.”
“That’s difficult when they’re using my name like a curse.”
He gave me a quick, rueful smile. “It’s what they do best here.”
Kaelith didn’t slow. “They’ve always feared what they don’t understand. Keep walking.”