Eira's POV
The way he looked at her wasn't how people looked at fireborns.
Not with fear. Not with hatred.
Prince Kael Vorenth looked at her like she was something to be understood — something dangerous, yes, but also something that fascinated him.
Eira had never been stared at like that.
She could feel her Mark reacting beneath her scarf — not wildly, not in panic, but with a steady pulse that throbbed in time with her heartbeat. It wanted to be seen. It wanted to be touched.
His gaze dropped to it, even though the fabric still covered it.
"You're fireborn," he said again, this time quieter. He didn't need her to confirm it — he'd known the moment she stepped into the square.
She should've lied. Should've run.
But instead, she took a step toward him, as if the sheer pull of his presence had replaced reason.
"Yes," she said.
Kael didn't flinch.
"You shouldn't be alive."
"And yet," she whispered, with a ghost of a smile, "here I am."
Silence stretched between them like something sacred. Neither of them moved, though their bodies hummed with tension. Around them, the village faded into an echo — the snow swirling, the hiss of her breath, the aching throb of something unspoken crackling in the space between their skin.
And then he stepped closer.
Slowly, like approaching a wild creature. Not with fear — but with respect.
He reached for her scarf, hesitated, and met her eyes. "May I?"
It took her a second to process that. A Northern prince — a Warden — was asking permission to see her Mark?
She nodded, slow.
His fingers brushed the edge of the scarf. He unwrapped it carefully, inch by inch. Each tug felt more intimate than it should. She could feel his breath, smell the faint spice of his cloak, hear the shift of his armor as he moved.
The scarf fell.
There it was. The Mark blazed across the curve of her neck and collarbone — shaped like a star carved of flame, intricate, living, glowing. Her most vulnerable truth, exposed.
She expected revulsion.
Instead, he reached out — and touched it.
His fingers, gloved but warm, landed softly over the sigil. The moment he made contact, her breath caught.
A spark flared through her. Not just magic — but connection. His frost met her fire and did not extinguish it. It curled around it. Softened it. Dared to hold it.
Eira's eyes widened. She sucked in a breath, trembling from the pulse running down her spine.
"You feel that?" he murmured.
"Yes."
"It doesn't make sense."
"No. It doesn't."
But gods, it felt right.
Kael's POV
Kael had touched death before. He had felt flames crawl up the skin of his dead brother's hand, felt cold steel in his palm as he buried blade after blade in fireborns who couldn't even speak his name.
But none of that prepared him for this.
Her Mark was warm — not scalding, not violent. It throbbed gently beneath his fingertips, like a heartbeat syncing with his. He felt the hum of her magic beneath her skin. It didn't lash out. It welcomed him.
Kael had never been welcomed by magic before.
He studied her eyes as he held her. Gold-flecked brown. Burning. And too calm for someone who should be terrified. The defiance there was real — but there was something else too.
Recognition.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Trying to save someone," she said. "Someone I love."
A sister. Maybe a lover. The thought stung somewhere deep in his ribs, for no rational reason.
"Why risk your life for that?"
She tilted her head. "Why fight a war for a crown?"
Kael's lips quirked. The woman had claws. "You think I want the crown?"
"I think," she said slowly, "you're not what they say you are."
He stared at her, the words sinking deeper than they should have. "And what do they say I am?"
"Cold. Cruel. Unfeeling."
Kael blinked. "And what am I, in your eyes?"
She reached up.
He barely had time to react before her bare fingers brushed his jaw. The touch should've startled him — but it didn't. It grounded him. He let her. Hell, he wanted it.
"In my eyes?" she murmured. "You're the only man who's ever touched me like I'm not a curse."
Gods.
The air between them grew hot — not dangerously, not destructively. But sensually. The frost in his veins recoiled, then curled around it.
He wanted to kiss her.
More than that — he wanted to lose himself in her heat.
But he couldn't.
Not here. Not now.
His voice came low, rough. "You're not safe here."
"I know."
"If they find out what you are…"
"They'll kill me," she finished. "So will you?"
He was quiet for a beat. Then:
"No."
Eira's POV
She should have been relieved.
But the way he said it — No — it wasn't just mercy. It was possession.
Like he was already thinking of ways to keep her alive… not for justice. Not for peace.
For himself.
A breeze swept between them, sudden and cold. Eira shivered, though not from the cold. Kael noticed. He stepped closer, his body heat oddly strong for a man of frost. His cloak shifted as he moved — and for a heartbeat, she wanted to fall into him.
"I need the starbane root," she said, voice hushed.
Kael hesitated.
"I'll get it for you."
Her brow lifted. "Just like that?"
"No," he said. "In exchange."
"For what?"
His gaze dipped to her Mark again. "Answers. About what you are. Why you feel like…"
He stopped. Didn't finish.
But she already knew. She felt it too.
Something ancient pulsed between them.
A bond. A thread. Something tangled deeper than magic alone.
Eira nodded once. "Fine."
He stepped aside, letting her pass — and for a moment, she felt like prey that had been chosen, not hunted.
And she liked it