The moon hung pale over the jagged peaks, its light spilling like silver over the frozen ridges of Frostveil. Every breath that left Seraphira's lips turned to mist, curling away into the bitter night. The cold bit at her skin, but it was not the weather that sent shivers down her spine.
Kaelreth walked ahead, his black cloak cutting a stark line against the snow, his presence pulling the shadows in his wake like loyal hounds. His pace was unhurried, yet every step felt deliberate, measured as though each footfall was an unspoken challenge to the silence between them.
The journey through the frostbound pass had been wordless. She could feel him watching her in the spaces between his glances forward, but whenever her eyes rose to meet his, he would look away. It was infuriating… and oddly comforting.
They stopped at the edge of a frozen lake. Moonlight turned its surface to a mirror of glass, fractured here and there by jagged lines of ice.
"This is where it began," he said at last, his voice low, almost swallowed by the night wind.
She frowned. "Where what began?"
Kaelreth's gaze lifted to the horizon, as though he were looking at something far older than mountains. "The crack in the pact between realms. One small betrayal. One single choice. And the world began to fracture."
He stepped onto the ice. She followed, her boots creaking against the frozen sheet. A hairline fracture spread beneath her feet, the sound sharp in the stillness. She froze, instinct screaming at her to move back.
"Do not fear it," Kaelreth said, glancing over his shoulder. His eyes caught the moonlight, burning with something unreadable. "Sometimes, the first crack is the beginning of freedom."
Something tightened in her chest. She didn't know if he was speaking of the ice… or of her.
They stood there, two figures bound by something she still didn't fully understand, as the wind whispered across the lake. Somewhere deep below, she swore she could hear water moving, restless, waiting, ready to break through the frozen surface.
And for the first time since she had met him, Seraphira wondered if the ice between them was beginning to crack too.