Three days. The words hung in the air of the great hall, a tangible deadline that seemed to change the pressure in the room. The weekly court assembly was always formal, but today it thrummed with a new, anticipatory energy.
Nova stood at her assigned post at the very back, amidst the other upper servants. The air here smelled of beeswax, wool, and the faint, ever-present scent of the kitchens. It was a world away from the perfumed nobles at the front, yet they were all connected by the voice of the king.
Thorne stood on the dais, a figure of such imposing, solitary authority he seemed to draw the very light in the room toward him. To his right, Captain Ryder stood at parade rest, though his eyes, unlike the stone-faced guards, actively scanned the crowd, a hint of concern in their depths. To Thorne's left, in a carved chair that was just a shade less grand than the throne itself, sat Lady Seraphina. She was a vision of composed elegance, her hands folded in her lap, watching the proceedings with the benign, interested smile of a patron at a particularly engaging play. The sight of her there, in a place of such honor, made Nova's food from last night threaten to make a reappearance.
"People of Frostholm," Thorne's voice rang out, clean and sharp as a sword being drawn. It commanded absolute silence, which fell instantly, heavy and expectant. "The Winter Solstice approaches."
A unified, soft sigh of excitement rippled through the crowd. Nova felt it move through the servants around her like a physical wave.
"In three days' time," Thorne continued, his ice-blue eyes sweeping the assembly, "the longest night will give way to the returning sun. It is a time of power," his gaze flickered, just for a millisecond, toward the back, "of reflection. And of celebration."
Power. The word resonated in Nova's bones. The solstice was the apex of celestial magic, the night when the veil between the mundane and the mystical was tissue-thin. It was when spells were strongest, when bonds were most easily formed… or shattered. It was when a curse tied to love and celestial alignment would find its moment of truth or failure.
"We will host the full traditional festival," Thorne announced, and a cheer began to build, which he quelled with a slight raise of his hand. "All customary rites will be observed. The feast. The lighting of the solstice fires. The Mate Recognition Dance."
At the mention of the Dance, the energy in the room spiked, particularly among the unmated. The sacred dance was the highlight of the festival, where the Moon Goddess's will was made manifest. Pairs who were fated would often, though not always, feel the pull most strongly during it, sometimes accompanied by visible magic. It was a night of hope, of destiny, of public revelation.
Nova's heart, already a frantic bird in a cage, beat itself bloody against her ribs. The Mate Recognition Dance. The thought of being in that crowd, feeling the bond scream inside her while Thorne stood on the dais with her… it was a new kind of torture.
"Furthermore," Thorne's voice cut through her spiraling dread, "in recognition of the dedication of those who keep this palace running, all who serve within these walls are granted leave to participate in the evening's festivities after their duties are concluded."
This time, the cheer from the servants around Nova was not suppressed. It burst forth, a genuine roar of joy and surprise. Elbow nudged her side, a kitchen maid grinning from ear to ear. "We can go! Did you hear, Nova? We can actually go!"
Nova forced her lips into what she hoped was a smile and nodded, feeling like her face might crack. The joy around her was a foreign country. They saw a night of freedom, of music, of maybe catching a guard's eye. She saw the final act of a trap years in the making.
Only if she finds true love.
The sorcerer's rasping voice, weaving the curse as he coughed blood onto her mother's floor, was as clear in her mind as Thorne's had been. "The curse binds your voice, Princess, to protect the princes' lives. It will hold until the longest night, under the gaze of the full winter moon… and only then may it be broken by the light of true love's witnessed bond. Speak before, and the magic sustaining them snaps. Fail to find it by the dawn… and the magic turns inwards, forever sealing your fate to silence."
The condition had always felt like a cruel, abstract joke. How could she find true love when she couldn't utter a single word to foster it? When the man fate had chosen for her looked through her as if she were a pane of glass? True love wasn't just feeling; it was acknowledgment, it was reciprocity witnessed by the magic of the world. It was impossible.
Now, with the witch who had caused the curse sipping wine in their midst, the solstice wasn't just a deadline; it was a ticking bomb. Dread, thick and cold as tar, pooled in Nova's stomach. Was her arrival timed for this? Did Morgessa know the curse's specific terms? Was this all a game to her, to watch the last Winterhart struggle and fail on the very night she could be freed?
As the assembly dismissed and the great hall erupted into a cacophony of excited chatter fabric choices, dance partners, romantic hopes Nova turned and slipped away. She was a ghost moving against the current of joy, unseen and unseeing.
The festival she had once, in her most secret, foolish heart, yearned for dreaming of a magical night where perhaps, by some miracle of moonlight, Thorne's eyes might find hers and see now felt like a executioner's platform. The music would be a dirge, the lights would illuminate her peril, and the dance would be a cruel pantomime of a bond she could never claim.
She fled to the silence of the empty conservatory, where the only scent was of damp earth and sleeping plants. Pressing her forehead against the cold glass of a window, she watched the first flurries of a new storm begin to fall.
Three days. To warn a king who couldn't hear her. To outwit a witch who could smell her fear. To protect brothers who were too far away. And to somehow find a "true love" that was as distant and frozen as the stars themselves.
The task was so monumental, so utterly hopeless, that a strange calm began to settle over the panic. It was the calm of the condemned. The only question that remained was not if the trap would spring, but who would be caught in its jaws when it did.