Kael glanced at the door. “Come in.”
Mari stood in the doorway, a tray in her hands, steam curling from a small pewter cup. Her eyes widened at the sight of the desk: Edric’s writing was spread out like a fractured map, tangled equations threaded with verse. A lonely candle swayed back and forth, shedding scant light on the madness.
His quarters were little more than a monastic cell carved from the castle’s ancient stone. The fire in the hearth struggled against the room; its glow faded halfway, failing to warm the opposite wall, where the stone breathed frost through invisible seams.
The window, a narrow cut of glass, let in a sliver of pale light. Ice framed its edges, spreading like veins through the pane. Snowflakes, caught on an unnatural current of still air, drifted slowly past. The storm had subsided, but the air felt weighted, ready to release a charge.
She drifted across the chamber, tightening her grip on the tray as she went. Leaning in, she set it down with a jolt. The tea quivered in its cup.
“You can’t sleep,” she said quietly.
Kael recognized her. She was the girl who had found Edric’s body and the source of the scream that haunted the castle (and still lingered). No more than twelve, she wore a plain dress, her red curls falling over her face. A small apron was tied at her waist.
“You saw him first,” he said. “The night he died.”
Mari swallowed. “I didn’t mean to, sir.”
“It’s not your fault.” Kael leaned forward. “Your name, Mari… did you see anything else? Anyone?”
She tugged at the hem of her apron. A hint of something like fear, or maybe doubt, crossed her face.
“I—I shouldn’t say.”
Kael leaned toward her, locked in focus. “You already did.”
Mari twisted the fabric of her apron, a nervous habit. She glanced at the door as if expecting someone. When she spoke, it was no louder than a breath.
“There was someone. A shadow… I swear I saw her slipping away.”
“Who?”
Mari opened her mouth, then closed it. The fire in the hearth gave a low crackle as an ember hissed and expired.
Then a low inhale. A silence that did not belong.
Because then came the sound.
Kael felt it more than heard it, like a tremor in his bones. His ears popped. Pressure shifted violently, and the glass in the window bowed inward. And from somewhere far below, village dogs howled.
Kael pushed back from the desk… and listened.
A heavy, unstoppable grinding force shook the walls, floor, and air. Kael stumbled toward the window, arriving just in time to see it.
The mountain… moved, a great white leviathan.
It descended in silence at first, a beast breaking free from the stone, uncoiling with terrible purpose. It rode the avalanche, separate yet in sync, like a wild steed. And the earth released a moan beneath the great beast’s weight.
He had time for nothing but instinct, backing away right before—
Impact! The window exploded with a deafening crack, as though shot. Glass sprayed inward, snow surging through like shrapnel, and then the mountain roared, consuming all.
His arms shot out, gripping Mari by the waist, yanking her away from the window as the tidal wave of ice and stone crashed against the castle.
A blast of frigid air tore through the chamber, the great beast’s tentacle lashing out, snuffing the candle’s glow and dragging the room into its black, cavernous belly.
Mari gasped, clutching at his coat. Kael held her firmly, braced against the impact, breath stolen by the cold. The castle groaned beneath the weight of the snow, the stone walls trembling as if waking from a terrible dream.
Then nothing.
Kael exhaled, loosening his grip. Mari’s breath was ragged against his chest. He set her down carefully, his pulse thundering in his ears. Snowflakes swirled through the gaping window and hung in the room like ash after an eruption. The night beyond was swallowed in white.
Shouts rose from the corridor. The castle was waking to disaster.
Mari pulled back, her face pale, her hands shaking. She looked at him, not with fear anymore, but something closer to awe.
“You saved me,” she whispered.
Kael didn’t answer. His mind was already recalibrating. The avalanche had buried Threadneedle, severing them from the outside world—and from the Crown. Like his own ties, one by one, being cut away.
His world had narrowed. And narrowed again.
For a second, he thought of Oona. And then Kael turned, gripping his sword as he strode toward the door. “Stay here.”
His fingers touched the pendant on his chest—a simple reflex: a memory.
And then he was gone.