Nalin's POV
Pain.
Not regular pain. This was pain that rewrote every cell in my body. Pain that felt like being torn apart and put back together wrong. Pain that had no end.
I screamed until my voice died. Then I kept screaming silently.
Kael's magic ripped through the seal around my heart—three hundred years of dark magic fighting back, refusing to break. Every crack felt like lightning through my veins. Every splinter felt like knives in my chest.
And then, suddenly, it shattered.
The seal exploded outward in a blast of ice and light. I flew backward, hitting the frozen ground hard enough to crack it. My whole body convulsed as magic—real magic, MY magic—flooded through me for the first time.
It wasn't gentle. It was a raging storm that had been trapped for twenty-three years, and now it wanted OUT.
Ice erupted from my skin. Frost spread across the courtyard in spiraling patterns. The temperature dropped so fast that even Kael stepped back, surprise flashing across his face.
"Impossible," he breathed.
I tried to speak, but only frost came out of my mouth. My hands—they weren't hands anymore. They were made of ice, transparent and glowing and absolutely terrifying.
"What's happening to me?" I finally gasped.
"Your magic." Kael knelt beside me, his winter eyes wide. "It's not just sealed emotion magic. It's primal ice magic. The kind that existed before the empire, before the emotional system." He touched my crystalline hand gently. "You're not just powerful. You're ancient."
The magic kept coming, kept building. I felt like I was drowning in frozen oceans, like winter itself was trying to break free from my bones.
"Make it stop," I begged. "Please, make it stop."
"I can't. You have to control it yourself." Kael's voice was urgent. "Listen to me, Nalin. The magic is yours. It answers to you. Tell it to calm down. Tell it to obey."
"I don't know how!"
"Yes, you do. You've been controlling it your whole life without knowing." His hands gripped my shoulders. "Every time someone hurt you and you felt nothing—that wasn't emptiness. That was your magic protecting you, freezing your emotions so you wouldn't break. Now you have to tell it you're safe. Tell it you don't need protection anymore."
I closed my eyes, reaching for the wild storm inside me.
Please, I thought. Please stop. I'm safe now. I'm free.
The magic hesitated. Like a wild animal deciding whether to trust.
You're mine, I told it. And I'm yours. We don't have to hide anymore.
Slowly, so slowly, the ice storm calmed. The magic settled into my chest, still powerful but no longer trying to tear me apart. My hands shifted back to flesh—though frost patterns now covered my skin like permanent tattoos, identical to Kael's.
I opened my eyes.
Kael was staring at me with something like wonder.
"What?" I asked.
"Your eyes. They've changed." He created a mirror of ice and held it up.
I gasped.
My eyes—my normal brown eyes—were now winter blue. The exact same shade as Kael's. And when I looked closer, I could see snowflakes swirling in my pupils.
"The binding," Kael said quietly. "It worked. We're connected now."
I could feel it. A thread of ice magic linking my heart to his. I could sense his emotions—the wonder, the hope, the fear that this might all be a dream.
"You can feel me," I said. Not a question.
"Yes. And you can feel me." He touched his chest, over his heart. "The seal on me is cracking too. Your magic is returning what was stolen. My emotions are coming back."
"Is that good or bad?"
"I don't know yet." His smile was small and uncertain. "I haven't felt anything but cold rage for three hundred years. This is... strange."
I sat up slowly. My body felt different. Stronger. Like I'd been wearing heavy chains my whole life and someone had finally cut them off.
"What happens now?" I asked.
Kael stood and offered me his hand. When I took it, I felt the magic connection pulse between us—ice calling to ice.
"Now?" He pulled me to my feet. "Now we have a choice. We can hide here in the Sanctum, safe but trapped. Or—"
"Or?"
His winter eyes blazed with something fierce and cold. "Or we go back to the empire and show them what they created when they broke us."
"Revenge," I said.
"Justice," he corrected. "For the twelve graves in my courtyard. For every child they sealed and discarded. For three hundred years of lies."
I thought about Seren, beaten and tied up because she tried to help me. About Thorne, forced to kill innocents to save his daughter. About all the people suffering under my family's cruelty.
"How do we fight them?" I asked. "The emperor has the entire army. Elara can manipulate thousands with her joy-magic. They're too powerful."
"They were powerful," Kael said. "When they had my stolen magic feeding them. But now?" He gestured at me, at the ice spreading from my feet. "Now that magic is yours. And trust me, Princess—you're far more dangerous than they ever were."
"I don't know how to fight. I don't even know how to control this magic properly."
"Then I'll teach you." He started walking back toward the fortress, still holding my hand. "We have time. They think you're dead. They think I'm still sealed. We have the advantage of surprise."
"How long do we have?"
"Days. Maybe weeks before they realize something is wrong." He glanced back at me. "Think you can learn to be a warrior in that time?"
I thought about twenty-three years of being called weak. Broken. Worthless. I thought about Davren's fake kindness and Elara's cruel laughter and my father's disgust.
"Teach me everything," I said. "I want to learn how to burn their empire to the ground."
Kael's smile was sharp and beautiful and absolutely terrifying.
"That's my girl."
We walked back inside the fortress together, and I realized something had changed. The beautiful, lonely sculptures didn't look like a prison anymore.
They looked like a training ground.
Kael led me to a huge empty hall with ice-smooth floors. "We start with control. Your magic is powerful but wild. You need to—"
He stopped mid-sentence, his head snapping toward the entrance.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Someone's here." His magic flared, protective and dangerous. "Someone just crossed the barrier."
"But you said only sacrifices could enter."
"Exactly." His winter eyes met mine, filled with warning. "Which means the empire just sent another one."
My blood ran cold. "Another person to die?"
"Or another trap." Kael moved toward the door. "Stay behind me."
"No." I stepped up beside him. "We're bound now, remember? Where you go, I go."
He looked like he wanted to argue. Then he nodded once. "Together, then."
We walked through the fortress halls side by side, frost spreading with every step. My heart pounded. Another victim? Another person the empire had broken and thrown away?
The front gates were open, letting in swirling snow.
And standing in the entrance, barely able to stand, bleeding and broken, was Seren.
"Nalin?" she whispered. Then her eyes rolled back and she collapsed.
I ran to catch her before she hit the ground. Her skin was burning hot despite the cold, and blood soaked through her dress. They'd beaten her badly. So badly.
"No, no, no," I said, pulling her close. "Seren, wake up. Please wake up."
Kael knelt beside us, his face grim. "She's been cursed. Dark magic. It's killing her from the inside out."
"Can you save her?"
"I don't know. The curse is designed to be unbreakable. It's—" He stopped, his expression darkening. "It's bait. They cursed her and sent her here knowing you'd try to save her. This is a trap."
"I don't care." Tears froze on my cheeks as I looked down at my dying friend. "She's the only person who ever really loved me. I'm not letting her die."
"Nalin—"
"Save her," I said, meeting Kael's eyes. "Whatever the cost. Whatever the trap. Save her, or I swear I'll walk back to the empire and let them kill me."
Kael's jaw tightened. Then he touched Seren's forehead, and ice magic spread through her body.
But the curse fought back.
Dark magic exploded outward, wrapping around all three of us like chains. I felt it pulling, dragging, trying to take us somewhere else.
"It's a summoning spell!" Kael shouted. "They're pulling us back to—"
The world twisted and shattered.
When it reformed, we were no longer in the Sanctum.
We were standing in the throne room of the imperial palace.
And my father sat on his throne, smiling.
"Welcome home, daughter," Emperor Casimir said. "Did you really think I'd let you hide in the Frostlands forever? You and your monster both belong to me now."
Fifty guards surrounded us, weapons drawn.
Elara stood beside the throne, her joy-magic already spreading through the room.
And Davren... Davren stood behind them all, his face carefully blank.
We were trapped. Exactly where they wanted us.
Kael's hand found mine, and through our bond, I felt his rage and determination.
Fight or die, his thoughts whispered to mine. Which do you choose?
I looked at my father, at my sister, at the empire that had broken me.
Then I smiled—cold and sharp and dangerous.
"Let's show them what monsters really look like."