Caelan's POV
I watched her through the ice mirror in my study.
The Winterborne girl stood frozen in her room, staring at her reflection with growing horror. Smart enough to recognize something was wrong. Not smart enough yet to understand what.
She was going to be a problem.
I poured myself a drink—whiskey I'd stolen from a merchant caravan three years ago. The liquid burned down my throat, but I barely felt it. I'd stopped feeling most things a long time ago.
A Winterborne. In my fortress. Sleeping under my roof.
Every instinct screamed at me to kill her now, while she slept. End the bloodline that had destroyed me. Simple. Clean. Justice.
My hand tightened around the glass.
But I couldn't. Not yet.
Because she'd said something that had hooked into me like a fishhook in flesh: Varius framed me the same way he framed you.
If that was true—if the same man who'd orchestrated my exile had now turned on the Winterborne family itself—then this girl wasn't my enemy.
She was bait.
And I was going to use her.
I turned away from the mirror and walked to the wall of my study. With a gesture, the ice slid aside, revealing shelves carved into the frozen stone. On those shelves sat twenty years of research. Maps. Documents. Stolen records. Witness accounts.
Everything I'd gathered trying to prove my innocence.
Everything that pointed to one man: High Chancellor Varius Blackthorn.
I pulled out the oldest file—yellowed papers I'd stolen from the palace archives the night before my exile. My hands shook slightly as I opened it.
The assassination attempt. The one they'd blamed on me.
King Edmund Winterborne had been poisoned at a state dinner. Everyone said I'd done it because I'd served him his wine. But I'd investigated the kitchen staff, the servants, even the wine merchant.
All trails led back to Varius.
But I'd never been able to prove it. And then I'd been arrested, tried, and thrown into the Frost Wastes before I could gather more evidence.
Now, twenty years later, Varius had apparently done it again. Framed another threat to his power.
The Winterborne princess.
I should have felt vindicated. Instead, I felt... nothing. Just the cold emptiness that had lived in my chest since the day they'd stripped me of everything.
A knock on my study door pulled me from my thoughts.
"Enter," I said.
The door opened, and she stood there—Elara Winterborne, looking small and lost in clothes I'd left for her. They were too big. Everything here was too big for someone who'd spent six months starving in the Wastes.
"I thought you'd be sleeping," I said.
"I can't." She hugged herself. "Every time I close my eyes, I see... things. Memories that aren't mine. Places I've never been."
The Entity was showing her its past. Marking her deeper.
"How long do I have?" she asked quietly. "Before I'm not me anymore?"
I considered lying. But lies wouldn't help either of us.
"A week. Maybe two if you're strong."
She flinched but didn't cry. I respected that.
"Then we need to start training now," she said. "Tonight. Every second counts."
"Training won't save you."
"Then what will?"
I leaned back against my desk. "Honestly? I don't know. In twenty years of studying ice magic, I've never seen anything like what's happening to you. The Entity usually takes months to fully claim a vessel. With you, it's happening in weeks."
"Why?"
"Because you're special somehow. Your bloodline. Your magic. Something about you calls to it." I studied her face. "Tell me—do you know anything about your family's history? The founding of Glacienne?"
She shook her head. "Only what everyone knows. My ancestors built the kingdom three centuries ago."
"They didn't build it. They sealed it."
Elara's eyes widened. "What?"
I pulled out another file—this one containing ancient texts I'd stolen from a ruined library. "Your ancestors didn't found Glacienne. They imprisoned something beneath it. The Frostbound Entity. It had nearly destroyed the continent, and the first Winterbornes used blood magic to seal it away."
"Blood magic," she whispered.
"Their own blood. Which means every Winterborne carries a piece of that original seal inside them." I looked at her directly. "That's why it wants you. You're not just a vessel. You're the key to breaking its prison completely."
The color drained from her face. "Then Varius knows. That's why he framed me. He needed me out of the palace so he could—"
"Use your sister instead," I finished. "Yes."
"Morgana." Elara's hands clenched into fists. "She's in danger."
"She betrayed you."
"She's still my sister!"
The passion in her voice surprised me. After everything—the exile, the trial, the months of hell—she still cared about the girl who'd destroyed her.
Foolish. Soft. Weak.
Everything I'd stopped being years ago.
"Your sister made her choice," I said coldly. "Now you need to make yours. Do you want revenge, or do you want to save her?"
"Can't I do both?"
"No." I stood, moving closer to her. "Revenge means letting Varius's plan play out. Letting your sister become the Entity's vessel. Then, when she's transformed into a monster, you kill her and take back your throne."
"That's horrible."
"That's practical." I crossed my arms. "But if you want to save her—and stop the Entity from awakening completely—you need to return to the palace. Expose Varius. Stop whatever ritual he's performing."
"Which means certain death," Elara said.
"Probably."
She was quiet for a long moment, thinking. I could see the war behind her eyes—hurt versus duty, anger versus love.
Finally, she looked up at me. "If we go back to the palace, if we stop Varius and save Morgana... will that clear your name too?"
"What?"
"Your exile. The assassination attempt. If we expose Varius, everyone will know he framed you."
I hadn't thought about that. For twenty years, all I'd wanted was my name cleared, my reputation restored, my life given back.
But standing here now, I realized something.
I didn't want my old life back.
That man—the one who'd served the crown, who'd believed in justice and honor—he was dead. The Frost Wastes had killed him.
I was something else now. Something colder. Harder.
"I don't care about my name anymore," I lied.
Elara saw through it immediately. "Yes, you do. You wouldn't have kept all this research if you'd given up."
Damn. She was more observant than I'd expected.
"Fine," I said. "If we somehow manage to stop Varius without dying—which is unlikely—then yes. My name gets cleared. Happy?"
"It's a start." She held out her hand. "So we have a deal? You help me save my kingdom, I help you get your life back?"
I stared at her offered hand. Small. Soft. Shaking slightly from cold or fear or both.
Taking it would mean commitment. Alliance. Trust.
I didn't trust anyone. Especially not a Winterborne.
But I also didn't have a better option. Going after Varius alone had gotten me nowhere in twenty years. With her—with the legitimate heir to the throne—I had leverage.
I clasped her hand. "Deal. But on one condition."
"What?"
"You do exactly what I say, when I say it. No arguments. No exceptions. Out there, I'm in charge."
"And in the palace?"
"We'll figure that out if we survive long enough to reach it."
She nodded. "Fair enough."
We shook on it, and I felt something strange—a spark of magic passing between our palms. Her ice calling to mine. Recognizing something similar.
I pulled my hand back quickly.
"Get some rest," I said. "Tomorrow we start testing your abilities. I need to know what you can do before we make any real plans."
She turned to leave, then paused. "Caelan?"
"What?"
"Why didn't you kill me? When you first found out I was a Winterborne, you could have. Easily. Why didn't you?"
I could have lied. Said it was strategic. Said I needed her alive for my plans.
Instead, I told her the truth.
"Because you looked at me the same way I used to look at the people who betrayed me. Like you couldn't understand how the world had turned so cruel so fast." I met her eyes. "I knew that look. And I couldn't kill someone wearing it."
She nodded slowly and left, closing the door behind her.
I stood alone in my study, staring at the hand that had touched hers.
The spark was still there. Faint but growing.
I walked back to the ice mirror and waved my hand over it. The surface rippled, showing me Elara's room again.
She was lying in bed, eyes closed. But I could see the blue glow beneath her eyelids. The Entity was visiting her dreams again.
And then I noticed something that made my blood turn to actual ice.
The walls of her room were changing. Symbols were appearing in the frozen surface—the same symbols I'd seen carved into ancient ruins. The same ones from texts about the Entity's first awakening.
They were writing themselves. Growing. Spreading.
The fortress itself was reacting to her presence.
I'd thought I was safe here. I'd thought my wards would protect us.
But the Entity wasn't outside trying to get in.
It was already inside. Inside her. Inside my fortress.
Inside everything.
And tomorrow, when I tested her magic, I might discover she was already too far gone to save.
Which meant I'd have to make an impossible choice.
Kill the only person who could help me get revenge on Varius.
Or risk the Entity using her to destroy the entire world.