The Winterborn hall was colder than outside.
Not a physical cold. A silence that lived in the walls, in the stone, in the spaces between breath. The kind of cold that came from knowing too much history and having no one left to tell it. The walls shimmered faintly, slick with veins of silver frost that pulsed in time with the energy of the land.
My footsteps echoed in a rhythm that felt older than language. Each step tasted like memory. Each breath tasted like expectation.
Ronan and Kade followed close behind me. Their footsteps sounded completely different. Mine whispered. Theirs warned.
The throne sat in the center of the hall, carved from stone and ice that never melted. Its back was shaped like a rising crest of wolves and moonlight. It did not look like an object meant to be sat u
