The voice was everywhere and nowhere, threaded through the air. Not a shout. A low murmur, like someone speaking against the shell of her ear.
She spun, but there was nothing. Only the sense of something vast, just out of sight, curling at the edges of this place.
"Elissa."
It wasn't Alistair's voice. Not Dante's, not Kestrel's, not anyone she knew. It was wrong. Too smooth. Too empty.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. "Who's there?"
The fog pulsed, as if amused.
You are, the voice seemed to say. You and your pretty, breakable light.
A spark flickered at her fingertips—her magic, small and stubborn. It felt like a candle held up against an endless night.
She tried to pull more of it, to flare it bright enough to see, to burn, to do anything.
Nothing. Just that little ember, shaking in her palm.
The ground under her feet cracked with a sound like ice splitting on a river. Fine lines spread out in all directions, glowing faintly.
You can't even stand, the voice whispered. How will you stand when I come?
The cracks yawned open. There was nothing beneath them. No earth, no water, no sky. Just a depth that made her stomach flip. The thin surface broke away in chunks, falling, vanishing before they hit anything.
She tried to jump to firmer ground, but there was nowhere to go. Thin sheets of that not-quite-stone shattered under her weight.
"Stop," she gasped, reaching for anything solid. "Please—"
The last piece gave way. She dropped.
She fell through the dark, her small flicker of light sputtering in the wind of her own descent.
"Elissa."
This time, she knew the voice. Alistair's, calling her from above. Or was it below? She couldn't tell. She reached for it, for him.
Her fingers closed on nothing.
She hit—something—with a jolt that snapped her awake.
—
Her heart was racing. Her throat burned.
The room was dark, lit only by the faint dull glow of embers in the fireplace. Her skin was slick with cold sweat. She drew in a breath that felt too loud in the quiet.
The pup's head shot up from her lap. He whimpered, climbing higher on her, pressing his nose against her ribs, whining softly.
"It's all right," she whispered automatically, though it wasn't. "I'm all right. I'm fine."
Her hands were shaking.
She slid out from under the covers, ignoring the cold slap of air against her overheated skin. The pup scrambled to follow, nails clicking on the wooden floor. She opened the door before she could talk herself out of it.
The corridors at night were a different world. Shadows stretched long, the torches burning lower. The usual murmur of voices and footsteps was gone, replaced by the occasional creak of old wood, the distant hush of the wind outside.
She moved on bare feet, the stone floor shockingly cold even through her wool socks. The pup padded at her heels, close enough that occasionally his nose bumped her ankle.
Her steps carried her by habit more than thought. Past the portraits, past the tall windows that showed only blackness and the faint blur of falling snow. Left at the tapestry of the first northern king; right at the little alcove with the chipped saint's statue.
To the narrow side balcony halfway down the corridor.
She slipped through the door and out into the night.
The cold hit her like a wall. Sharp and clean, slicing through the last clinging threads of the dream. Her breath turned to white fog instantly, torn away by the wind.
The balcony was small, stone railing crusted with frost, a single wooden chair pushed near the wall. The sky above was a low, clouded dome, light from the castle windows turning the falling snow into drifting sparks.
Elissa pulled her woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders and sank into the chair. The wood was icy under her, seeping through her clothes, but she didn't move.
She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, making herself as small as she could. The pup tucked himself under the chair, pressed against her feet, whining once before curling up.
She closed her eyes.
The cold bit at her cheeks, her fingers, the tip of her nose. It hurt, in a clean way. Real. Not like the nothingness in the dream.
She focused on that. On the sting of air in her lungs. On the way the wind found every gap in her clothes. On the roughness of the shawl against her chin.
Slowly, her breathing evened out.
Minutes passed. Or an hour. Time blurred. The chill sank deeper, numbing and strangely comforting. The pup's soft, steady breaths tickled at her ankle.
At some point, without meaning to, her head tipped to the side. Her eyes drifted shut again.
Sleep crept back in, quieter this time. No sharp edges, no cracking ground. Just darkness and the distant sound of the wind.
—
Alistair hadn't meant to be walking the corridors at this hour.
He told himself he was stretching his legs, working knots out of his shoulders after too long bent over maps. Told himself he was checking that the night guard rotations were running cleanly before the ball drew every set of eyes to the great hall.
He turned down the side corridor near the guest wing and stopped.
A thin, high sound cut through the quiet.
A whine. Small. Unhappy.
He frowned, following it past two doors and around the curve of the wall, until he stood outside Elissa's chambers.
The whine came again, muffled, followed by a faint scratch.
He didn't think. He just moved.
The door opened easily under his hand—it wasn't locked. The room was mostly dark, only the faintest glow from dying embers in the hearth. The bed was rumpled, blankets tumbled back.
Empty.
The pup was in the middle of the rug, pacing in anxious little circles, occasionally stopping to lift his head and let out another low, distressed sound.
Alistair's jaw tightened.
"Where is she?" he muttered.
The pup darted toward the open door, then back, tail low, clearly torn between staying and following.
Alistair exhaled once, sharply.
"Fine," he said. "Lead on."
He stepped back into the corridor. The pup shot past him, nose low to the ground. He paused only once, sniffing at one direction, then turned decisively the other way.
Of course. The balcony.
By the time Alistair reached the narrow door, the pup was already there, scratching at the base, whining louder now.
Cold spilled through the little gap under the wood.
He pushed it open.
The night air knifed into his lungs. And there, in the silvery dimness, he saw her.
Elissa was curled in the wooden chair, shawl wrapped around her shoulders, bare feet tucked up beneath her. Her head rested against the stone, face turned slightly toward the sky, lashes dark against too-pale skin. Snow dusted her hair and the edge of her shawl. Her arms were locked loosely around her knees, but the tension had gone out of them in sleep.
The pup scrambled straight to her, trying to clamber into her lap, but there wasn't space. He settled for wedging himself between her ankles and the side of the chair, whining softly.
Alistair stood in the doorway for a heartbeat, something tight and unpleasant knotting under his ribs.
"Saints," another voice murmured behind him. "Again?"
He turned his head. Dante stepped lightly into the balcony, cloak already damp with melted snow, dark hair ruffled by the wind. His eyes went to Elissa immediately, jaw tightening.
"What are you doing here?" Alistair asked, keeping his voice low.
"Same as you, I'd imagine," Dante said. "Checking for her."
He nodded toward Elissa, his expression hardening. "It's the fourth night in a row she's left her room after midnight. And the fourth time I've found her out here, asleep in the cold."
Alistair's hand clenched against the doorframe.
He looked back at her—the shawl that was nowhere near enough for this temperature, the way her fingers were curled, lax and pale around the edge of the fabric. The faint tremor in them, even in sleep.
Four nights.
The knowledge landed like a stone.