The storm outside Aetherhold had not ceased in three days.
Snow swallowed the outer courtyards. Icicles as long as swords dripped from the torn battlements. Ice crept along every wall like a siege from the gods themselves. Even the sacred fire in the Temple of Frost sputtered beneath the screaming wind, its divine warmth flickering like a dying breath.
It was as if the mountain itself had turned its face away from its queen.
Inside the citadel, silence reigned—but not the peaceful kind. It was the silence of unease, of unsaid things curling like smoke through narrow halls. Of side-eyes and stopped conversations. Of whispered fears and unspoken betrayal. And everywhere, the weight of watching eyes.
Selena felt it in her bones.
Not hatred. Not even anger.
Doubt.
And doubt, she had learned, was deadlier than any blade.
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