CHAPTER 5: When he spoke my true name

  The sound of the front door breaking was not a sound I’ll ever forget.

A thick, heavy CRACK that vibrated through the floor, down the staircase, and straight into my spine. Dust drifted from the ceiling like falling ash. My breath caught in my throat.

Ruby braced himself against the cellar door, her shoulders trembling.“He’s inside the house,” he whispered.

No kidding. Even without the sound, I could feel it. The temperature plummeted so sharply my breath turned white in front of me. Frost crept down the cellar walls like skeletal fingers reaching toward us.

Then Footsteps.

Slow, Calm,Measured,Not rushing. No desperation. As if the creature in my home knew exactly how this night would end.

My heart thudded painfully.

And then he spoke again,my name. My real name.

“Liora…”

That voice… no mortal should have a voice like that. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t threatening. It simply was quiet enough to whisper yet strong enough to make my bones hum.

Ruby spun toward me, fear etched deep across her face.“Don’t respond,” she said. “Not even by accident.”

“I’m not stupid!” “You underestimate him.” I hated that he had a point.

The footsteps moved across the living room above us, slow as death, stopping directly over our heads.

I stared up at the ceiling as frost formed tiny white veins across the wood. The cellar air grew colder, heavier, thinner,like the forest itself had followed him inside.Then the Winter King murmured: “I know you hear me.” I pressed my hands against my ears.

Didn’t help.

“Liora… Little Star… open the door.” Never, Ever,Ever.

Ruby slammed a fist against the cellar wall. “He can’t get through the iron unless you call him.”

“Why does everything depend on ME?” I snapped. “Because you were chosen!”I swallowed hard, my stomach twisting.“I didn’t ask for this.”

“Nobody ever does.”Another step above us—right over the cellar door.I blinked up. “He’s standing there.” Ruby grabbed the iron latch. “Don’t speak. Don’t move.”Too late.

The Winter King’s shadow slipped across the slit under the door. Light,silver and ghostly—seeped into the cellar cracks, swirling across the floor like mist searching for a body.

My body.I backed away… but the mist followed.

Ruby leapt between me and the spreading frost. “Stay behind me.” The Winter King chuckled softly. It slid down the stairs like a cold hand down my spine.

“You cannot shield her, mortal.” “She’s under my protection!” Rowan barked.“She always was mine.”

My chest tightened painfully at those words.Ruby didn’t miss the way I stiffened. “Don’t listen to him. He twists truth into traps.”

The Winter King hummed thoughtfully. “Is it a trap… to tell her who she is?” Ruby shouted, “Stop!” He didn’t.

“Shall I tell her,” the Winter King continued, “why did her mother flee with her? Why did she die? Why does her blood sing for me even now?”

My breath caught.Mother!!Dead!!Fled!!.

Ruby looked like she’d just swallowed a knife. “Don’t speak about her!”

The King ignored him.

“Shall I tell her,” he whispered, “why does she dream of snow and voices in the dark? Why does she feel me even when she does not know my name? Why did she look for me tonight?”My skin prickled violently.

“I did NOT look,” “You did,” he murmured. “Because your soul remembers me.”

Ruby threw a hand over my mouth. “Don’t speak to him!” But it wasn’t speaking I was worried about.It was listening. Because the worst part?

Everything he said felt… familiar. Like my mind was recognizing something my consciousness couldn’t.

Ruby kept whispering frantic warnings. “He’s manipulating you,listen to my voice,don’t let him pull you in”

But the Winter King spoke again, softer this time.

“Liora… come upstairs.”Something yanked deep inside my chest.

Not physically,Spiritually,Emotionally,Wrongly.

I grabbed the shelf behind me to stay upright. The tug grew stronger,like my body wanted to move on its own.

“No,” I breathed.“Yes,” he answered immediately.Ruby shoved me behind him. “Don’t let him pull you!”

“I’m trying!” I gasped. “You’re not trying hard enough,” “Ruby, I’m FREAKING TRYING!”

He pressed a heated iron rod into my hand. The metal burned my palm, shocking me back to myself. “Hold that,” he instructed. “Iron disrupts his influence.”

“Oh, wow,” I said shakily. “Is this a magical restraining order?” Ruby didn’t even roll his eyes. He was too terrified.

Outside the cellar door, the Winter King sighed.

“Do you think iron will save her from what she is?”

“What is she?!” I whispered to Ruby.Ruby swallowed. “Not tonight, please,”

The Winter King answered for him.“She is mine.”

I nearly dropped the iron rod. “I’m NOT yours!”

A pause.Then he laughed,Dark,Beautiful and Terrifying.

“Not yet.”

Ruby gripped my shoulders. “I’m taking you through the tunnel.”

“What tunnel?!”

She grabbed a crowbar and jammed it under a loose stone on the floor. I gasped as it lifted, revealing a narrow passage beneath,dirt, roots, cold air.“You had a secret escape hatch and didn’t tell me?!”

“It’s for emergencies!”

“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!”

She grabbed my arm. “Go. Now.”

“Ruby,he’ll follow!” “He can’t enter the tunnel. It’s lined with” A loud crack cut him off.I looked up.

The cellar door,

The IRON-LATCHED, SUPPOSEDLY SAFE cellar door,was splitting from the top corner.

A thin line of frost sliced downward like a blade cutting butter.Ruby’s face went gray. “she shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Oh good,” I yelled, “so we’re in EXTRA trouble!” The crack spread.Silver light seeped through.

The Winter King spoke softly:

“Liora… open.”

Pure panic rocketed through me.Ruby shoved me into the tunnel. “GO!”

“But you,” “I’ll follow. MOVE!”

He slammed the stone panel shut above us.

Darkness swallowed me.

The air was cold, damp, and suffocating. I crawled forward, dirt crumbling beneath my fingers. Branches snagged my clothes. I scraped my elbows, knees, everything.

Behind me, Ruby dropped into the tunnel, breath ragged.

Then,The Winter King’s voice drifted down through the floorboards above.

“I will find you, Liora.”Not a threat. A promise.Ruby grabbed my wrist. “Crawl faster!”

I did.But the worst part wasn’t the fear.

It was the way his voice echoed inside me long after we left the cellar behind.

Like he was already inside my mind.

Already inside my name,Already inside me.