MasukWinter extracted herself carefully from the beast's warmth and stood on shaky legs. Her undershirt was plastered to her body with sweat and blood. Her hands were stiff and aching. She should probably return to the main cavern, tell someone about the wounded creature, get help. But something stopped her. If she told the witches about the beast, what would they do? Would they heal it, or would they see it as a threat to be eliminated? This creature was clearly connected to the witch community somehow (Levi had mentioned beasts on the witches' side), but it was also wounded and vulnerable. And Winter had learned the hard way that vulnerable things were often the first to be sacrificed when people got scared. "I'll come back," she promised the sleeping beast. "Tomorrow. With supplies if I can steal them. You're not dying alone in this cave. Not if I can help it." The beast's ear twitched but it didn't wake. Winter picked up her ruined tunic from where she'd discarded it near the p
She moved closer to the wound and immediately regretted it. The smell hit her first, sharp and wrong. Decay. Infection turning flesh rotten. The edges of the gash were swollen and hot to the touch, oozing yellowish fluid mixed with fresh blood. Something had torn deep, exposing muscle and possibly bone. "gods," Winter breathed. "This is bad. This is really bad." She had no supplies. No medicine, no bandages, no clean water.. Nothing except her bare hands and absolutely no idea what she was doing. But she couldn't just walk away. Winter pulled off the outer layer of her borrowed tunic, leaving her in just the thin undershirt. The tunic was relatively clean. It would have to do. She crawled to the edge of the black pool and dipped the fabric in, soaking it thoroughly. The water was freezing, clear despite its dark appearance. She crawled back to the beast with the dripping tunic clutched in her hands. "This is going to hurt," she warned, though the beast probably already knew. "
It looked like someone had taken a wolf, a bear, and something prehistoric and smashed them together into a creature that should only exist in nightmares. and it was bleeding. The wet sound wasn't just its breathing. Blood pooled beneath its left flank, dark and viscous, too much blood. A wound carved deep into its side, edges ragged like something had torn through fur and flesh with claws or teeth. The beast's eyes opened. They glowed faintly in the darkness, gold-green and far too intelligent. They fixed on Winter with the focused intensity of a predator assessing prey. Winter's wolf instincts screamed at her to run. But she'd spent her whole life being prey. Being the thing that ran while others hunted. And she was so gods-damned tired of it. "I'm not going to hurt you," she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. It felt stupid talking to a creature that probably didn't understand language and definitely wanted to eat her. But the alternative was silence, and silence
Winter walked until the voices faded.Past the sleeping chambers, past the practice room where she'd manifested (and nearly lost control of) her shadow magic, past the underground spring where Levi found her every morningShe walked until the lichen grew sparse and the darkness pressed close, until the only sound was her own breathing and the distant drip of water somewhere in the deepp.Nobody stopped her. Maybe they didn't notice her leaving, too busy celebrating her "progress" (their word, not hers)Or maybe they assumed she needed space after the demonstration. Either way, Winter was alone in the tunnels for the first time since she'd been brought here, and the solitude felt like finally surfacing after being held underwater.Her head still ached from the magic. Not a normal headache but something deeper, like she'd strained something inside her skull that wasn't meant to be used. Levi said it would get easier with practice.That using magic was like exercising a new muscle.Winte
The question hung between them. Winter didn't answer right away. Couldn't. Because the truthful answer would devastate her mother, would confirm everyone's fears about the bond's influence, would prove she was exactly as weak and confused as they thought. But the truthful answer was still: 'es. maybe. I don't know but I want the choice' "I want to talk to him," she said instead. "Just once. Ask him what he wants. What he intended. Because everyone here tells me he's a monster, but when I was there he also..." She struggled for words. "He let me see him. The real him, under the curse. And that person wasn't evil. Just broken." Levi absorbed this silently. Then: "Your grandmother broke him. With her curse." "I know." "Does that bother you?" "Yes." The admission felt like betrayal. "She had every right to her anger. To her revenge. But cursing an eighteen-year-old boy for his father's crimes... that's not justice. That's just more cruelty." "Most people here won't see it that way
Winter's hands clenched. "Sad. Confused. Angry sometimes. Guilty because I'm supposed to be grateful to be here but I just feel....." She stopped, the words damming up in her throat. "Feel what?" "Trapped!" The word burst out. "I went from Griselda's house to Ezekiel's citadel to here and nobody's asking what I want, where I want to be, everyone just keeps moving me around like I'm a piece in their game and I'm so tired of it!" Her voice cracked. "I'm tired of people deciding my life for me!" The shadows in the room shivered. Winter felt it more than saw it. A ripple through the darkness, like dropping a stone in still water. Levi went very still beside her. "Do that again" he breathed. "Do what? I didn't do anything!" "You did. You felt something real, something strong, and the shadows responded." His excitement was palpable. "Don't think about it. Just feel. What do you want right now, more than anything?" The answer came immediately, instinctively, from somewhere too deep a
As he led her away, Winter chanced one last look at the tower. Ezekiel was gone. But the echo of his terrified fury still resonated in the bond, a strange and powerful comfort.Jax led her back through a different section of the Citadel, a wide, covered causeway connecting the main keep to the armo
She found him in the northern forge, just as Jax had described. It wasn’t a weapons smithy, but a smaller, private place. The air was hot and thick with the smell of metal and coal smoke. The forge fire burned low, casting the room in a hellish red orange light. He was standing by a quenching barr
The words fell into the oppressive heat of the forge, a quiet surrender. 'Sometimes...when the cold sets in' It was an admission of pain, of a weakness he had hidden from the world for years, and he had given it to her. Winter’s heart ached with a feeling so sharp and unfamiliar it stole her bre
“Oh, no. Oh, you’re both going to kill me,” Jax whispered, appearing in the doorway of the forge. He stopped dead, his face draining of all color as he took in the scene. He saw his king, shirtless and radiating a murderous aura. He saw Winter, pale and trembling but strangely defiant, standing in







