MasukThe morning light was pale and grey when I opened my eyes.The fire had died completely, the room was cold, and my body was stiff from lying in the same position for too long. I did not remember falling asleep, and I did not remember Alejandro leaving.I actually thought he had left, but I was wrong. He had not left.He was sitting in the chair across from the bed, and his golden eyes were watching me, and his hands were wrapped around a cup of tea. His hair was messy, and his shirt was rumpled, and there were dark circles under his eyes that had not been there before.He looked very tired. More tired than I had ever seen him."You are staring," I said. My voice came out cracked, due to the shouting last night.Alejandro did not smile. He just stood up, walked to the bed, and he handed me the cup of tea. The warmth seeped into my cold fingers, and I held it tightly, as I breathed in the steam."I did not want to leave," he said as he walked back to the chair. "But I thought you might
We walked to my room together, and his hand stayed in mine the whole way. The guards bowed their heads as we passed, the torches wavered as light breeze flowed through the hallway, and the shadows danced on the walls.Alejandro stopped at my door, and he looked at me for a long moment. I thought he might say something, but he did not. He just squeezed my hand, let go, and turned to walk away.I watched his back as he walked away, and his footsteps echoed in the hallway. Then I took a deep breath, went inside, and I closed the door behind me, and I lay down on the bed. The sheets were cool against my skin, and the fire was low, and the room was quiet.I closed my eyes, and I listened to the sound of my own breathing, as I waited for sleep to come.It came faster than I expected, and with it came the nightmares.The dream came without warning, and it swallowed me whol
I found Alejandro in the library again that evening, the main library, not the hidden one.He was sitting in a chair by the window, with his golden eyes staring out at the snow, and his hands were limp in his lap. He looked tired, his shoulders were tense, and I could see the weight of everything pressing down on him.He did not look up when I entered, but I knew he knew I was there. His breathing changed, just a little, and his hands curled into fists on his knees.I walked to the chair beside him, and sat down.Neither of us spoke, and the only sounds were the ones from the fire as it crackled in the hearth, and of the wind, as it howled outside the window, rattling the glass in its frame. The silence between us was heavy, and thick with everything we were not saying.He knew I had found the book. He knew I had read about Aldric, about his father, and about the be
I found Ramona in her chambers the morning after I discovered the hidden library.She was sitting by the window, with a cup of tea in her hands, and her old brown eyes were staring out at the snow. She looked tired, and older than I had ever seen her, and I wondered if she had been waiting for me to come.She did not look up when I entered, but she spoke anyway."You found it," she said. "Didn't you?"I closed the door behind me, walked to the chair across from her, and I sat down. The fire crackled in the hearth, and the shadows danced on the walls, and I could hear my own heartbeat in the silence."The hidden library," I said. "The book about Alejandro's father. About Aldric."Ramona closed her eyes, and she set her cup down on the table beside her. Her hands were shaking, just a little."I was wondering when you would find it," she said. "I hoped you would not, but I knew you would."Ramona set her cup down, leaned back in her chair, and her old brown eyes studied me with an intens
The days after my conversation with Alejandro about his father left me restless.His words echoed in my head, and the image of his golden eyes, that were dark with pain, followed me everywhere I went. He had lost his father to betrayal, to a human who had pretended to be his friend, and I could not stop thinking about what that must have felt like.I needed to understand.Ramona had told me that knowledge was power, and I had spent too long being powerless. I had spent my whole life not knowing, not asking, and not pushing, because asking questions only ever led to pain. But this was different. This was not about my father or my past or the people who had hurt me. This was about Alejandro, and I needed to know what had made him into the man he was.The castle was vast, and I had only seen a fraction of it. There were corridors that stretched into darkness, staircases that led to towers I had never visited, and rooms that had been locked for centuries. The guards watched me as I walked
The days after Ramona's warning passed slowly, and I found myself watching Alejandro more than I used to.I watched the way he moved through the halls, the way he spoke to the guards, and the way he sat on his throne with his golden eyes scanning the room like he was looking for threats that no one else could see. He was always alert, always waiting, and always ready for something to go wrong.I had seen him sleep only a handful of times, and even then, his rest was restless. He would twitch and murmur, and sometimes he would wake with a gasp, his golden eyes wide and his hands reaching for something that was not there. I never asked what he dreamed about, because I was afraid of the answer.But I knew that his past haunted him. Three hundred years was a long time to carry wounds that never healed. He had been through three hundred years of watching, waiting, and never letting anyone close enough to see the
I woke to the smell of bread and honey, and for a moment I forgot where I was.The mattress was soft beneath me, and the blankets were warm, and the fire had been relit sometime while I was sleeping, casting orange light across the ceiling in dancing shadows. I
I woke the morning after my meeting with Felipe, and the first thing I saw was the tray of food on the table, still untouched from the day before.The fire had burned low while I slept, and the room was cold enough that I could see my own breath hanging in the air. My back ached from pressing again
Serena's POV The nobles smiled at me whenever I walked through the halls of the ice Castle, and that was how I knew they wanted me dead, because I had learned to read smiles a long time ago, back when I was a child who needed to know whether the person approaching her was going to hurt her or just
Serena's POV Three days passed while I sat in that room with the fire burning and the snow falling outside the window, and Alejandro did not come near me, did not send word to me, and did not give any sign that he remembered I existed at all.I counted the hours as the sun rose and set behind the







