If I hadn’t been walking beside Fannar, feeling the steady warmth of another living body next to mine, I would have sworn Skadi was nothing but snow, stone, and cold. From the outside, it looked inhospitable—an endless stretch of white beneath iron-gray skies, the ice palace rising like a crown of frost at the heart of it all. But the moment Fannar guided me past a guarded archway carved into the mountain beneath the castle, the world changed completely.
Warmth washed over me.
Not the heavy, cloying heat of fire—but a deep, living warmth, like the earth itself was breathing.
I stopped in my tracks.
Below the ice castle lay an entire city, hidden within the mountain like a secret heart. Massive caverns stretched outward in every direction, lit by veins of glowing crystal embedded in sto
