Frost & Shadow

Chapter Ten

The dining hall glowed like it was alive. Lanterns floated above, flames suspended in midair, flickering gently as if breathing with the room itself. The long table gleamed under platters piled with roasted meats, jewel-bright fruits, and steaming bread, the scents so rich and heady I could almost taste them — salt, smoke, honey, spice — and my stomach twisted with a hunger I had tried to ignore for so long.

I froze at the doorway. Every set of eyes in the hall turned toward me — curious, assessing, some openly hostile. Their gazes scraped against me like ice across bare skin, sharp and cold. My throat worked, dry. The air thrummed faintly with magic I could feel in my bones, a quiet pulse that made every hair on my arms stand on end.

Fen’s voice came low at my side, a warning and a shield in one. “Don’t falter.”

He stepped forward first, shadow curling along the walls like smoke, curling and licking at the edges of the room. I forced my chin up and followed, even though my heart pounded like a drum in my chest, loud enough I feared it might give me away.

Aurelis rose at the head of the table. Bronze-gold hair caught the lamplight, gleaming as if it had been melted in the sun. His gold eyes, calm and steady, scanned me with that same quiet gravity I had felt before — the kind that made it clear he expected more from me than I might give. Silence fell immediately, heavy, complete, as if the room itself was holding its breath.

“Laine,” he said, smooth and deliberate, his voice carrying without effort. “You’ve met me. Tonight, you meet my court.” His gaze swept across the fae gathered at the table, eyes sharp and assessing, as though weighing a hundred centuries of doubt. “The ones who will decide whether they stand behind the old pact… or let it crumble into dust.”

My stomach knotted. I wanted to shrink back, to step away and tell them all they were dreaming this — that I was dreaming this. That none of it was real. But I stayed rooted, stiff, my hands clutching the strap of my bow like a lifeline.

A fae woman with silver hair leaned back, eyes like sharp ice. “This is the human?” she said, disbelief dripping from every syllable. “We waited three centuries for her?”

Heat rose in my cheeks. I opened my mouth to speak, then hesitated. How could I tell them the truth? That I didn’t even know if this was real? That maybe I’d slipped through some trick of frost and stone, and this world, this court, was all a dream? My tongue felt thick, heavy, as if it weighed more than my body.

Before I could speak, Fen’s voice cut through, low and edged with steel. “Careful. Fragile things are sharpest when broken.” His shadow shifted along the table, a ripple of darkness that curved around her wine cup. She stiffened but said nothing more.

Aurelis hid a faint smile behind his goblet, but his eyes gleamed with quiet amusement. “You doubt quickly, Lira. Yet the pact was never built on appearances.” He gestured toward me, casual, almost effortless, and the weight of it made my chest ache. “Sit. Eat. Let them see you as you are.”

I hesitated, and in that moment, it hit me: he assumed I would stay. But his words — that simple invitation — told me otherwise. The pact wasn’t something I could complete in a single night. It required… time. Time I hadn’t realized I’d have to give.

Fen pulled a chair out beside his own, near enough to Aurelis to be within reach of the king’s gaze. Shadows curled around the legs of the chair as if testing it, claiming it for me, for us. My pulse surged. I swallowed and sat, keeping my body still though every sense was alert.

Food appeared in bursts of soft light. The aroma hit me like a hammer to the ribs, a delicious, painful reminder of the emptiness I carried from home. My fingers twitched in my lap. Don’t give in. Don’t show them weakness.

“Tell me, human,” Lira said, voice cool and sharp, “why should we believe you are the one meant to restore what your people abandoned?”

The question hit me like a blade. I wanted to speak the truth — that I didn’t know. That I wasn’t sure I wasn’t imagining this, that maybe when I woke the frost would be the only reality. But I couldn’t let them see that hesitation. My tongue felt like lead. My lungs burned, but I forced out words that were steady, though my hands trembled:

“Because I came. Because I chose to. No one else did. No one else believes the tales told to them. But I… I did.”

Even as I spoke, doubt twisted in my chest. I wasn’t certain I believed it myself. Maybe my voice sounded stronger than I felt, or maybe I was fooling only myself. The hall was still for a breath, the silence pressing into my ribs like cold stone.

Then Aurelis leaned forward, his golden eyes catching the lamplight like molten fire. “And perhaps that is enough.”

Fen shifted beside me, close but not touching. Under the table, his shadow brushed lightly against my boot, a tether, a reminder: I wasn’t alone. Not entirely.

The fae around the table exchanged glances — some skeptical, some curious, a rare few almost… hopeful. My heart still thundered in my chest, but I lifted my chin and met their eyes. If they were going to doubt me, they would at least see I wasn’t afraid to face them.

Even though every part of me screamed that I was nothing to these people — if I even counted as anything at all.