CHAPTER 1
1319 Words
The Vault
Sloane's POV
The heartstone was sitting right there.
No case. No magic seals. No locks. Nothing.
Just a small piece of glowing amber magic resting on a velvet pedestal in the middle of the Winter Court’s most sacred vault.
It was about the size of my palm. Soft light moved inside it, slow and steady, like a heart beating quietly in its sleep.
I should have turned around the moment I saw it.
Any thief with half a brain would have.
I didn’t.
My fingers closed around the stone before my mind had time to argue. Warmth spread into my hand instantly. Not normal warmth. Alive warmth. It pulsed once, slow and heavy, like it was greeting me.
For three seconds I just stood there holding it.
Three seconds thinking the same stupid thought.
Easy money.
Finn was going to breathe again when I showed him this. The debt collectors would finally stop breaking things in our shop. Maybe we would even sleep for once.
Then every torch in the vault burst into flame.
All at once.
Light flooded the room.
I spun around immediately, heart jumping straight into my throat. My free hand went for the knife at my hip. Old habit. Completely useless here, but habits are stubborn things.
That was when I saw him.
He was standing in the center of the room.
Completely still.
So still it felt wrong, like he hadn’t just arrived but had always been there. Like he had been standing there for hours, waiting for me to finally notice him.
Prince Kael Frost.
I had heard stories about him.
Everyone had.
Cold. Precise. Dangerous. Beautiful in the way winter is beautiful right before it freezes you to death.
But none of the stories talked about this stillness.
Most people, when they catch a thief red-handed, react. They get angry. Excited. Proud. Something.
He did none of that.
He just looked at me.
His eyes were the color of deep ice.
And for the first time in my entire professional career, I felt like I was the one who had been hunted.
“Sloane Caelan.”
His voice was low and calm.
“Put it down.”
I tightened my grip around the heartstone.
“That’s not going to happen.”
His expression didn’t change.
“You won’t make it to the door.”
I lifted my chin slightly. “I’m very fast.”
For a second something flickered across his face. Not a smile exactly. More like someone watching a problem solve itself.
“You were fast,” he said. “Seven years ago, when I first identified the vault entrance you would eventually use.”
My stomach twisted.
“You’re still fast,” he continued calmly. His eyes dropped to the stone in my hand. “I placed that heartstone there two weeks ago. I knew you would come if I gave you a reason.”
The words hit me like a brick.
“You… put it here?”
“Deliberately.”
He took one step toward me.
Just one.
It was slow. Unhurried. Like he had all the time in the world.
“Because I have been waiting for you,” he said. “And I have learned that waiting works better with bait.”
I stared at him.
“That’s insane.”
“It’s strategic,” he replied calmly. “Those are not the same thing.”
Then he reached inside his coat.
For half a second I thought he was drawing a weapon.
Instead he pulled out a rolled piece of parchment. Thick paper. Heavy silver wax sealing it shut.
He held it out toward me.
“This is why I have been waiting.”
I didn’t move.
“What is that?”
“A contract.”
He placed the parchment on the pedestal where the heartstone had been.
“Between your mother and me.”
The air in the vault suddenly felt tighter.
“Signed twelve years ago,” he continued, “in a rented room in a border city. You were ten years old at the time.”
My chest went cold.
“You were dying of the Hollowing fever.”
The word echoed in my head.
The Hollowing.
I remembered the sickness. The endless weakness. The feeling that something inside my body was slowly disappearing.
What I never understood… was how I survived.
Every time I asked Mara about it, she would change the subject. When I got older, she would just look at me with that sad look in her eyes.
Eventually I stopped asking.
It was easier not to know.
“She signed it,” I said quietly.
My voice sounded steady.
Good.
“She signed it,” Kael confirmed.
“In exchange for my magic sustaining you through the fever. And for the twelve years since then.”
My brow tightened.
“Twelve years?”
“Yes.”
His tone stayed calm. Factual.
“Your illness attempted to return three times during that period. My magic prevented it.”
A chill moved down my spine.
“You wouldn’t have noticed,” he added. “That was intentional.”
I swallowed slowly.
“What did she give you?”
He looked at me carefully.
Not cruelly.
Not kindly either.
Just… honestly.
“You.”
The word dropped into the room like a stone.
“Your hand in marriage,” he continued. “To be claimed once you reached adulthood.”
I blinked at him.
“You are twenty-two,” he said. “You have been an adult for four years.”
He paused slightly.
“I have been… patient.”
Something snapped inside me.
I started laughing.
I couldn’t stop it.
The sound bounced around the cold stone walls of the vault, echoing back at me.
“You’re serious,” I said between breaths. “You set a trap. With a heartstone. In the royal vault. Because you’re collecting on a contract my mother signed when I was dying?”
“The contract is binding.”
No apology.
No mockery either.
Just a fact.
“Your blood carries my mark,” he continued. “The claiming ceremony will take place tonight.”
“No.”
The word came out sharp.
“It will not.”
“Sloane—”
“Don’t.”
I took a step back.
There was a shelf of frozen crystal along the north wall. Above it, a tall window.
About fifteen feet up.
Difficult.
Not impossible.
“Don’t say my name like you know me,” I said. My voice started shaking despite my best effort. “You watched a door for seven years. That doesn’t mean you know me.”
His gaze stayed fixed on me.
“And I am not going to some claiming ceremony with a stranger,” I continued, “because my mother was desperate and she—”
My voice cracked.
The words refused to come out.
I hated that.
For a moment the vault was completely silent.
Then Kael spoke.
“She loved you.”
His voice was quiet.
Not soft. I didn’t think Prince Kael Frost knew how to be soft.
But it was honest.
“Whatever you feel about her decision,” he said, “remember that she made it because you were dying. She had nothing else.”
My chest tightened painfully.
I forced myself to swallow everything down.
All the anger.
All the confusion.
All the memories.
My eyes flicked to the window again.
Then the ice shelf.
Then the distance between us.
“The guards—” he began.
I ran.
I moved fast. Really fast.
Years of practice kicked in. My body already knew what to do.
I reached four feet.
That was it.
Ice snapped around my wrists before I could even reach the wall.
Cold shackles locked tight, freezing my arms in place.
I stopped moving.
Slowly, I looked down at them.
- Writer
