The Frost Weaver

Episode 3

The room Adrien led me to felt like it had been waiting. Not pristine. Not staged. Lived-in, but untouched, like a space that understood patience better than people did.

Tall windows framed the snowfall outside, the glass traced with delicate frost that didn’t melt despite the warmth inside. The bed was dressed in heavy linen and wool, layers meant for deep winter nights. Candles glowed softly along the mantel, their light steady and calm.

Before Adrien left the room he turned back.

“This room is warded,” Adrien said. “It will respond to you. If anything feels wrong, tell me.”

“You say that like the room is alive.” A answered him quietly.

“It is,” he replied. “In the way old things are.”

That should have unnerved me. Instead, I felt oddly… seen.

Adrien lingered near the doorway, giving me space. Too much space, maybe. The tension between us stretched thin and bright, like frost under pressure.

“You don’t have to stay awake,” he said. “The house will keep watch.”

“And you?” I asked.

His gaze flicked to mine. “I will not sleep tonight.”

Something in his tone told me that wasn’t dramatics. It was duty.

“Adrien,” I said, before he could leave. “Why did the house open to me like this?”

He paused.

“Because it recognizes winter’s attention on you,” he said carefully. “And because you didn’t arrive seeking power.”

I swallowed. “And if I had?”

“Then it would have tested you,” he replied. “Harshly.”

He left then, the door closing softly behind him. I stood alone, listening to the quiet hum beneath the walls. Not noise exactly, more like breath.

I moved toward the window, resting my palm against the glass.

Cold met me immediately. Not painful. Familiar.

The frost shifted beneath my touch, patterns tightening, responding. I pulled my hand back sharply, heart racing.

I’m imagining things, I told myself.

But the mark remained.

A faint, delicate impression, like a sigil drawn in ice.

I wrapped my arms around myself and turned toward the bed, exhaustion finally pulling me down. Sleep came faster than I expected.

And with it, dreams.

I stood in a snow-covered square that wasn’t Strasbourg, but felt older. Bells rang overhead, deeper, slower. Figures watched from the edges, their faces hidden beneath hoods of frost and shadow.

In the center stood Adrien.

Not as I’d seen him before, but crowned in silver light, winter woven into his very breath. His eyes found me instantly.

“You are not bound yet,” he said, his voice carrying across the snow. “But winter has begun to speak your name.”

I opened my mouth to ask what that meant and woke to the sound of the house shifting.

I sat up, heart pounding. Moonlight spilled across the floor, pale and sharp. Somewhere nearby, a door creaked open.

Then I felt it.

A presence at the threshold.

“Elara,” Adrien’s voice came softly through the door. “May I enter?”

I drew a steady breath. “Yes.”

The door opened, slow and deliberate.

“The wards responded to you,” he said, his gaze dropping briefly to my hands. “They haven’t done that in a century.”

My pulse skipped. “Is that bad?”

“No,” he replied. “It means winter is no longer pretending you don’t exist.”

Silence stretched between us, heavy with things unspoken.

“And Adrien?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“If winter is listening to me now,” I said quietly, “what is it expecting in return?”

His eyes darkened, not with fear, but with something like reverence.

“That,” he said, “is what we must discover together.”

Morning arrived quietly, with pale winter light slipping through the tall windows and the faint sound of bells far in the distance. The house seemed to breathe around me, warmth holding steady despite the snow pressing thick against the glass.

For a moment, I forgot everything.

Then memory returned all at once Christmas Eve, the market, Adrien’s voice cutting through the cold, the word claimed echoing like a fracture in my life.

I sat up slowly.

The frost-sigil I’d seen the night before was gone. The window was smooth, innocent. If not for the lingering chill in my palms, I might have convinced myself it had all been a dream.

A knock sounded at the door.

Soft. Respectful.

“Elara,” Adrien said. “Are you awake?”

“Yes,” I answered, clearing my throat. “Come in.”

He entered carrying two mugs and a folded wool scarf the color of fresh snow. In daylight, he looked no less dangerous, but there was something gentler in him now, as if the house had stripped away whatever armor the night required.

“Coffee,” he said, handing me one. “Strong. You looked like you needed it.”

I accepted it gratefully, wrapping my hands around the warmth. “You don’t sleep, do you?”

“Rarely,” he replied. “And never during solstice.”

That word again.

“I need to go to the museum,” I said suddenly. “I can’t just disappear. I’m working on a piece, they’re expecting me.”

Adrien’s expression sharpened. Not with anger. With calculation.

“You can,” he said. “But not alone.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“No,” he agreed. “You need a shield.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. The truth was, the thought of stepping back into the city alone made something inside me tighten.

“What happens if I don’t go?” I asked.

“Then whatever has begun to notice you will grow impatient,” he said calmly. “You have already stirred the old things. Retreat would draw more attention than presence.”

“Of course it would,” I muttered.

The museum was quiet when we arrived, its stone halls echoing faintly underfoot. Holiday staffing meant fewer guards, fewer visitors. The air inside was cool, dry, perfect for preservation.

And wrong.

I felt it the moment I crossed the threshold. A pressure, subtle but insistent, like standing beneath an unseen weight.

Adrien felt it too. I could tell by the way his posture shifted, how his gaze swept the space with practiced precision.

“You’ve already begun,” he murmured.

I led him to the restoration room, heart beating faster with every step. The artifact waited where I’d left it, a length of ancient embroidered fabric laid carefully beneath glass. Winter-white thread woven with silver symbols, faded but unmistakable.

My breath caught.

“That wasn’t there before,” I whispered.

The central sigil glowed faintly now, frost-bright against the old cloth.

Adrien stopped beside me, reverence unmistakable in his stillness.

“This is a winter writ,” he said. “A binding law recorded in thread. Lost for centuries.”

My hands trembled as I lifted the glass panel. The air around the fabric cooled instantly, breath misting.

“I didn’t do this,” I said. “I just… cleaned it. Preserved it.”

“That was enough,” he replied. “You woke it.”

The sigil pulsed once.

Then the lights flickered.

Adrien’s hand closed gently, but firmly, around my wrist.

“We’re no longer alone,” he said.

The temperature dropped sharply. Shadows deepened along the walls. Somewhere in the distance, a door closed that no one had touched.

“Adrien,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said quietly. “Stay behind me.”

For the first time, I didn’t argue.

Because in that moment, standing in a room filled with old law and watching winter respond to my presence, I understood something fundamental.

I hadn’t been hidden because I was insignificant.

I’d been hidden because I was unfinished.

And now winter was done waiting.