If someone had told me two weeks ago that my new favorite hobby would be staring at snow from various heights, I would’ve laughed in their face and then cried in my car.
Yet there I was, in a long stone hall with arched windows, doing exactly that.
The hall ran along one whole side of the castle, like someone had built an indoor balcony just for dramatic brooding. On one side: tapestries, benches, little crystal lamps humming quietly. On the other: floor-to-ceiling windows and nothing but Everfrost as far as you could see—courtyards, outer walls, the dark line of trees, and snow swallowing everything else.
I leaned my forehead against the cold glass and watched flakes drift past. The Yule fire’s smoke was a thin gray line in the distance, climbing into the pale sky.
Somewhere behind me
