Page 5

Consciousness returns in fragments, each one sharp as broken glass.

First comes the cold—bone-deep and merciless, seeping through stone walls that could be centuries old. Then pain, radiating from what feels like every muscle in my body. The surface beneath me is too hard to be snow, too soft to be stone, too smooth to be forest floor. A bed, then, though barely worthy of the name. More like a wooden shelf with a thin mattress, stuffed with what might be straw.

I keep my eyes closed, forcing my breathing to remain slow and even as I take stock of my surroundings. The air smells of dust and old stone, with an underlying sweetness I can't quite place. Herbs, maybe, or incense. A fire crackles somewhere nearby—I can hear the pop and hiss of burning wood, feel its heat struggling against the pervasive chill.

"I know you're awake." The voice is male, cultured, carrying a note of amusement that sends ice down my spine. "Your breathing changed."

And I know that voice.

Slowly, agonizingly, I open my eyes.

I'm in a circular room that might once have been part of a watchtower. Arrow slits pierce the curved walls at regular intervals, letting in thin streams of gray light that do little to illuminate the space. The ceiling vanishes into shadow far above, while the stone floor is partially covered by threadbare rugs in faded patterns I don't recognize.

Another tower. My heart sinks like a stone. All I’ve fought, all I’ve struggled, and I am in another tower.

The man sits in a high-backed chair near the fire, one leg crossed elegantly over the other. Golden hair catches the firelight, framing features that are both familiar and wrong—like looking at a painting of Arvoren done by someone who'd only heard him described. The resemblance is uncanny enough to make my heart stutter, but where Arvoren's face is all hard angles and barely contained power, this man's beauty has a softer edge, a charismatic tilt. Of the two brothers, he’s the charmer.

I should know; he charmed me.

"Ulric."

The name comes out as barely more than a whisper.

Prince Ulric smiles, and the expression is like watching a knife being unsheathed. "The very same. Though we were never properly introduced, were we? Or, rather, you knew me by another name. And lest we forget, the last time you saw me, I was rather…indisposed."

Images flash through my mind: that final night in Millrath, the explosion of power that tore through the castle. Ulric, burned and broken, vanishing into the chaos.

Those burns on his skin are gone now. Evidently, some have stayed loyal to him. Someone healed him, freed him. Brought him out of the city.

Someone allowed him to continue hunting me like this.

I try to sit up, but my body protests the movement. Every muscle feels like it's been worked past its limit, trembling with exhaustion. The child's presence is stalwart inside me, a warmth that's both reassuring and terrifying—how much did the magic drain from us both?

"Careful now." Ulric rises smoothly, crossing to a small table where a pitcher and cup sit waiting. "You've been unconscious for nearly two days. The mercenaries did quite a number on you before I intervened. Or perhaps that was your own…stress."

He pours something that steams in the cold air, the same sweet smell I noticed earlier. When he offers me the cup, I hesitate.

His smile widens slightly. "If I wanted you dead, little bird, I wouldn’t poison the good tea. It would be a waste.”

"Don't call me that." The words come out sharper than I intend.

"No?" Ulric sets the cup on a small table within my reach, then returns to his chair. "But we are family, after all. Or perhaps not anymore. It seems we’ve both become estranged from the king as of late.”

There's something wrong with the way he says it, an edge beneath the casual mockery that raises the hair on the back of my neck.

I force myself to sit up fully, ignoring the way the room spins. "Why did you save me?"

"Can't family help family?" When I don't respond, he sighs dramatically. "You wound me, Calliope. Here I am, offering sanctuary from both the winter and my brother's rather overzealous pursuit, and you suspect ulterior motives?"

"The last time I saw you, you were trying to kill your brother and take his throne. You would have killed me. We both know it."

"Ah, but I failed rather spectacularly at that, didn't I?" He spreads his hands in a gesture of mock helplessness. "And now here we both are—outcasts, fugitives, seeking shelter in this gods-forsaken wilderness. The irony isn't lost on me."

I study him carefully, noting the way his fingers tap restlessly against the chair's arm, the tension barely hidden beneath his casual pose. His clothes are fine but showing wear, and there are shadows beneath his eyes that the thick shadow doesn't quite hide.

"Where are we?" I ask finally.

"Far enough from Millrath that you can breathe easy,” Ulric tells me, and for once, I believe him. He wouldn’t have taken me back. We’re both safer far from the capital. “This tower has stood empty for centuries—a remnant of some long-forgotten border dispute at the mountains’ edge. Now it serves as a temporary refuge for those of us who've fallen from my brother's grace, it seems.”

The tea still steams on the table beside me. I'm desperately thirsty, but I don't trust anything he offers. Instead, I ask the question that's been burning in my mind: "How did you find me?"

Something shifts in his expression—a predatory interest that makes my skin crawl. "I've been tracking you since you fled my House’s city. You're not as difficult to follow as you might think. The winter follows you like a loyal hound, Windwaker. And then there was that charming couple who sheltered you, just after your escape. What were their names? Ah yes—Thomas and Marina."

My blood runs cold. "What did you do to them?"

"Nothing permanent." His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "They were quite helpful, once they understood the situation. Told me all about the frightened young woman who stayed with them, how dire her circumstances seemed. How she was with child."

I can't stop my hand from moving protectively to my stomach. Ulric's eyes follow the movement, that predatory interest sharpening. When I say nothing, he does not laugh, though I sense that he would like to.

"They're alive," he adds, though I didn't ask. "I'm not the monster my brother would have you believe."

He's lying. I can see it in the way his smile doesn't quite fit his face, in the calculated casualness of his posture. Thomas and Marina are dead, and their blood is on my hands as surely as if I'd killed them myself.

"Why?" I force the word past the tightness in my throat. "Why help me? What do you want?"

Ulric rises again, moving to one of the arrow slits. Snow swirls outside, though the storm seems calmer than it has in days. "Want? I want what I've always wanted—justice. Freedom from my brother's tyranny. A chance to restore Kaldoria to what it should be."

He turns back to me, and for a moment I glimpse something broken behind his careful mask. "But more immediately? I want to ensure that the child you carry survives to see its first breath."

My hackles rise. I wish I could kill him—I wish I could kill him with my bare hands. But I feel so desperately weak, like a baby bird. Feeble and broken. Fallen from the nest too soon into a brief and desperate journey toward the unforgiving ground.

"Why do you care about my child?” I demand, trying to sound unafraid.

"Because, my dear sister-in-law, that child represents the future. The first union of dragon and Windwaker blood in centuries. A power that could reshape our world." His voice takes on an almost fevered quality. "Or destroy it completely, I suppose. Either way, it's far too important to leave in my brother's hands."

Understanding dawns, cold and terrible as the winter outside. "You want to use my child as a weapon."

"I want to protect it." Ulric spreads his hands as if meaning to hold the entire world within them, to mould it for himself. "To ensure it's raised properly, away from my brother's influence. To give it a chance to become something more than just another link in our family's chain of violence and control."

"Like you're so different?" The words come out before I can stop them. "You, who murdered innocent people just to find me? Who tried to kill your own brother? I have not forgotten Lyra, Ulric. I have not forgotten what you did to me.” And, though I don’t say it: what you did to my husband.

For a moment, something dangerous flashes in Ulric’s eyes—a glimpse of the dragon beneath his carefully maintained humanity. Then it's gone, hidden behind that knife-edge smile.

"Rest," he says, moving toward the door. "Recover your strength. We can discuss the future once you're feeling more…reasonable." He pauses with his hand on the latch. "Oh, and Calliope? Don't bother trying to escape. The weather may be your ally, but this tower has stood against worse storms than yours. And in your condition…" He lets the threat hang unfinished in the air.

The door closes behind him with a sound like a tomb sealing shut.

I wait until his footsteps fade before allowing myself to shiver. The fire has burned lower, shadows creeping across the floor like grasping fingers. Outside, snow continues to fall, though I can't tell if it's my magic responding to my fear or simply the natural weather of this desolate place.

My hand rests on my stomach, feeling the warmth there—the only part of me that still feels truly alive.

"I'll protect you," I whisper to the child growing inside me. "Whatever it takes. Whatever I have to do. He’ll never have you. He’ll never have you, not as long as I live.”

For now, our survival means playing Ulric's game. Appearing grateful, cooperative, while I gather my strength and look for a way out.

I've survived one dragon's cage—I'll survive his brother's, too.

But as darkness falls outside and the temperature continues to drop, I can't shake the feeling that I've traded one form of imprisonment for something far more dangerous. At least with Arvoren, I always knew where I stood. Ulric's motives are as shifting as the shadows that fill this ancient tower, and I fear I've only glimpsed the edges of his true plans.

The tea sits forgotten on the table, growing cold in the gathering dark.

***

Hours pass, marked only by the slow dimming of light through the arrow slits and the gradual dying of the fire. I doze in and out of sleep, so exhausted and worn that time takes on an elastic consistency, moving strangely around me. A servant appears at dusk—a thin draconic woman who refuses to meet my eyes—bearing bread, cheese, and a bowl of steaming stew.

Ulric follows shortly after, moving to stoke the fire.

"You really should eat," he says without turning, silhouetted against the flames in the grate. "The servants tell me you haven't touched a thing since you woke. Not even my tea."

In the firelight, his resemblance to Arvoren is almost painful. They share the same proud profile, the same predatory grace, but where Arvoren's features are hewn from stone, Ulric's seem carved from ice—similarly beautiful, but with none of the underlying warmth I'd eventually discovered in his brother. I find him repulsive, somehow. This strange mutation of the man I know, the man I…

I think suddenly, achingly, of quiet moments in the castle, of Arvoren's rare, unguarded smiles. Of the way he would watch me when he thought I wasn't looking, his expression caught between possessiveness and something softer, something he couldn't quite allow himself to show. For all his cruelty, all his need to control and possess, there had been moments of tenderness I couldn't deny.

"You're thinking of him." Ulric's voice cuts through my reverie. "I can see it in your face. Tell me, Calliope—do you miss your cage? I wonder often whether you regret it, any of it."

"You don't know anything about us," I say, but the words sound hollow even to my ears.

"Such conviction." His laugh is soft, almost gentle. "You really believe he loves you, don't you? That somewhere beneath the monster lies a man worth saving?"

The food's aroma makes my stomach clench painfully. I reach for the bread, if only to avoid answering immediately, but then cannot bring myself to take a bite. "You talk about him as if he's irredeemable, but look at yourself. How many people died so you could find me? How many bodies lie in your path to power, Ulric?"

"Ah, but I never claimed to be good." Ulric settles into the chair opposite me, watching as I eat. "I simply want change. Real change. And that child you carry—dragon's blood and Windwaker magic combined—could be the key to everything. It isn’t a play, nor ploy. It’s a fact."

Something cold settles in my chest. "My child is not your weapon."

"No?" He leans forward, shadows dancing across his face. I have to resist the urge to shudder. "Then what is it? My brother's heir? Another link in the chain of his tyranny? Your tenuous tie to the King? Or perhaps..." His voice softens dangerously. "Perhaps it could be something new. Something that breaks the cycle entirely. Don’t tell me that doesn’t excite you, Calliope. It is in your blood to crave a good storm." He laughs, gesturing to the walls, beyond which the wind howls furiously.

I rest my hand protectively over my stomach, feeling that familiar warmth. Despite everything, despite even Ulric’s terrifying presence and prescience, I find myself thinking of Arvoren again—not the King, not the dragon, but the man who would sometimes wake in the night just to pull me closer, who struggled so visibly between his need to possess and his desire to love.

The implications turn my stomach, but I force myself to think past the fear. He's revealing too much, too quickly. Either he's more unstable than he appears, or…

"You're trying to frighten me," I realize aloud. "You believe that will stoke the storm, is that it? You’re hiding in the floorboards of your brother’s kingdom, even now. A rat in all but form. You wish for a storm that will conceal you until you have possession of my child.”

Something flickers in Ulric’s expression—surprise, maybe, or respect. "Clever girl. But not quite right. I'm trying to make you see that there are no good options. My brother would cage you, use you and that child to secure his power. I'm merely offering…an alternative. I don’t want to kill you, Calliope. It would be a horrible waste."

"An alternative where you use us instead?"

"An alternative where you have choices." He gestures to the food. "Starting with whether or not you eat. Though I should warn you—starving yourself will only harm the child. And we wouldn't want that, would we?"

The threat is clear beneath his solicitous tone. I look at the food again, weighing my options. He's right—I need to keep up my strength if I'm going to find a way out of this. And the child...

I fumble with the bread in my hands, tearing off a small piece. Ulric's smile widens.

If it is poisoned or drugged, I risk my child’s life. But without food, they’ll die anyway. Plaintively, I miss the castle for a moment, with a desperation so intense I can hardly breathe through it.

I chew a piece of bread to stave off my sadness.

"There. Was that so difficult?" Ulric settles into the chair by the fire, watching me eat with unsettling intensity. "You know, I've always wondered what my brother saw in you. Beyond the obvious political advantages of a powerful bloodline, of course. He's never been one for…attachment. After he had you dragged out of that dump out by the river, I remember nothing he’d ever done had confused me more. He knew not what you were. Why, then, his obsession?”

I chew slowly, using the time to choose my words. "You don't know him as well as you think."

"Don't I?" Something dark passes across his face. "I grew up in his shadow, watching him take everything that should have been shared between us. The throne, our parents' love, the respect of the Houses, the heads of our family’s murderers…. He is a creature of possession, nothing more. Whatever he claims to feel for you is just another form of ownership."

I peer at him with the hardest eyes I can muster. "Is that why you tried to kill him? Jealousy?"

His laugh has an edge of genuine pain. "Jealousy? No, Windwaker, no. I tried to kill him because he is exactly what our parents made him to be—a tyrant who sees the world as a thing to be owned and controlled. The throne made him worse, but the seeds were always there."

I think of Arvoren's fierce protectiveness. "You're wrong about him."

"Am I?" Ulric leans forward, his eyes reflecting the firelight like a cat's. "Tell me then—in all your time with him, did he ever truly give you a choice? About anything? Or did he simply decide what was best for you, secure in his rightness?"

The words hit closer to home than I'd like to admit. I focus on the food, using it as an excuse not to answer.

"You see?" His voice softens with false sympathy. "I'm not offering ownership, Calliope. I'm offering partnership. A chance to shape the future rather than simply being shaped by it. All I ask is that you trust me enough to listen. To consider the possibilities. There is nothing in this world more important than power, it’s true. But I believe one must have the freedom to take it.”

"And if I refuse to listen to you?” I ask. “What of my freedom then, Ulric?”

He sits back, that knife-edge smile returning. "Then you'll find this tower far less comfortable than it could be. I'd prefer not to resort to such measures, but…" He spreads his hands. "The future of Kaldoria is at stake. I'll do what I must."

The food turns to ash in my mouth, but I force myself to keep eating. Every bite is another small piece of strength recovered, another step closer to escape. I just have to play along, appear compliant, until I find an opening.

"Rest," Ulric says, rising. "Think about what I've said. We'll talk more tomorrow."

He pauses at the door, glancing back with an expression I can't quite read. "And Calliope? I truly am glad you're here. Whatever you might think of me, whatever stories my brother told... I'm not the monster in this tale."

The door closes behind him with the same tomb-like finality as before. In the renewed silence, I can hear the wind picking up outside, driving snow against the ancient stones.

My hand drifts to my midriff, feeling the warmth there—the only constant in this shifting game of powers and possibilities. The child moves slightly, a flutter so faint I might have imagined it. Perhaps I did. Perhaps I am going mad like a hypothermic wanderer, convinced he is burning alive. The cold rots peoples’ minds away. I have seen it in these past weeks. I know what it can do to people.

"We'll survive this," I whisper, though I'm no longer sure who I'm trying to convince. "We'll find a way."

But as night falls properly and the fire burns low once more, I can't shake the feeling that I'm caught between forces far larger than myself. Arvoren's possession or Ulric's manipulation—are those really my only choices?

The wind howls outside, and for the first time since fleeing Millrath, I find myself longing for the simplicity of iron chains.