The Shadow-Grey moved with a powerful, rhythmic stride that felt less like a horse and more like the pulse of the mountain itself. With every heavy step, Elissa felt the solid, unyielding strength of Alistair behind her. His chest was a broad wall of cold silk and hidden muscle against her back, and his arms—steady and sure as they held the heavy leather reins—framed her in a way that made the biting Northern wind feel like a distant memory.
Kestrel pulled her mare alongside them, her hair a silken banner of dark ink against the white snow. Her eyes danced with enough mischief to light up the dark woods.
"You look quite comfortable, Elissa," Kestrel noted, her voice dripping with an innocent sweetness that Alistair clearly didn't trust. "Much better than dangling off the side of poor Frost-Bite like a discarded cloak. Alistair, look at you—you're actually holding the reins with something resembling grace. I suppose having 'fragile Southern cargo' makes you more careful than when you're leading a cavalry charge."
Alistair didn't turn his head. His gaze remained fixed on the trail ahead, his jaw a sharp line of marble. "The cargo is not fragile, Kestrel. It is simply .....uncalibrated. And my riding is, as always, beyond reproach."
"Oh, of course," Vane chimed in from the other side, leaning back in his saddle with his hands behind his head, letting his mare follow the trail by instinct. "It has nothing to do with the fact that you've stopped scowling at the trees. You look almost... content. It's a terrifying look on you, brother. Very unsettling for the troops. They might start thinking you've developed a soul."
"If you do not cease your prattling, Vane," Alistair said, his voice a low, level hum near Elissa's ear, "I will find a very deep, very cold snowbank and see how 'content' you look at the bottom of it.
Elissa felt a small, traitorous laugh bubble up in her chest. She tried to swallow it, biting her lip, but the vibration of her amusement caught Alistair's attention. She felt him stiffen slightly behind her, his grip on the reins tightening just a fraction, the leather creaking under his gloved fingers.
"Is something amusing, Princess?" he asked. There was no anger in his voice—only a strange, quiet curiosity that made her heart skip.
"It's just..." Elissa hesitated, looking at the way his large, gloved hands expertly guided the massive stallion around a jagged outcrop of ice. "You all talk to each other like you're constantly at war. I spent years in the Southern courts where everyone spoke in honeyed lies and polite poisons. But here... you're actually quite coordinated in your bullying. It's almost... refreshing."
"It's a Northern tradition," Kestrel laughed, spurring her horse slightly ahead to navigate a drift. "We show affection through verbal combat. If Alistair ever says something genuinely nice to you, Elissa, run. It means he's been replaced by a shapeshifter or he's about to ask you to sign away a province."
"I shall keep that in mind," Elissa whispered, her breath hitching as the stallion stepped over a fallen log, forcing her to lean back more firmly against Alistair.
As the path narrowed, the ancient, skeletal pines leaned in like gossiping elders, forcing Kestrel and Vane to drop back into a single file. The banter died away, replaced by the heavy, crystalline silence of the deep woods. The only sound was the rhythmic thud-crunch of hooves and the whistle of the wind through the needles.
Elissa felt the tension in Alistair's body—a coiled, restless energy that hummed through his chest and into her shoulders. Though his touch was cold, the proximity felt like standing near a furnace that was trying very hard not to ignite. She was the hearth; he was the hurricane.
"You're staring at the Frost-Blight on the bark," Alistair said suddenly. His voice was softer now, devoid of the audience of his siblings. It was a private rumble that vibrated through her spine. "It's beautiful, isn't it? Like lace made of diamonds. But it's poisonous to humans. One touch and your hand would be numb for a week."
"I wasn't going to touch it," Elissa whispered, though she pulled her hands closer to the pommel. "I was just... thinking. Back at the Bastion, you're always a Prince. A Commander. But out here... you seem even more like the North than the stone walls do."
Alistair didn't answer immediately. He nudged the stallion around a frozen stream, his chest pressing firmly against her back with the movement. "The stone walls are a cage, Elissa. For all of us. Out here, the ice doesn't care about titles or treaties. It only cares if you are strong enough to survive it."
He paused, and for a second, the stallion slowed to a rhythmic, meditative walk. "Tell me. In the South... when a Starwind is not being 'carried in a litter'... what does she do with her silence? Does she fill it with music? Or more waiting?"
Elissa blinked, surprised by the genuine weight of the question. "I read. I garden—though the flowers there are much kinder than your Frost-Blight. And I wait. My whole life has been a series of golden rooms where I wait for a man to tell me which door to walk through next. My father, my brothers... and now..... "
She felt Alistair's arm instinctively tighten around her waist to steady her as the horse navigated a slick patch. His grip was iron-strong, yet strangely careful. "And now you are here," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly depth. "Waiting for me to decide which door is yours."
"Yes," she said, her voice barely audible over the wind.
Alistair leaned down, his breath a silver mist that ghosted over the shell of her ear, sending a shiver through her that had nothing to do with the cold. His luminous blue eyes were fixed on the path ahead, but his focus was entirely on the girl in his arms.
"Perhaps," he murmured, "I am waiting for you to realize that in the North, the doors aren't locked. You simply have to be strong enough to turn the handle. You tamed a Frost-Walker with a touch, Elissa. Don't tell me you're afraid of a door."
Elissa turned her head slightly, her eyes meeting his. For a heartbeat, the mask of the cold Crown Prince seemed to flicker, revealing a hunger so sharp and a loneliness so deep it made the air between them feel brittle. He was a creature of ice who had spent centuries staring at a flame, terrified that if he reached out, he would either extinguish it or be utterly consumed by it.
"I'm not afraid of the door, Alistair," she said softly. "I'm afraid of what's on the other side. And I'm afraid that if I turn the handle... you ...." , she couldn't complete the sentence for unknown reasons"
Alistair's expression didn't change, but his fingers twitched on the reins. He didn't answer with words. Instead, he spurred the horse into a swifter gait, the sudden surge of power forcing her to lean back into him. He didn't pull away. If anything, he held her closer, his silence now humming with a question he wasn't yet brave enough to ask.