Nalin's POV
The throne room erupted into chaos.
"SEIZE THEM!" Father roared.
Guards charged from all sides, weapons raised. Fifty trained soldiers against two people—one dying girl in my arms, one ancient prince who'd been imprisoned for centuries, and me with magic I barely understood.
We were going to die here.
But then Kael moved.
He was fast—faster than anything human should be. One moment he stood beside me, the next he was in the middle of the charging guards. Ice exploded from his hands in deadly spears. Five guards went down before they could even scream.
"Stay with Seren!" he shouted at me.
I clutched my dying friend tighter. Her skin was burning up, the curse eating her alive from the inside. I had to do something, but I didn't know what.
My ice magic responded to my panic. Frost spread from my hands into Seren's body, trying to freeze the dark curse. But the curse was too strong, too well-made.
"Please," I begged. "Please work. Please save her."
More guards rushed at Kael. He fought like winter itself—beautiful and deadly and unstoppable. But there were too many. Even he couldn't fight fifty soldiers alone.
"Nalin!" Elara's voice cut through the chaos. "Stop this madness! Let the monster die, and Father will spare you!"
I looked up at my sister standing safely beside the throne. Her joy-magic pulsed through the room, trying to make the guards braver, trying to make me doubt.
But her magic slid off my ice like water off glass.
"Spare me?" I laughed, cold and bitter. "Like you spared me when you sent me to die? Like you spared Seren when you beat her for trying to help me?"
Elara's smile faltered. "That was necessary. You were becoming dangerous—"
"No." I stood up, still holding Seren. My magic flared, and ice exploded across the floor in sharp spikes. Guards stumbled back, slipping. "I was always dangerous. You just didn't want to see it."
Father's rage-magic ignited. Fire roared toward me, hot enough to melt stone.
Kael appeared in front of me, his own ice magic forming a shield. Fire and ice collided in an explosion that shook the entire palace.
"You can't win this, brother!" Father shouted. "I have an army! I have the empire's power! You have nothing!"
"I have her," Kael said quietly, glancing back at me. "And that's more than enough."
Through our bond, I felt what he meant. His stolen emotions were still returning, making him stronger. And every bit of power he gained, I gained too. We were connected—two halves of the same devastating whole.
"Together?" I asked.
"Together," he confirmed.
I gently laid Seren down behind a fallen pillar where she'd be safer. Then I stood beside Kael, my ice magic rising to meet his.
"Last chance to surrender," Father said. "Give up now, and I'll make your deaths quick."
I looked at the man who'd called me worthless my entire life. The man who'd thrown me away like garbage. The man who'd built an empire on lies and suffering.
"No," I said simply.
Then I attacked.
My ice magic roared out in a wave. It wasn't controlled or elegant like Kael's—it was raw power, wild and furious. The floor flash-froze. Guards' weapons turned to ice sculptures and shattered. Even the walls started cracking from the cold.
"Impossible!" Elara shrieked. "She's stronger than me!"
"She's stronger than all of us," Kael said, pride in his voice. "She's what you made her to be. Congratulations."
Father's face went purple with rage. "KILL THEM! KILL THEM BOTH!"
The remaining guards charged again. Davren finally moved from the shadows, his fear-magic spreading like oil. Dark tendrils wrapped around my legs, manifesting my deepest terrors.
I saw myself back in my room, alone and empty. I saw Seren dying. I saw Kael being re-sealed, screaming for three hundred more years.
The fear should have paralyzed me.
But I'd lived in fear my whole life. I knew its taste. I knew its tricks.
"Nice try," I said to Davren. Then I froze his magic solid and shattered it.
His eyes went wide. "Nalin, I—"
"Don't." My voice was ice. "Don't pretend you care now. Don't pretend any of it was real."
For just a second, I saw genuine pain cross his face. "Some of it was real. When we were children, before Elara's magic—"
"I don't care," I interrupted. "You made your choice. Now live with it."
Kael grabbed my hand, and our combined magic exploded outward. Ice and snow filled the entire throne room, a blizzard indoors. Guards screamed and ran. Even Elara's joy-magic couldn't fight through it.
"We need to leave," Kael said urgently. "Now, while they're confused. Grab Seren."
I ran back to my friend. She was barely breathing, her lips blue with cold. The curse was still killing her, and I still had no idea how to stop it.
"I can't move her," I said. "She'll die if—"
"She'll die if we stay!" Kael scooped Seren up like she weighed nothing. "Trust me. I know a way out."
He ran toward the window. The massive stained-glass window showing my family's glorious history.
"Kael, that's a three-story drop—"
He jumped.
I screamed and jumped after him without thinking.
We fell through empty air, Seren unconscious in Kael's arms, me tumbling beside them. The ground rushed up to meet us and—
Ice caught us.
A slide of pure ice appeared beneath us, cushioning our fall and sending us skating away from the palace at impossible speed. Wind whipped my hair back. The city blurred around us.
"Where are we going?" I shouted over the wind.
"Away!" Kael shouted back. "Hold on!"
The ice slide twisted through streets and over buildings. Behind us, I heard Father screaming orders. Soldiers poured from the palace gates. Magic lit up the night sky as they searched for us.
But we were faster.
The ice slide carried us out of the city, through the gates, into the dark forests beyond. We slid for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. Finally, the magic faded and we tumbled onto soft grass in a clearing I didn't recognize.
I lay on my back, gasping for air, my whole body shaking from adrenaline.
"That was insane," I said.
"That was survival," Kael corrected. He was checking Seren's pulse, his face grim. "She's fading fast. We need to break this curse, and we need to do it now."
"How? You said it was unbreakable."
"I said it was designed to be unbreakable. But there's always a way." He looked at me, and I saw the worry in his winter eyes. "The curse is tied to whoever cast it. Break that tie, and the curse breaks too."
"So we need to find who cursed her?"
"We need to kill who cursed her," he corrected. "Death breaks all magical ties."
I thought about the people in the throne room. Father. Elara. Davren. High Priestess Mara.
"Who would curse her?" I asked.
Kael touched Seren's forehead, and frost spread across her skin—not attacking, but searching. Reading the curse like words on a page.
His face went dark.
"It's blood magic. Old and powerful. The kind only one person in the empire still knows how to use." He met my eyes. "High Priestess Mara cursed your friend. And unless we kill her in the next few hours, Seren dies."
My blood turned to ice. "Then we go back. We find Mara. And we end this."
"Nalin, we barely escaped with our lives. Going back now is suicide."
"Then I'll die trying!" I grabbed his shoulders. "She's the only person who ever loved me! I'm not losing her!"
Kael studied my face for a long moment. Then he sighed. "You're going to be the death of me, Princess."
"We're bonded. If I die, you die anyway."
"Excellent point." He stood and pulled me up. "Then I suppose we're breaking into the Temple of Emotions tonight."
"The Temple?" My stomach dropped. "That's the most heavily guarded place in the empire after the palace."
"I know." His smile was sharp and dangerous. "Which is why they won't expect us to be crazy enough to try."
We looked down at Seren. Her breathing was getting shallower. We had maybe two hours before the curse killed her.
Two hours to break into the most secure building in the empire.
Two hours to kill a High Priestess.
Two hours to save my only friend.
"Teach me," I said to Kael. "Right now. Teach me everything I need to know to fight."
"We don't have time for—"
"Then teach me fast!" I felt tears freezing on my cheeks. "Please. I can't lose her. I can't lose anyone else."
Kael looked at me—really looked at me. At the girl who'd been thrown away, who'd discovered impossible power, who refused to stop fighting even when everything was impossible.
"Alright," he said quietly. "But you need to understand something first. Magic isn't just about power. It's about control. Focus. And most importantly—" He touched my chest, over my heart where the binding mark glowed. "—it's about knowing what you're willing to sacrifice."
"I'm willing to sacrifice anything," I said immediately.
"Even yourself?"
I thought about Seren, beaten and cursed because of me. About the twelve graves in Kael's courtyard. About all the people suffering because my family wanted power.
"Especially myself," I said.
Kael's expression softened. "Then you're already more dangerous than you know." He glanced up at the moon. "We have two hours. Let's make them count."
He placed his hand over mine on my heart. Magic—both of ours—flared to life.
"Lesson one," he said. "Ice doesn't just destroy. It preserves. It protects. It remembers." His eyes locked on mine. "Show me what you remember, Nalin. Show me what you're fighting for."
I closed my eyes and reached for my magic.
And I remembered everything.
Every cruel word. Every lonely night. Every moment of being told I was worthless.
But also—every time Seren made me laugh. Every kindness from Commander Thorne. Every person the empire had hurt.
The magic responded, growing stronger with each memory.
When I opened my eyes, the entire clearing was covered in ice. Beautiful, deadly, perfect ice.
"Good," Kael said. "Now let's turn you into a weapon."