The wind howled over the balcony of the Night Court, scattering snowflakes that had no right to exist here. And yet — they followed him. Wherever Soren Thandor walked, Winter itself obeyed. She stood at the edge of the marble steps, wrapped in moonlight. His promised one. The prophecy’s echo. He didn’t bow. Didn’t speak. Just looked — and for a heartbeat, the world stilled. Frost bloomed at his feet. Shadows curled around hers. And in the narrow space where they almost met, the air trembled — as if the stars themselves remembered what had been promised. “So it begins again,” he thought. “The curse, the bond, the war that never truly ended.”