I always know when the sun tilts west without needing to look at the sky.

The snow in the courtyard softens. The wind stops biting. The air no longer feels like a warning—only like anticipation.

It means it is time to fetch my wife.

Months ago, when she was brought to the North as my bride—as the answer to a prophecy I never asked for—the elders assumed I would confine her to the eastern wing and let her learn to endure the cold.

They were wrong.

I built her a temple.

Not as vast as the Sun Temple in the South, of course. But high enough to catch the daylight, warm enough that snow melts along its steps. Its pillars are carved from pale stone that drinks in the light. At its heart stands a small golden altar that never extinguishes.

The North may freeze.

But my wife will never feel like a stranger in my land.

My footsteps echo through the stone corridor as I make my way there. The guards bow in silence. They are accustomed to this routine.

Every dusk. Every day.

I come.

Not because of duty. Not because of prophecy.

Habit, I tell myself. Only habit.

The temple doors open slowly beneath my hand. Warmth brushes my face—thin, but enough to blur the breath that leaves me into air where two seasons mingle.

Evening sunlight filters through the tall windows, casting bands of gold across the stone floor.

And there—kneeling before the altar—is her.

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Her hair catches the light like a quiet flame. Her robe spills gently over the floor, its warmth in color striking against the dark fur mantle still draped over my shoulders.

She does not turn immediately. She always knows I am there long before my steps are heard.

“I have come to escort my light home,” I say, my voice low, even to any ear that might overhear.

But the word is never merely a word.

My light. Not the Sun of the South. Not the Heir of the Temple. Not the prophecy’s symbol.

Mine.

She rises slowly and turns to face me. There is a faint smile at the corner of her lips—the one that appears only when we are alone.

“And where is my husband?” she asks softly.

I step closer, allowing the fur of my mantle to brush the edge of her robe. “Before you,” I reply. “Fetching the wife who lends her prayers to the gods for far too long.”

She exhales a quiet huff. “Are you jealous of the gods now?”

I do not answer. Because perhaps… I am.

Since she came to live in the North, the nobles still look at her as if she is foreign fire. The elders still measure the distance between us, ensuring our blood truly intertwines as the prophecy promised.

They do not know that I wake before her each night just to make sure she is not cold. They do not know that I have memorized the rhythm of her breathing. They do not know that this ritual of fetching her is not an obligation.

It is a necessity.

She steps closer, close enough that her warmth seeps through the heavy layers of my clothing. Her hand presses to my chest, right above the crest of the Winter Spirit.

Once, a touch like that would have cracked the air itself. Now, there is only balance.

“Does the North permit me to return today?” she teases, though her eyes search for something deeper.

I lift her hand and press a kiss to the back of her fingers—a gesture I would never offer before the elders. “The North does not imprison its sun,” I murmur. “It only waits for dusk… so it may walk beside her.”

Silence lingers between us. Outside, snow begins to fall in thin, delicate strands. Yet the light inside the temple does not dim.

My hand finds her waist, drawing her just a little closer. Not hurried. Not demanding. Only enough to remind her that though the world bound us through fate—

I remain. I come every dusk. I fetch her.

Not because the prophecy demands an heir. But because without her, this palace would be nothing more than an endless winter.

“Come home with me, flame of my soul,” I whisper at last. “The North is far too silent without you.”