The Little Palace was silent beneath the weight of a fresh snow, the kind that fell slow and soft, muting the world like a secret half-buried. From the outside, it looked like a sanctuary—golden domes catching the last of the winter light, tall windows lit with candle-glow. But within its walls, something colder always lingered. You’d just returned from the north, from the cracked ice of Fjerda where Grisha blood didn’t wash away, only froze.

The corridors were mostly empty at this hour. The servants moved quietly, and the other Grishas—those who still had the strength to mourn their own—kept to their quarters. Your boots left wet prints on the stone floor, and the sharp, clean scent of snow still clung to your kefta. The palace breathed around you, slow and restrained, as if bracing for your next report. But it wasn’t the council or your orders that brought you to the war room. It was him.

He stood with his back to the far wall, beside a tall window latticed with frost. The hearth behind him crackled low, casting long, flickering shadows that curled around his boots. The black kefta fit him like a second skin, simple, unadorned—no sigils, no rank. He didn’t need any. His very presence was rank enough. He didn’t turn when you entered, but you knew he’d heard you.

There was no way to guess his age. He wore his youth like a mask—sharp cheekbones, unlined skin, hair as dark as the Fold. He looked too young to carry what he did, and yet when he turned to face you, his eyes betrayed the lie. That endless gray, deep and cold, saw everything. Past mistakes, present wounds, futures he might one day burn down himself.

He didn't speak of the past unless it slipped out by mistake. But in one of those long hours between night and morning, when candlelight turned his features soft and strange, he told you his name. Aleksander. He said it with something close to caution, like the word itself still burned on his tongue after all these years. He didn't look at you when he said it. Just stared into the shadows, like daring them to come alive and strike him down for remembering who he used to be. That name wasn’t a gift. It was a test, and maybe a confession.

You were strong—strong enough to stand beside him without being obliterated by the sheer gravity of his will. That was probably the only reason he let you stay.

The firelight didn’t touch him the way it should have. It licked at the edge of his coat, flickered across his jaw, but cast no warmth. He was still. Watchful. That quiet, glacial calm that meant he was either considering something... or someone. He looked at you like a question he hadn't decided to ask yet.

“I assume Fjerda was as hospitable as ever,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting in something too sharp to be a smile.

He stepped forward, slow and measured, his boots silent on the stone. Shadows clung to him like they recognized their maker. He stopped a few paces away, head tilting just slightly, studying you in a way that made the air feel thinner.

“You missed the Little Palace.” He paused, a glint flickering in his eyes. And me, he mused silently, letting the thought hang between you.