Frost Winterborne's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The heat had stopped at his heart. Frost could not forget that. All night he paced the frozen halls of his castle, one hand pressed to his chest. The curse still held. But he knew nothing about it. He did not know who forged it, or why. Every plan to break it was a guess in the dark. Ember found him at dawn, sitting on the cold stairs. "You keep staring at that wall," she said. "Like it owes you money." "I don't know where the curse came from," Frost said. "How do I break a thing I can't even name?" He pulled a slender glass vial from his coat. Pale frost swirled inside it, glowing with faint cold light. "This reacts to the curse's magic," he said. "When cursed power is near, the crystals brighten. I've carried it for years and it never stirs." He held it up. The frost inside stayed dim. Ember crossed her arms. "Then walk it through the castle. Find where it wakes up." They went room to room. The vial stayed dark past the throne, past the leopard's den. Then Frost stopped at a locked door he never opened. He forced it. Inside sat a small chest of things from his childhood. The vial flared to life. The crystals blazed blue and sharp. Frost dug through the chest. His hand closed on a music box, its surface frozen and cracked with ice. He remembered it. His mother had cranked it for him as a boy. The vial screamed with light against the box. "The curse is in this," Ember whispered. "It came from her." Frost turned the crank. No song played. Instead the ice on the lid melted, and a voice rose from inside. It was his mother's voice, thin and tired. "My son. If you found this, the frost has kept its promise. I bound your heart myself. I did it to save you from what I felt when your father died. I could not watch you break the way I broke. Forgive me." The box went silent. Frost sat on the cold floor and did not move. His mother, Evelyn Frost, had left him years ago. He had blamed a witch. He had blamed strangers. He had never once blamed her. "She made it," he said. His voice shook. "My own mother sealed my heart." Ember knelt beside him. Her warmth pressed close, but the ice around his heart held firm. "Then she can unmake it," she said. "A curse made by hand can be undone by the hand that made it." Frost stared at the melted music box. For the first time, he knew the shape of his enemy. It was not a stranger. It was the woman who raised him. He closed the box and stood. "I have to find her," he said. "Wherever she went, I'm going."