The Curse of Warmth

I stole the Sunstone to save us from the endless winter, but its warmth is a beacon for monsters.

Rule number one of surviving in Glasthaven: never get comfortable. Comfort is a lie the city tells you just before it shatters your bones on the ice. It’s a lesson you learn young, usually the first time the frost gnaws its way through your boots and you realize your toes have gone from aching to numb. Numb is bad. Numb is the first step toward the Long Sleep, the quiet, frozen end that claims so many.

But right now, clutching the Sunstone to my chest, I was breaking rule number one. I was comfortable. Deliciously, dangerously comfortable. The warmth seeped through my worn leather gloves, a spreading dawn against the perpetual winter of my own skin. It wasn't just heat; it was life. It was the memory of a sun I’d only ever heard about in stories, a golden promise that chased the deep, cellular chill from my marrow. My fingers, usually stiff and clumsy with cold, felt nimble again. I could feel the blood flowing all the way to their tips, a tiny, thrumming miracle.

Up here, on the skeletal spine of the old clock tower, the wind was a physical thing. It was a predator, howling through the petrified filigree and trying to rip the precious, stolen heat from my body. It scraped frost-dust across my cheeks and made the thick wool of my scarf feel like cheesecloth. But for the first time in my seventeen years, the wind wasn't winning. The Sunstone, a smooth, egg-shaped thing that pulsed with a light like trapped sunset, was a tiny, defiant star against the crushing, silver-grey gloom of the city.

Below me, Glasthaven was a graveyard of sharp angles and frozen shadows. Streets were veins of polished black ice. Buildings hunched together like shivering giants, their stone shoulders heavy with a century of snow that never melted. The Great Curse, they called it. The day the sky went grey for good and the cold came to stay. Some said a slighted Ice Witch did it. Others blamed the hubris of the old Sun Kings. It didn't matter. The result was the same: a city locked in a cage of winter, where the only currency that truly mattered was warmth.

And I’d just stolen the biggest godsdamned bank in the city. The Sunstone. Kept in a pressure-locked, magically-chilled vault in the Lord Regent’s spire, a place I was never supposed to be able to touch. But the Regent liked his comforts, and the vents for his private sauna were a straight shot down to the treasure room if you were small enough, stupid enough, and desperate enough to try. I was all three.

My little brother, Finn, was the reason for the desperation. His cough had taken on a wet, rattling sound in the last week, a sound that echoed the death-rattle of the frozen pipes in our tenement. The meager coal rations we got barely kept the frost from creeping across the inside of our one window. He was getting the numb look in his eyes. I saw it. I saw the city trying to claim him. This stone was my answer. My scream back into the uncaring, frozen void.

I tucked it deeper into the inner pocket of my coat, but the light was insistent. It bled through the thick fabric, a soft orange glow against my ribs. A beacon. A target. My stomach twisted. The warmth was life, but the light was a death sentence. The Lord Regent’s personal squad, the Ice Guard, would be crawling all over the city by now. They were relentless, tireless hunters carved from the same eternal winter as Glasthaven itself. They didn't feel the cold. Their armor was forged from enchanted glacier ice, and their hearts, I was pretty sure, were made of the same stuff.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature traced a path of spiders down my spine. I had to move. Get back to the Narrows, lose myself in the warren of twisting alleys and forgotten tunnels where the Guard’s formations couldn't easily go. I adjusted the worn leather pack on my back—mostly empty, save for a half-loaf of stale bread and my tools—and peered over the edge of the rooftop. The drop was a good fifty feet into a narrow alley between a frozen tannery and a crumbling haberdashery. A familiar route. My personal highway system.

My breath plumed in front of my face, instantly crystallizing in the air. The silence up here was different from the silence on the streets. It was cleaner, sharper. You could hear the whole city groaning under its burden of ice. You could hear the skittering of unseen things on the rooftops and the mournful cry of the wind playing the razored edges of icicles like a mad piper. And you could hear the crunch of boots on frost-covered slate from a rooftop away.

My blood went cold, nullifying the Sunstone’s magic in an instant. I dropped flat against the icy roof, my cheek pressed to the freezing stone. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of bone. I peeked through the legs of a stone gargoyle whose face was a caricature of leering frost. There were three of them. Ice Guard. Their crystalline armor drank the gloom and reflected it back with a dead, internal light. They moved with an unnatural surety, their heavy boots finding purchase on surfaces I’d have to crawl across. One of them held a device, a sort of compass with a needle of pure, shimmering ice that trembled as it pointed, unmistakably, in my direction.

Curse it all. Of course they could track it. The Regent wouldn't have his favorite toy be so easily misplaced. Stupidity, check. Desperation, check. I was really batting a thousand tonight.

I slid backward, my gloves scraping against the rough, frozen slate. No time for the planned route. It had to be Plan B. Plan B was always some variation of ‘run and pray’. I scrambled toward the far side of the clock tower, away from the approaching guards. The roof here was steeper, a treacherous slide of black ice ending in nothing. A hundred-foot drop to the main thoroughfare. But halfway down, a thick, gnarled mess of frozen drainpipes clung to the tower’s face like iron ivy. It was my only way down.

The guards were getting closer. I could hear the scraping of their armored gauntlets as they vaulted the gap between buildings. They weren't trying to be quiet anymore. They knew they had me cornered. The hunt was the fun part for them.

“Nowhere to run, little spark,” one of them called out, his voice distorted and cold, like grinding ice. “The Lord Regent merely wants his property back. He might even let you keep your hands.”

I didn’t dignify that with an answer. My hands were my livelihood. My life. Without them, I was just another street rat waiting to freeze. I reached the edge of the roof, my worn boots skidding on the last few feet of ice. My stomach lurched as I looked down. The world spun, a dizzying vortex of distant, flickering gas lamps and black, hungry shadows. Don't look down. Another one of the rules. Another one I was breaking.

I swung my legs over the side, my fingers, numb again despite the stone, fumbling for a grip on the main drainpipe. It was colder than a grave, the metal sucking what little warmth I had left right out of my skin. The ice coating it was thick but brittle. It cracked and flaked away under my weight. For a terrifying second, my grip slipped, and I dangled by one hand, my body swinging out over the abyss. My pack shifted, throwing off my balance. The stone in my pocket felt like an anchor, dragging me down.

A crystalline spearhead slammed into the stone just inches from my face, shattering the gargoyle above me and showering me with frozen shrapnel. I yelped, flattened myself against the wall, and started to move. Hand over hand, my boots scrabbling for purchase on the frozen masonry. My muscles screamed in protest. Every movement was a risk, every handhold a prayer. The wind tore at me, trying to peel me from the wall and send me tumbling into the street below.

They were above me now. I could see the shifting, ghostly light of their armor against the clock face. Another spear came down, then another. They weren't trying to hit me directly, just break my grip, shake me loose. It was a game. A cruel, cold game.

I was maybe twenty feet from the alley opening when my boot slipped. The thick, hobnailed sole skidded on a patch of clear ice hidden beneath a dusting of snow. My body jerked, my full weight suddenly pulling on my arms. A sharp, tearing pain shot through my left shoulder. I cried out, my grip failing. My fingers uncurled. This is it. This is the end. A stupid girl, a shiny rock, and a long way down. At least it would be quick. They say you don't even feel the impact.

Then, a voice from the alley below cut through the wind. “You know, for a professional, your exit strategy could use some work. Generally, you want to end up on the ground in fewer than two pieces.”

I blinked, my mind struggling to process the words. I risked a glance down. A figure was leaning against the opposite wall of the alley, almost invisible in the deep shadows. He was tall, lean, and from what I could see, entirely too relaxed for someone who was about to have a thief pancake herself ten feet from his position.

“A little busy!” I grunted, my fingers straining. The pipe groaned under my weight.

“I can see that,” the voice replied, laced with an infuriatingly calm amusement. “Tell you what. You drop the shiny thing, and I’ll catch you.”

Was he insane? “Not a chance!” I yelled, the words torn from my throat by the wind.

“Suit yourself. But the big, frosty gentlemen upstairs seem to disagree.”

As if on cue, one of the guards began to climb down after me. He moved like a spider made of ice and malice, his gauntleted hands punching into the stone wall for holds, shattering brick and mortar. He was slow, but he was inevitable.

My shoulder was on fire. My fingers were white, bloodless. I wasn't going to make it. My grip was failing. It was either trust the stranger or let the Guard have me. The Guard would mean a trip to the Frostbitten Cells, a place no one ever came back from. The stranger… well, he was an unknown quantity. But he wasn't wearing a suit of enchanted ice, which was a significant point in his favor.

“Fine!” I screamed. “Catch me!”

“First the rock, then the girl. I’m a traditionalist,” he called back.

I cursed him. I cursed the guards. I cursed my own stupid, noble intentions. With my one free hand, I ripped the Sunstone from my coat. Its light blazed in the darkness, a miniature sun that threw our shadows into sharp, dancing relief. It was warm, so warm, a last little kiss of life before the fall. I let it go.

It dropped, a falling star in the narrow canyon of the alley. The man moved with a speed that was startling. He wasn't leaning anymore. He darted forward, one hand shooting out, and snatched the stone from the air as if he were plucking a piece of fruit from a branch. He tucked it away, and the alley plunged back into near-total darkness.

“Your turn,” he said, his voice now directly below me.

I didn’t need any more encouragement. The guard was only a few feet away, his cold, dead eyes visible through the slit in his helm. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and let go.

The fall was a brief, terrifying moment of weightlessness. The wind rushed past my ears. I braced for the bone-jarring impact with the ground, or with the stranger, I wasn't sure which would be worse. Instead, I landed in a surprisingly controlled crouch, my knees screaming in protest, but unbroken. Strong arms had caught me under my shoulders, not stopping my fall but guiding it, absorbing the worst of the momentum and turning a lethal drop into a rough landing. I stumbled forward, crashing against a damp brick wall.

“See? Teamwork,” the stranger said, his voice now right beside my ear. He smelled of leather, steel, and something vaguely like cinnamon.

I pushed myself off the wall, whirling around to face him. “Who the hell are you?” I gasped, my lungs burning.

He offered a mock bow, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. “Kevin. Sellsword, rogue, and occasional rescuer of damsels in distress. Though you seem less ‘damsel’ and more ‘cat burglar with a death wish’.”

The Ice Guard landed behind us with a ground-shaking thud that cracked the ice on the alley floor. He rose to his full, intimidating height, a giant of frost and fury. His crystalline mace hummed with a low, chilling energy.

“The stone,” the guard ground out, his voice like an avalanche.

Kevin sighed, drawing two short, wickedly curved blades from sheathes at his hips. The steel seemed to sing in the cold air. “Right. No time for proper introductions, then. A word of advice for next time?” he said to me, not taking his eyes off the armored figure.

“What?”

“Pick quieter hobbies.”

Then he moved. He didn't charge. He flowed. He was a blur of dark leather and flashing steel, his blades weaving a complex pattern in the air. The Ice Guard was a fortress, all brute strength and impenetrable armor. But Kevin was water, flowing around the guard’s clumsy swings, his blades striking at the unarmored joints at the elbow and knee. Sparks flew, not of metal on metal, but of steel on enchanted ice, each impact letting off a puff of frigid vapor.

I wasn’t about to stand around and watch. I scrambled for my own weapon—a weighted cosh I kept tucked in my belt. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. The other two guards were rappelling down the walls on shimmering ropes of ice, their movements swift and silent. We were boxed in.

“We’ve got company!” I yelled, moving to flank the first guard.

“I love a party,” Kevin shot back, ducking under a swing that would have decapitated him. The ice-mace shattered a crate against the wall, sending splinters of frozen wood everywhere. “Just try to keep up!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. The first guard was focused entirely on Kevin, underestimating me completely. It was a common mistake, and usually the last one people made. I darted in low, swinging the cosh hard against the back of his knee. There was a sickening crunch as steel met ice and bone. The enchanted armor flared with blue light, but the joint buckled. The giant staggered, roaring in surprise and pain.

It was the opening Kevin needed. He spun, his left-hand blade sliding perfectly into the gap in the guard’s gorget. There was a wet, grating sound and a final, gurgling sigh. The guard’s inner light faded, and he collapsed, his armor dissolving into a pile of slush and shattered ice.

There was no time to celebrate. The other two were on us. One came for Kevin, his movements a mirror of the first—strong, direct, and predictable. The other came for me.

This one was different. He was smaller, faster, and armed with a pair of long, icicle-like daggers. He didn’t charge; he danced, his feet skittering across the slick ground as if he were born on it. I backpedaled, my cosh feeling clumsy and slow against his lightning-fast strikes. He herded me back, deeper into the alley, cutting me off from Kevin.

“Nowhere left to run, thief,” he hissed, his daggers a blur.

I ducked, weaved, my body remembering years of dodging angry merchants and city watchmen. The alley was my home turf. I knew every loose brick, every patch of treacherous ice. He was faster, stronger, but I was smarter. I feinted left, then threw a handful of slush and grime I’d scooped from the ground into his face. He recoiled with a snarl, momentarily blinded. It was all I needed. I slammed my cosh against his wrist. One of the ice-daggers clattered to the ground.

Before he could recover, I kicked his feet out from under him. He went down hard, his helmeted head cracking against the cobblestones. He didn’t get up.

I spun around, breathing heavily, just in time to see Kevin finish the third guard. He’d somehow gotten on top of a stack of frozen barrels and dropped down onto the guard’s back, driving both his blades down through the pauldrons. It was brutal, efficient, and utterly terrifying.

He rolled off the dissolving corpse, landing lightly on his feet. He looked at me, then at the guard I’d taken down, and gave a low whistle. “Not bad, Sparky. Not bad at all. You sure you’re not in my line of work?”

“Pretty sure,” I panted, my shoulder throbbing in earnest now. “Who are you really, Kevin? Sellswords don’t just happen to be in the right alley at the right time.”

He walked over and picked up the ice-dagger I’d knocked loose. He examined it for a moment before tossing it away. It shattered like glass against the far wall. “Let’s just say I have a vested interest in items of a… sunny disposition.” He tapped the pocket of his coat where he’d stashed the Sunstone. A faint warmth emanated from it, a welcome sensation in the freezing alley.

“You were after it too,” I realized. The anger was a hot flush on my cold cheeks. “You were waiting for me to do the hard part!”

“You make it sound so calculating,” he said with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. “I prefer to think of it as ‘strategic outsourcing’. You did the breaking and entering, I’m handling the post-acquisition security. See? Partnership.”

I wanted to hit him. I really did. But the sound of distant whistles, the signature call of the Ice Guard, cut through the air. More were coming. A lot more.

Kevin’s grin vanished. “And our security detail’s window is closing. We need to go. Now. Unless you want to test how many of those ice-cubes we can handle at once.”

He was right. I hated that he was right. “Where do we go? They’ll have every main street sealed.”

“Who said anything about streets?” He grabbed my arm, his grip surprisingly strong, and pulled me toward the back of the alley where a heavy iron grate was set into the ground. A thick crust of ice and frozen refuse covered it. “We go down. Into the Underbelly.”

The Underbelly. The city’s forgotten veins. The old sewer systems, abandoned aqueducts, and sealed-off subway tunnels from before the Great Curse. A place of darkness, of rust, and of things best left undisturbed. People went down there sometimes. They rarely came back up.

“No,” I said, pulling back. “No way. It’s a maze down there. And it’s not safe.”

“Safer than what’s coming,” Kevin said, his eyes flicking toward the mouth of the alley. The whistles were closer now. “Trust me on this, Lucy.”

He knew my name. The realization hit me like a physical blow. I had never told him my name.

“How…” I started, but he didn't let me finish.

He put a finger to his lips, his expression deadly serious for the first time. “Questions later. Survival now.”

He knelt by the grate and slid one of his blades into the lock mechanism. There was a series of sharp clicks, and the ancient, rusted lock gave way. He heaved the grate open with a groan of protesting metal. A wave of cold, stagnant air, smelling of damp earth and decay, washed over us.

He dropped down into the darkness without hesitation. He looked up at me, his face a pale oval in the gloom. “Coming, Sparky? Or are you waiting for a formal invitation from the men in white?”

I glanced back at the street. I could see the shimmering forms of the Guard assembling at the entrance to the alley. There was no choice. Cursing my luck, my life, and the handsome, infuriating sellsword who now held my only hope of survival, I swung my legs into the hole and dropped into the suffocating darkness of the Underbelly.

The fall was short. I landed on a sludge-covered walkway, my boots making a disgusting sucking sound. The grate slammed shut above us, plunging us into absolute blackness. The sounds of the city, the wind, the whistles, were all gone, replaced by a profound, tomb-like silence broken only by the drip, drip, drip of unseen water. The cold was different down here. It was a damp, heavy cold that clung to you, a cold that felt like it was crawling inside your lungs with every breath.

For a long moment, we just stood there, two strangers in the dark, breathing hard. The adrenaline was starting to fade, leaving behind a deep, trembling exhaustion and the sharp, throbbing pain in my shoulder.

“Well,” Kevin’s voice came out of the blackness, sounding much too cheerful. “This is cozy.”

A moment later, a warm, golden light filled the space. He had the Sunstone out. He held it cupped in his hands, and the light washed over the tunnel we were in. It was an old sewer main, wide enough for two people to walk abreast. The brick walls were slick with moisture and patches of pale, phosphorescent moss. The water in the central channel was a sheet of black, unmoving ice. It was grim. It was terrifying. But with the stone’s light, it was at least visible.

He held the stone out to me. “Here. You look like you need this more than I do.”

I stared at him, then at the stone. My hand automatically went to the pocket where I’d kept it, where the memory of its warmth still lingered. I was suspicious. Every instinct I had screamed that this was a trick, that he was trying to lull me into a false sense of security before he slit my throat and took the stone for himself. In Glasthaven, no one gave away warmth for free. It was the ultimate price.

But my body betrayed me. I was shivering, not just from the cold but from the shock of the fight and the fall. My teeth were chattering so hard I could barely speak. The sight of that warm, pulsing light was a siren’s call.

Slowly, hesitantly, I reached out and took it. The moment my fingers closed around its smooth surface, the warmth shot up my arm, a jolt of pure life. The shivering began to subside. I hugged it to my chest, closing my eyes and just breathing in its heat. It felt like the first breath after being held underwater for too long. When I opened my eyes, Kevin was watching me, his expression unreadable in the soft glow.

“How did you know my name?” I asked, my voice a hoarse whisper.

He leaned back against the slimy wall, crossing his arms. He looked tired now, the witty bravado stripped away, leaving something harder and older in its place. “I make it my business to know things, Lucy. I knew the Lord Regent was bringing in a Sunstone. I knew his security was arrogant. And I knew the best thief in the Narrows was a girl named Lucy who was desperate to keep her little brother alive.”

My blood ran cold again, a feat I hadn’t thought possible while holding a miniature sun. “You… you’ve been watching me?”

“Keeping an eye out,” he corrected. “There are worse things in this city than the Ice Guard. Things that are drawn to a power like this.” He nodded at the stone in my hands. “I was hoping to acquire it before you did. You were just faster. And, I admit, more creative with your entry points.”

The mention of my brother made my throat tighten. “If you know about Finn, you know why I need this. It’s not just a score for me.”

“I know,” he said, his voice softer now. “Which is why we’re in a bit of a predicament.”

We found a slightly drier alcove off the main tunnel, a forgotten maintenance junction filled with the rusted skeletons of old machinery. We sat down, the stone resting on the ground between us. The space was too small to sit far apart, so we huddled close, our shoulders almost touching, both of us leaning into the sphere of golden warmth cast by the artifact. The immediate, primal generosity of sharing this heat forged a quick, tense bond. The witty banter was gone, replaced by a heavy silence filled with the reality of our situation. We were trapped beneath a frozen city, hunted, with a treasure that was also a massive, glowing liability.

The silence stretched. In the quiet, every drip of water sounded like a footstep. Every gust of air from some distant grate sounded like a whisper. The Underbelly was alive, and it didn't feel friendly.

“So what are these ‘worse things’?” I finally asked, needing to break the tension. “You’re not talking about sewer ghouls or frost spiders, are you? I can handle those.”

Kevin shook his head. He picked up a loose piece of rusted metal and began to scratch a design into the grime on the floor. His eyes were distant, focused on a memory I couldn't see. “No. Nothing so simple. The old stories, the ones from before the Great Curse… they say the winter wasn’t empty. They say it has a hunger. An appetite.”

I watched the shape he was drawing take form. It was a complex, star-like pattern. Six points, sharp and geometric. It looked vaguely familiar, like something I’d seen on ancient tapestries in the city archives I’d once broken into.

“The legends call them Frost-Eaters,” he continued, his voice low and serious. “Things of ice and shadow and deep, abyssal cold. They don't eat food. They eat heat. They eat life. They eat fire. In the old days, when the sun still shone on Glasthaven, they were weak, slumbering things, hiding in the deepest, coldest places. But when the Great Curse fell…”

“It was a banquet,” I finished for him, a knot of ice forming in my stomach. “You’re saying this thing…” I gestured to the Sunstone, which was pulsing gently between us, a warm and steady heartbeat. “…it’s like ringing a dinner bell for them?”

“The loudest dinner bell this city has heard in a century,” he confirmed grimly. “The Ice Guard are soldiers. They can be fought, tricked, avoided. But the Frost-Eaters… they don’t hunt you. They’re drawn to the warmth, like moths to a flame. They are forces of nature. You can’t fight a hurricane, Lucy. You can only run from it.”

A cold dread, deeper than any I had ever felt, began to seep into me. All I had wanted was to save Finn. To bring a little bit of warmth into our frozen lives. Now, it seemed I had invited a nightmare to our doorstep.

“Why do you want it, then?” I asked. “If it’s so dangerous, why were you after it?”

He stopped his drawing and looked at me, his gaze intense. “Because there’s a way to break the Curse. To bring the sun back to Glasthaven. And it starts with that stone. But it has to be used correctly, in the right place, at the right time. Carrying it around like a hand-warmer is the most dangerous thing you can possibly do.”

Break the Curse? The idea was so audacious, so far beyond the scope of my own small, desperate plans, that I could only stare at him. Everyone knew the Curse was permanent. It was a fact of life, like ice and stone and death. To even suggest it could be broken was madness. Or hope. And I wasn't sure which was more dangerous.

As he spoke, a strange thing began to happen. The Sunstone, which had been glowing with a steady, comforting light, began to flicker. Its warm, golden hue wavered, and for a split second, a pulse of icy blue light flared from its core. The warmth vanished, replaced by a sudden, biting cold that emanated from the stone itself.

I flinched back, pulling my hand away from it. “What’s happening?”

Kevin’s eyes went wide with alarm. He scrambled forward, his face pale in the flickering light. “No… not already. It’s too soon. They’re aware of it. They’re tasting it.”

The stone pulsed again, another wave of blue light, another wave of unnatural cold. It was no longer a miniature sun. It felt like a shard of a frozen star. The air in our small alcove dropped in temperature so fast that our breath began to fog heavily. A thin layer of frost instantly bloomed on the rusted machinery around us.

I held the stone in my palm, suddenly terrified of it. It was vibrating, a low hum that I could feel in the bones of my hand. The light stabilized, but it wasn't the same. The golden warmth was still there, but it was thinner, and at its heart, a cold blue speck of light now burned.

Then came the pain. It was a sharp, searing agony on the back of my hand, the one that had been closest to the stone. I cried out, dropping the artifact. It rolled across the grimy floor, its tainted light casting long, distorted shadows that writhed like living things.

I cradled my hand to my chest, panting. It felt like I’d pressed it against a hot stove, but the sensation was wrong. It wasn’t a burn. It was… a freezing. A deep, impossible cold that seemed to be boring its way into my skin.

“Lucy, let me see,” Kevin said, his voice tight with urgency. He gently took my wrist and turned my hand over so it faced the stone’s light.

On the back of my hand, etched into my skin as if branded there, was a mark. It was a perfectly symmetrical, six-pointed snowflake of raised, ice-white flesh. It seemed to glow with its own faint, malevolent light, a stark contrast to my cold-reddened skin. It was the exact same pattern Kevin had just been tracing in the dirt.

I stared at it, my mind refusing to comprehend what it was seeing. It didn’t hurt anymore. The searing cold had been replaced by a complete and utter numbness, a dead patch of skin that I could no longer feel. But I could feel the presence of the mark. It was a foreign object, a parasite of ice grafted onto my body.

Kevin let out a long, slow breath, a sound that was half-curse, half-prayer. He didn't look at me. He stared at the brand on my hand, and for the first time since I’d met him, I saw genuine fear in his eyes.

“It’s marked you,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the dripping water. “It’s tasted you. Now, wherever you go… they can follow.”

The stone on the floor pulsed again, a cold blue heartbeat in the dark. The six-pointed brand on my skin wasn't just cold; it was a cold that had a voice, and it was whispering my name.