Page 217 of Severed Heir

“Sivil, do you think we could make ice necklaces later today?”

Godsdamn ice necklaces. I was half-dead in a snowfield, barely breathing, frost crawling up my spine and cracks that I didn’t even know could freeze, and she wanted to make necklaces. With someone named Sivil?

But it wrecked me. Hearing her again shattered every wall I’d built to survive. Because I knew it was her. Not a dream. Not a memory.

Her.

I didn’t care that my lungs were failing. That my skin felt like stone. I had to see her. Even if it meant collapsing at her feet. Even if it meant begging her to release me from this bond she hadn’t even realized we shared.

So I walked.

I didn’t stop. Not when the cold cut through my leather. Not when my legs buckled beneath me. Not until the moon rose high, casting silver shadows across the village. Not until I reached the frozen path that wound toward her estate.

At the edge of the woods, I opened a portal. I had marked it with shadows, using the last of my strength, just in case I didn’t make it back.No. Not in case. I would survive. Even if she hated me, I’d return here. Because the more I tried to forget her, the more I wanted her. Maybe Father was right. Maybe I had lost my godsdamn mind.

Her estate rose above the lake, half-wood, half-stone. The iced trees bowed around it like quiet sentries. The garden on the left was dusted in frost.

And all I saw was Klaus.

It felt like stepping into a fairytale sculpted from frost and grief, and I wasn’t ready for this. I was the villain on her doorstep. I knew it. But still, I knocked.

“The post is here early,”came her voice inside my mind. Always clipped. Just small, fragmented pieces of thought.

A moment later, the iron door creaked open. And there she was. Barefoot, wrapped in a sheer nightgown that clung to her skin like a second breath. Her pale arms were folded tightly around her middle. That streak of white framed her jaw with effortless perfection. Her cheeks were flushed, kissed by sleep and cold. Her lips were parted, like she’d just woken from a dream.

Through the thin fabric, her breasts peaked in the cold air. And gods, she had no idea how devastating she looked.

She didn’t speak. And that silence wrecked me more than any scream ever could. I was going to ruin her.

“Who are you?” she asked, voice hoarse with sleep. But the moment her eyes landed on the shadow relic in my palm, realization struck.

My face had been plastered across every Serpent Press headline. She knew who I was.

“He looks cold. I should invite him in… he’s a Serpent, it would be rude not to.”

No. If she spoke what she was thinking, if she asked, I wouldn’t have the strength to walk away. I’d give her every broken piece of myself and take whatever parts of her she was willing to offer.

No, I wouldn’t stop there. I’d ruin her for the rest of the world and sleep soundly after. I wasn’t ready for her.

I needed someone to slap me. Or drag me into a snowbank and keep me there until this obsession froze off.

She was Klaus’s sister. That should have been enough to keep these thoughts away.

“Who are you?” she asked.

But through her thoughts, I heard something else.“He needs a shower and food. I could bring him up to my room and have Sivil thaw some soup.”

Her room? She didn’t even know me. Fuck, she had no sense of danger.

Then she rolled her shoulders back, and the strap of her dress slipped down her arm. “Did you want to co—”

“Klaus is dead,” I said.

Silence crashed between us.

Shit. Not like that. That wasn’t the plan. I was supposed to give the letter to her father, maybe read her part aloud if I could stomach it. But I hadn’t even looked at what Klaus wrote. For all I knew, it could have been a confession. A goodbye. Or a joke cruel enough to outlive him.

But the moment I saw her, everything else vanished. All I could think about was the weight of what I carried, and the way she looked at me, like she might ask me in. Like she wanted to.

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