A pale dawn lighted the Frostbound Gate in a wash of silvery pink. I stood before the towering ice doors, breath caught in my chest. Beyond those gates lay the Frostbound Courts—Seraphina's ancestral home—and today she would reclaim her place among them. It was a journey more fraught than any battlefield: a return to roots she had both cherished and shattered, an appeal to tradition she had willingly abandoned, and a test of the peace we had forged.
Seraphina adjusted her cloak, its hem embroidered with both frost runes and ember glyphs, a symbol of her dual loyalties to the Frostbound Houses and the Academy. She carried no crown, only a circlet of silver and glass in her hand. Beside her stood Astraea in full regalia of iceplate armor, Zephira with her blades at rest, Yuria humming with contained lightning energy, Valmira cradling the Codex, and I with my Architect's staff in hand.
"We'll walk with you," I said softly. "But you must speak for yourself."
