At first, I thought the stairs had led us outside, to an enormous marble square set on a mountaintop. All around us, below us, jagged mountain ranges wrestled with silken teal skies. White clouds danced at our feet. The father of a thousand storms lurked in valleys below us but left our position untouched, so we might enjoy lightning play in clouds miles away.

Then I realized I felt no wind, no cold. The air didn’t swirl around me. The sunlight glinted off a silver lattice leading up above our heads. When I reached out as if to touch the sky, my fingertips rested against invisible cold crystal walls. Perfect, transparent walls.

We were still inside.

In a fallen age, the god-king of winter had fashioned himself a great hall to showcase his domain. And by some miracle, his Quuros destroyers had salvaged it, even as they ruined everything else.

The snow king’s palace …

The view struck me as so miraculous, I nearly forgot to breathe.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Senera said. “The first time I came here, I must have stood here for hours.”

I placed my hand against the clear wall again, watching as my fingers’ warmth left condensation trails against the cold, clear substance. “What are the walls made from?”

“Not a clue.”

The walls were angled. I thought they must meet above our heads, a truncated pyramid flattened to form a small square ceiling—the only opaque section. Here, geometric crystal and silver glittered, crafted to suggest a vast and mighty empire of cold and ice. Crystal shards framed in metals jutted up or crouched down at precision angles, fitted together to form patterns like icicles or snowflakes—or cold and distant stars. The ceiling floated at least a hundred feet high, refracting mage-light so it glittered violet and blue through the crystals.

And like Senera, I might have spent hours just taking in this scene, but voices reminded me we weren’t alone.

In the room’s center, a massive firepit provided the lion’s share of warmth for the great hall. A large iron ring, scorched black by the heat, surrounded the pit and provided a barrier against stray sparks. Tables also circled the firepit, each home to courtiers and nobles—who were all watching us. Most of the dinner guests looked Yoran compared to the “normal” Quuros coloring. Yoran complexions were often white, but also pale blue, violet, or gray. These guests wore their pale hair long but braided up into tall topknots. The men wore beards, braided and decorated with jewelry. And they all preferred to dress in light colors. By comparison, Senera had given me a dress guaranteeing I stood out like a flame burning its way across paper.

If I had hoped to blend in, I put those hopes behind me. Clearly, Senera meant for me to draw attention.