Amelia screamed in her sleep.
Not loudly.
One word—a name I did not recognize—escaped like it had been dragged from somewhere deep.
Then another.
Her body remained still beneath the blanket.
Her face did not.
Pain.
Anger.
Grief.
The room temperature dropped.
Fast.
I woke from rest on the curtain rod and nearly fell as the fabric stiffened beneath my feet.
Frost spread over the window, then crossed the frame and reached the wall in branching white veins.
The metal edge of Mayra’s desk turned pale.
A glass of water formed a skin of ice.
Mayra was not in the room.
She had stayed with a friend after a late study session.
Good.
One less human to freeze.
Amelia whispered again.
“Winter Crown.” The words meant nothing to me.
Then: “The eastern gate—” Her breath caught.
“No.” Cold pressure filled the room.
The Codex activated.
— High-grade cryogenic biological field detected.
Current Frost Resistance I mitigating environmental exposure.
Warning: Prolonged proximity may exceed trait tolerance.
— Leave.
Obvious.
The bathroom offered cover.
The gap beneath the door might lead to the hallway.
Anywhere was better than remaining beside uncontrolled power.
Amelia’s hand clenched against the blanket.
Frost formed around her fingers.
“They betrayed—” A name followed.
“Theron.” Then another.
“Vaelora.” The cold strengthened.
Ice crept across the floor toward Mayra’s bed.
The overhead light flickered once as condensation formed along its metal frame.
This was not cultivation.
It had no rhythm.
No precision.
The cold surged with Amelia’s breathing, rising whenever the nightmare pulled her deeper.
Memory.
Something from before this room.
Before Westbridge.
I released the curtain.
At first, I flew away from her.
Correct decision.
I reached the bathroom doorway and hovered in the slightly warmer air near the frame.
Amelia whispered, “Burning.” The word stopped me.
More followed.
“My people.” A sound caught in her throat.
Not a scream this time.
Something smaller and worse.
The frost reached the leg of Mayra’s bed.
I looked toward the door.
Then back at Amelia.
This was none of my business.
She was a dangerous blood source.
A high-grade anomaly.
A former whatever-she-was whose sleeping body could turn a dorm room into winter.
I should leave.
Instead, I flew toward her.
Idiot.
Probably.
I circled once above the bed, searching for a safe place.
Her aura came in waves.
Each one struck my body like opening a freezer door at mosquito scale.
Frost Resistance kept my wings functional.
Barely.
I landed on the blanket near her hand—not on her skin, not close enough for an accidental bite.
Important.
Her fingers twitched.
I prepared to launch.
They curled instead, scraping frost from the fabric.
Amelia whispered, “Hold the line.” Her voice changed.
For one instant, it carried command rather than fear.
The room seemed larger around it.
I imagined walls of ice beneath a dark sky, banners snapping in snow, people waiting for one woman to tell them whether to stand or run.
Then the command broke.
“No,” she said.
“No, I ordered—” The rest vanished into a sharp breath.
I did not know what she had ordered.
I did not know who Theron or Vaelora were, or what the Winter Crown had been.
I understood failure.
I understood waking with everything gone.
My own memories remained fragments: a woman calling me; a younger voice; a kitchen light; hands pushing food toward me while I said I was busy.
Nothing clear enough to hold.
Still, the grief in Amelia’s voice felt familiar.
I moved closer to the warmth of her hand.
The blanket beneath me had frozen stiff.
A thin line of frost formed around my front legs.
Pain stabbed through the joints.
The Codex warned again.
— Exposure approaching Frost Resistance I tolerance limit.
— I should have left.
I stayed.
Not because I could help much.
I was a mosquito.
I could not wake her safely, speak, or drag her out of the nightmare.
But I could remain.
I lifted into a short hover and buzzed near her fingers—low, steady, nothing like the sharp sound of panic.
Her breathing hitched.
The next wave of cold weakened.
I landed again.
Amelia’s fingers moved.
Her hand rose abruptly.
I prepared for impact.
Her eyes opened.
Alert instantly.
Her hand stopped less than an inch from me.
She saw where I was: alive inside the frost, beside her fingers, not feeding.
Her expression shifted from threat to confusion.
The cold did not disappear immediately.
It receded in slow layers, as if she had to pull it back from every object in the room.
Amelia sat up and looked around.
Ice on the walls.
Frost on Mayra’s desk.
A frozen rim around the water glass.
Shame crossed her face before she hid it.
Then she looked at Mayra’s empty bed.
Relief.
Only after confirming the room was empty did she return her attention to me.
Her gaze moved over my wings and legs, checking for damage.
She lowered one fingertip close enough that I could feel its heat without being forced nearer.
“Did I hurt you?” Two short buzzes.
No.
Not seriously.
She did not know the code yet, but my movement—or lack of it—seemed to answer.
Amelia looked at the frost around my feet.
“I used to control it in my sleep.” The admission was almost inaudible.
“Before the eastern gate.” She stopped there, jaw tightening as if the rest of the sentence had teeth.
I remembered a phone vibrating beside a keyboard.
A woman’s name on the screen.
My own hand turning the phone facedown because I would call later.
The image vanished before I could read the name.
Loss did not require matching worlds to recognize itself.
“You stayed,” Amelia said.
One low buzz.
Yes.
She could not know the code.
Not yet.
Maybe tone was enough.
Amelia lowered her hand onto the blanket near me, palm down, fingers relaxed.
Not trapping.
Not touching.
“Why?” No language.
No answer.
I groomed one antenna because apparently my dignity still required maintenance during emotional crises.
The corner of her mouth moved.
“You are either the bravest insect I have ever encountered,” she murmured, “or the most foolish.” Probably both.
I gave the idiot buzz very softly.
She looked at me.
Then laughed.
Not the quiet breath she usually allowed herself.
A small, genuine laugh, fragile enough that I felt as though moving might break it.
I stayed still.
Amelia rubbed frost from one wrist.
Without the cold surrounding her, she looked exhausted.
Younger than usual for a moment, then impossibly older.
“The Winter Crown is gone,” she whispered.
Not to me, exactly.
Maybe to the room.
“So am I.” I looked at her.
No.
She was here.
Maybe not who she had been.
Maybe not where she belonged.
Still here.
I walked onto the side of her finger.
One step.
Then another.
Amelia froze.
I had never landed on her voluntarily without feeding.
The difference mattered to both of us.
Her skin was warm.
Amelia held perfectly still, allowing me to choose the distance.
For those few seconds, neither of us was what we had been.
She was not an empress, whatever that meant.
I was not a man with hands and a late deadline.
We were simply two people who had survived waking somewhere wrong.
Then I took off before the moment became something I did not understand.
From the curtain, I watched her clean the frost from Mayra’s desk and replace the water glass before her roommate returned.
She moved carefully, erasing evidence of the nightmare.
Before lying down again, she looked toward my hiding place.
“Good night, little anomaly.” I rested on the curtain.
The room stayed warm.
The Codex displayed no trait, no energy, no reward.
Good.
Not everything needed to become a number.