[POV Liselotte]

  Winter in Whirikal was not cruel, but it possessed a solemnity that seeped deeper than the cold itself.

  From the window of the safe house King William had granted us—a discreet building of stone and dark wood in the upper district—I watched the snow fall with an almost reverent delicacy. It was not the furious storm that shed the northern peaks; it was a silent descent of crystalline fkes that settled on the rooftops as if the sky itself feared waking the city. Whirikal looked imposing beneath that white mantle, a jewel of granite and frost, yet as my eyes followed the smoking chimneys, a stab of nostalgia settled in my chest, one I couldn’t shake.

  Only a few days had passed since our meeting with Ronan at the Guild, and the tension surrounding the “other dimensions” still vibrated in the back of my mind. However, as I checked the mental calendar I still carried from my previous life, something struck me so sharply it stole my breath.

  It was te December.

  In my original world, this icy air and the lights in the windows would mean only one thing. But here, on this continent of magic, demon wars, and rigid hierarchies, the concept of Christmas was a bnk page. An absolute absence.

  I turned toward the interior of the room. Leah was sitting near the firepce, wrapped in a thick wool bnket that concealed her slender frame. A book on ancient history rested on her p, but her eyes were lost in the hypnotic dance of the embers. She wasn’t reading; she was simply existing in that suspended space of waiting her father had imposed before her official return to the pace.

  “Leah,” I finally said, breaking the silence that had grown too heavy.

  She looked up, and for a moment I saw the fire reflected in her pupils.

  “Yes, Lotte?”

  “Have you noticed the date? This year is almost over.”

  Leah frowned slightly, a small crease forming between her brows.

  “The date? I suppose you’re right. The winter solstice has passed, and the scribes will soon change the annual seals. Why do you mention it with that expression?”

  I leaned against the window frame, trying to make my voice sound casual, as though recalling a trivial detail from a forgotten book.

  “It’s just that… years ago, I read a very old book. A tome that spoke of nds so distant they don’t even appear on the Royal Tower’s maps. In those pces, around this time of year, they celebrate something called Christmas.”

  The name—so familiar to me and so foreign to her—hung in the warm air of the room.

  “Christmas?” Leah repeated, tasting the sylbles. “I’ve never heard that term in theology csses or guild records. Is it a military victory celebration?”

  I offered her a gentle smile, one weighted with a mencholy I tried to disguise as academic curiosity.

  “No, nothing like that. It has nothing to do with kings, borders, or conquests. It’s a celebration about… being together. About light in the heart of the deepest winter darkness. It’s about remembering those we love and sharing what we have, no matter how little.”

  Leah closed the book completely, giving me her full attention.

  “Sharing? Like a charity banquet?”

  “Something more personal,” I continued, moving closer to the fire. “In those stories, people decorated their homes with pine branches and lights. They gathered with family and friends to eat special foods prepared only once a year. And most importantly… they exchanged gifts.”

  “Gifts?” she asked, tilting her head.

  “Yes. But not gifts given for protocol or political alliances. They were small things—handmade or bought with effort—just to tell the other person: ‘I thought of you. I’m gd you’re alive and here with me.’”

  The fire crackled loudly, breaking the silence that followed my words. Leah lowered her gaze to her hands resting atop the bnket. After everything she had endured—the cell, the isotion, her father’s doubt—the idea of a celebration devoted entirely to affection seemed to move her more than I expected.

  “It sounds… like something this world needs,” she whispered. “Especially now, with those rifts and shadows Ronan spoke about. A light that doesn’t depend on magic, but on us.”

  I knelt beside her, feeling the warmth of the embers against my cheeks.

  “Would you like to try it, Leah? It doesn’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to follow the book’s rules. We could recreate it here, just for us.”

  Leah looked up, and for the first time in days, I saw a spark of genuine excitement in her eyes.

  “Here? Just the three of us… and Cire?”

  “And Chloé, of course. Though I’m afraid she’ll be the hardest one to convince to wear decorations.”

  Leah ughed softly, a sound that warmed the room more than the fire.

  “I think I’d like that very much, Lotte. Let’s do it.”

  The following days were a whirlwind of secret activity. I used our “supply runs” as an excuse to roam the markets of Whirikal with a mission the merchants couldn’t quite understand.

  “You’re looking for red fabric in that exact shade? It’s very eye-catching for an adventurer, miss,” a tailor said, scratching his head as he showed me a roll of scarlet velvet.

  “It’s for a… visual experiment,” I replied with an enigmatic smile, paying with the coins we’d earned on our st mission.

  I bought white silk ribbons, small silver bells that chimed with a crystalline sound, and spices that smelled of cinnamon and clove—ingredients that were maddeningly difficult to find in local stores. My sister, Cire, was the first to suspect something odd was going on.

  I found her in the kitchen, staring at a sack of nuts and apples I had just brought in.

  “Sister… you’re plotting something,” Cire decred, crossing her arms over her chest. “You have that look you get when you’re about to cause mischief—but brighter.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cire,” I lied, trying to hide the golden thread peeking out of my pocket.

  “Don’t lie to me. When you smile like that, things usually happen that end with me wearing a costume or eating strange food. What’s with all the red?”

  “It’s a surprise. Just be patient.”

  Chloé, on the other hand, was far harder to fool. In her semi-human form, her sense of smell caught every change in the house. I kept finding her watching me from the hallway shadows, her white ears twitching with curiosity.

  “You smell like sugar and pine resin,” she commented one afternoon, appearing out of nowhere behind me. “And that metallic noise in your bag is annoying. Are we under attack by goblins?”

  “No, Chloé. It’s… Christmas. You’ll see.”

  “Christmas,” she growled skeptically, flicking her tail. “If it can’t be eaten or fought, I don’t see the point. But since you’re the one organizing it, I suppose I won’t compin.”

  The chosen night finally arrived. Outside, the snow fell more heavily, creating a natural barrier between us and the rest of the world. The main hall of the house was decorated with pine garnds Leah and I had secretly braided together, and small spheres of magical light I had enchanted to glow with a warm golden hue, imitating the lights of my former home.

  I retreated to my room for the most difficult part of the pn: the outfits. Using my basic sewing skills and a bit of magic to adjust the measurements, I managed to recreate three versions of Santa Cus’s outfit.

  When I finished, I looked at myself in the mirror. The red velvet stood out against my skin, and the white fur trim (synthetic, of course) gave it that ridiculous yet endearing touch I remembered from old movies. I put on the pom-pom hat and sighed.

  “Here we go.”

  I walked to Leah’s room and knocked on the door.

  “Leah! It’s time.”

  The door opened, and Leah froze. She looked me up and down, lingering on the hat and dark boots.

  “Lotte…?” she murmured, blinking several times. “What… what are you wearing?”

  “Merry Christmas!” I excimed with an energy that made her take a step back. “This is the Santa outfit. The bearer of gifts, the spirit of the celebration. It’s… traditional.”

  Leah burst into ughter, trying to cover her mouth with her hand.

  “You look… absolutely adorable, but also very strange. Do people really dress like that in that pce from the book?”

  “Absolutely everyone,” I lied shamelessly, handing her a second identical outfit. “And now it’s your turn. As the future queen of Whirikal, you must lead by example.”

  “Me? Dressed in bright red?”

  “Come on, Leah. It’s part of the experience. You can’t celebrate Christmas if you don’t feel like you’re part of it.”

  Ten minutes ter, Leah stepped out of the room. The outfit fit her perfectly; the red complemented her noble bearing, and the slightly crooked hat atop her hair gave her an air of vulnerability and joy that made me smile with pride.

  “I feel like I lost a bet with a drunken bard,” she commented, tugging at the jacket.

  “You look amazing, Leah. Truly.”

  Our next victim was Cire. When we entered her room, she simply sighed and put her hands to her head.

  “I knew the red had a dark purpose,” Cire said, though she didn’t resist much when we handed her the outfit. Deep down, she enjoyed these antics too.

  Finally, we went downstairs to the hall, where Chloé was waiting by the firepce. When she saw the three of us arrive dressed in red and white, she jumped to her feet, her tail fur bristling.

  “Is this a cult? Have we been possessed by a demon of extravagance?” she asked, backing toward the kitchen.

  “Nothing like that, Chloé,” I said, approaching her with a headband featuring two felt-covered reindeer antlers and small bells. “It’s your turn. Hold out your hand.”

  “Not in your dreams, Liselotte.”

  “It’s for Leah,” I added, using the tone I knew was her weakness. “She needs this to be special.”

  Chloé looked at Leah, who gave her a pleading look with her rge blue eyes. The wolf-girl sighed, a sound halfway between a growl and resignation, and allowed me to pce the antlers on her head. She gnced at a nearby mirror, moving her real ears between the fake ones.

  “If any of the other adventurers at the guild see me like this, I’ll have to kill them all,” she decred, though she didn’t remove the headband. The sound of the bells every time she moved her head was simply adorable.

  The table was set with a feast that, while modest by pace standards, was the warmest we had ever shared. There was freshly baked bread with honey, venison stew with aromatic herbs, baked apples with cinnamon, and a hot drink I had improvised by mixing fruit juice and spices, trying to recreate the taste of punch.

  We sat around the table, illuminated by candlelight and fire. Cire surveyed the decorations with a smile she no longer tried to hide.

  “It’s… really beautiful, sister. There’s something about this atmosphere that makes you forget there’s a war outside and that the world is a complicated pce.”

  Leah nodded, holding her cup with both hands.

  “It’s the first time in years I don’t feel like I have to be a princess or a prisoner. I feel like I’m just… Leah.”

  “That’s the point,” I replied, raising my cup. “To create a refuge where time stops.”

  “And what comes next?” Cire asked after we finished eating. “Is there some battle ritual or sacrifice?”

  “No,” I ughed. “Now, according to the book’s tradition, we tell stories. Stories that remind us why hope matters.”

  I cleared my throat, and as the fire crackled, I began to recount Christmas stories I remembered in fragments from my childhood. I spoke of an old man who traveled the world in a single night to reward kindness; of small lights that guided lost travelers through the snow; of unexpected truces in the middle of battlefields where soldiers id down their weapons for one night to share bread.

  Leah listened with complete attention, her eyes shining with every word. Cire leaned against my shoulder, and Chloé—though she pretended not to care—had curled up at Leah’s feet, her reindeer antlers softly jingling every time she sighed.

  “They’re beautiful stories, Lotte,” Leah said when I finished. “They sound like… necessary lies. Lies that help us endure the truth of winter.”

  “Sometimes,” I replied softly, gazing toward the window where the snow continued to fall, “creating something new—a tradition that didn’t exist—is the most powerful way to build a home. It doesn’t matter if Whirikal doesn’t have Christmas on its calendars. We have it now.”

  Leah stood up and, to my surprise, wrapped her arms around me in a firm, warm embrace.

  “Thank you, Lotte. For bringing this light into my life when all I could see was darkness.”

  We stayed there, united in that small hall decorated with pine and magic—four souls bound together by fate in the strangest of ways. Outside, the world continued its indifferent course; dimensions still threatened to tear reality apart, and crowns still weighed heavily on kings’ heads.

  But that night, in that house protected by snow, time stood still. And though the rest of the world didn’t know it, Christmas had arrived in Whirikal to stay in our hearts.

  “Merry Christmas,” I whispered, as Chloé finally fell asleep with her tail curled around Leah and Cire closed her eyes beside me.

  That night, hope was not an abstract concept.

  It was the taste of cinnamon, the red of velvet, and the warmth of the people I loved.

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