My Enemy Soldier Took an Ice Shard for Me, So I Held His Heart in My Hands to Save Him

The pale Ketterdam sun did little to warm the room, but I had Matthias. His body was a furnace against mine, a solid wall of heat and muscle that had become my home. My fingers traced the faint, silvery lines of scars across his chest, each one a story I was slowly learning to read without wincing. He was asleep, his breathing deep and even, his face finally untroubled. In these quiet moments, he was not the rigid Drüskelle soldier or the haunted prisoner of Hellgate; he was just Matthias, and he was mine.

I leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder, inhaling the clean scent of his skin. His arm tightened around my waist in his sleep, pulling me closer until my front was flush against his back. A familiar warmth pooled low in my belly, a pleasant, humming desire that was never far from the surface when we were like this. This was our sanctuary, this bed, this room. A small island of peace in the chaotic sea of our lives.

The peace was shattered by a sharp, insistent knock on our door.

Matthias was awake instantly, his entire body tensing under my hand. The soldier returned in a blink, his blue eyes alert and scanning the room as if expecting an attack.

“Stay,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble. He swung his legs out of bed, pulling on his trousers with an economy of motion that always fascinated me. The muscles in his back and shoulders shifted as he moved toward the door, a perfect, powerful machine.

I sat up, pulling the sheet to my chest, my heart thudding with a sudden, unwelcome anxiety. Unscheduled visitors in the Barrel were rarely bearers of good news.

He opened the door a crack. I couldn't see who was there, but I heard the low exchange of words. After a moment, Matthias closed the door, a folded piece of paper in his hand. He didn’t look at me. He walked to the small window, his broad back to me as he unfolded the note. The silence stretched, thick and heavy.

“Matthias?” I asked, my voice small.

He didn’t answer. He just stood there, perfectly still, staring at the paper. It was a stillness I recognized—the kind that came before a storm. I slipped out of bed, wrapping the sheet around myself and padding over to him. I placed a hand on his arm. It was rigid, the muscle beneath his skin as hard as stone.

“What is it?” I pressed gently, trying to see the note. He finally lowered it, his gaze fixed on something far beyond the grimy windowpane. His face was a mask of ice, all the warmth from moments before completely gone.

He held the paper out to me. His hand was steady, but I could feel the tremor that ran through his arm. It was Kaz’s distinctive, sharp script. My eyes scanned the words, and a cold dread washed over me, chilling me far more than the morning air.

Unnatural blizzards in northern Fjerda. Entire villages buried. Evidence points to a powerful, rogue Inferni. The Fjerdans are losing control.

My breath caught. Fjerda. The name itself was a wound.

Then I read the final lines. Your knowledge of the terrain and Drüskelle tactics is essential, Helvar. Zenik, your abilities are the only viable countermeasure. A ship leaves at dusk. Be on it.

It wasn’t a request. It was an order. We were being sent back. Back to the ice, back to the hatred, back to the place where our story began with blood and betrayal. I looked up at Matthias. His eyes were the color of a frozen sea, and I knew, with a certainty that terrified me, that he was already there.

His silence was a physical thing, a heavy blanket that smothered the air in the small room. He took the paper from my fingers and set it on the nightstand, his movements precise and devoid of emotion. He turned away from me then, walking back to his side of the bed to gather his clothes. It wasn't a rejection, not exactly. It was a retreat. He was pulling himself inward, building walls of ice and stone around his heart, and I was on the outside.

“Matthias,” I said again, my voice sounding thin and useless.

He didn't respond. He pulled on his shirt, his breeches, his boots. The soldier dressing for duty, the Drüskelle preparing for war. The man I had held only minutes ago, the one whose warmth had seeped into my own skin, was gone. In his place was this cold stranger, his jaw set, his gaze fixed on the wall. The ghosts of Fjerda were in the room with us now, and they were claiming him.

I went to him, my own sheet forgotten on the floor. I wrapped my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my cheek against the rough wool of his shirt. His back was unyielding, a wall of rigid muscle. He didn't move, didn't soften.

“We don’t have to go,” I whispered against his spine, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth. We both knew we did. Kaz Brekker did not make suggestions. “We could disappear. Go south. I’ll eat all the waffles in Novyi Zem and you can get fat and grumpy and forget all about the ice.”

My attempt at levity fell flat, absorbed by the suffocating tension. I felt him take a slow, deep breath, but he remained silent. His stillness was terrifying. It was the quiet of a man staring into his own grave. I knew what he was seeing: the white spires of the Ice Court, the face of his commander, the accusing eyes of his brethren. He was remembering a life where hating me was his sacred duty.

My own fear, a cold, sharp thing, twisted in my gut. I wasn't just afraid for him. I was afraid of the place that had made him, the place where I had been forced to name him a slaver to save him from execution. The memory of his face in that courtroom—the shock, the utter betrayal—was a scar on my own soul. Fjerda held the worst parts of both of us.

I tightened my grip, a desperate anchor. “Matthias, please. Talk to me.”

Finally, he spoke. His voice was rough, hollowed out. “There is nothing to say, Nina. We have our orders.”

He gently unwrapped my arms from his waist and turned to face me. He looked at me, but his eyes were distant, seeing through me to a frozen landscape I could only imagine. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my face, his touch mechanical, almost absent. There was no warmth in it, no connection. It was the touch of a man saying goodbye.

“Get dressed,” he said, his voice flat. “The ship leaves at dusk.”

The walk to the docks was a silent procession. Matthias moved with a stiff, unnatural gait, his long strides eating up the distance between the Barrel and the harbor. He carried our two bags as if they weighed nothing, but I could see the weight he truly carried in the set of his shoulders and the hard line of his jaw. I followed a half-step behind, the cold, damp air seeping into my coat, feeling like a ghost trailing in his wake.

The ship was a dark, hulking thing, its masts like skeletal fingers clawing at the bruised twilight sky. Standing near the gangplank was our team. The division was immediate and stark. Two men stood together, tall and blond in the grey wool and leather of Drüskelle soldiers. Their faces were grim, their stances rigid with suspicion. A few yards away, huddled by a stack of crates, was a girl who couldn't have been more than seventeen. The blue of her Squaller’s kefta was a lonely splash of color in the overwhelming grey. She clutched the embroidered fabric with white-knuckled hands, her wide, terrified eyes fixed on Matthias as we approached.

The older of the two soldiers stepped forward. His face was weathered, a map of old battles and older prejudices. “Helvar,” he greeted, his voice a gravelly baritone. He nodded curtly at Matthias, his pale eyes flicking to me with undisguised contempt before dismissing me entirely.

“Gunnar,” Matthias acknowledged, his tone clipped. He gestured to the other soldier. “This is Erik.”

Erik was younger, his face still holding a trace of boyishness beneath a veneer of hardened duty. He stared at me, his gaze lingering on the crimson of my Corporalki kefta. I met his look without flinching, lifting my chin. He glanced away, but not before I saw the mix of fear and disgust in his eyes.

The young Squaller took a half-step back as Matthias turned his attention to her. “And this is Anya,” he said. His voice softened almost imperceptibly, an attempt at reassurance that fell completely flat.

Anya flinched as if he had shouted, her gaze darting between us. She saw a monster and his witch. The chasm between our two worlds was right here on this dock, a palpable, freezing rift.

“The supplies are loaded,” Gunnar stated, ignoring the girl. “We should get underway before the tide turns.” He looked pointedly at me. “Best secure the luxuries. We travel light in the north. No room for excess.”

It was Erik who added the poison. “Especially with company that has… indulgent appetites,” he murmured, his eyes flicking over my body with a sneer. “One must be careful with Grisha. They are never satisfied.”

The insult, cloaked in feigned practicality, struck me like a physical blow. It was a common Fjerdan barb—that we were unnatural, gluttonous, creatures of insatiable and corrupt desires. My hands curled into fists, my nails digging into my palms. I opened my mouth to deliver a retort that would flay the skin from his bones.

But Matthias was faster.

He didn't raise his voice. He didn't even fully turn his body. He simply tilted his head, fixing Erik with a look so cold it could have frozen the harbor solid.

“Her name,” Matthias said, his voice low and lethally quiet, “is Nina.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle in the frigid air. “You will address her as such. And you will show her your respect.”

Silence. Erik’s face paled, his sneer vanishing. Gunnar’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. Even Anya, the terrified Squaller, seemed to hold her breath. Matthias had drawn a line in the ice, clear and absolute. He turned his head forward again, his gaze returning to the ship, the moment over. But it wasn't. He had walled himself away from me all day, but in that instant, he had built a shield around me instead. He looked at me then, just a quick glance, his blue eyes meeting mine. The frost was still there, the distance hadn't vanished. But beneath it, I saw a flicker of the man I loved—a silent promise that no matter where this journey took us, he was still on my side.