Klaus didn't speak much the next morning.

He barely touched the warm broth his mother set in front of him. When she asked if he'd slept, 

he just nodded and looked away.

Outside, snow fell in thin whispering flurries. 

Scattered across rooftops and gathered in the creaking joints of fences. 

Isvaldr moved slowly beneath the weight of cold villagers wrapped in heavy furs, heads bowed, muttering their morning prayers to ward off spirits no one had seen but everyone feared.

No one noticed the boy slip away.

Klaus stood at the edge of the woods, his cloak pulled tight, boots half buried in snow.

The path ahead was quiet. 

As though the forest was waiting.

He had returned from it before sunrise wet, 

shaking, frostbitten to the bone.

But now he was back, drawn to the trees.

Like something unfinished waited beyond them.

Because of what happened.

The beast. The voice. The ice.

And the fox.

He had watched it die ripped open in the snow. 

But deep in his chest, 

something refused to believe it. 

His instincts told him it wasn't over.

And he was right.

There a flicker of movement between branches. 

A blur of white, too fast for the eye.

Then, two piercing blue eyes met his from the shadow of the trees.

The fox.

She stepped forward slowly. 

Her fur shimmered against the falling snow, 

brighter than anything around her. 

She limped slightly, her body thin, 

but she bled no more. 

No wound. 

No scar. 

Klaus held his breath.

"You're... alive."

The fox tilted her head.

He glanced behind him no villagers, no eyes.

He knelt and stretched out a hand.

The fox hesitated, then stepped close, 

pressing her nose into his palm.

She was warm.

Not fire warm. 

But real. 

Steady. 

Like a breath against skin.

"I'll hide you," Klaus said under his breath. "They can't see you."

He pulled her close beneath his cloak and hurried back through Isvaldr's winding paths, 

heart pounding. 

If the elders caught even a glimpse of her,

a Kono beast, touched by mana,

they'd sound the alarm. 

Brand her as cursed. 

Dangerous. 

They'd burn her in the snow without a second thought.

He slipped into the house and shut the door.

His mother sat by the hearth, tending the fire. She looked up.

"Klaus?"

He didn't answer. He opened his cloak.

And the fox blinked in the firelight.

His mother stared.

Her face went still.

"That-" Her voice caught in her throat. "That's a frost fox. A Kono beast. What in the gods' names are you doing with it?"

"She followed me," Klaus said quickly. "She's not wild. She's not like the stories-"

"Get rid of it," she said sharply. She stood, backing away. "Klaus, you don't understand. These creatures, people have died from less. If the elders find it here-"

"They'll kill her!" Klaus snapped. "They won't even ask why she's here. She's not dangerous."

His mother looked at him, truly looked. 

At the pleading in his eyes. 

The way his arms curled protectively around the fox.

And something deeper in him she couldn't name,

 but had always sensed, even since he was a baby.

"She shouldn't have followed you," she muttered. "This... this is a sign."

Klaus stepped forward. "Please. Just for a while. Let her stay. I'll hide her. No one will see her. I swear it."

His mother hesitated. She glanced at the fox, 

so still, so calm. 

Its eyes watched her, not like an animal's, 

but like it understood.

Her expression softened, barely.

"I should tell the elders," she said, voice trembling. "But I won't."

Relief washed over Klaus.

"Thank you."

"I'm doing this for you," she said, still not taking her eyes off the fox. "Not for her. You're my son. And I know you wouldn't bring something like this home unless-"

She trailed off.

"I'll keep it quiet. But if anything happens, anything. you come to me. First. Do you understand?"

Klaus nodded.

He brought the fox to the back room, a small space with old furs and carved bits of wood from winters past. He made her a soft nest and sat beside her as the day faded into dusk.

The fox didn't sleep. She watched him with eyes that didn't seem to blink. Occasionally, they flicked toward the frost gathering slowly on his fingertips.

That night, Klaus dreamed.

He stood beneath a sky fractured with broken stars, a cold wasteland stretching beyond the horizon.

The white fox sat beside him but older, larger, 

her eyes glowing silver. 

Her breath curled like mist.

From the darkness, a voice echoed:

"You wield the key of the world in your soul."

He awoke in silence. The fox was curled against him, pressed to his chest like a guardian.

Outside, a blizzard had begun to fall.

Inside, a boy and a beast rested beneath the weight of something ancient.