where Barakiel enters the glimmering kingdom of Svalur and is reunited with Nooriyah. Her voice returns to him not first in greeting—but in a memory—and the chapter begins with a flashback that brings together the moment she crossed the snow and the first vision of her new home.

Barakiel stepped through the glowing threshold and into the realm beyond names

The light did not blind him. It cradled him—like water accepting a stone not with splash, but with silence. The snow here shimmered, not white, but pearled, as though lit from beneath by dreams. Trees lined the distant ridges, their trunks clear as glass, their branches flowering with frost that bloomed like lace. The air was colder, yes, but gentler—as though it had been sifted through breath long held by sacred lungs.

Ahead, the sentinel walked with quiet steps across the snow. And Barakiel followed, through winding glades and rising mists, until at last the land opened..

There, carved from a cliff of living ice, stood the palace.

It did not sit on the mountain.

It grew from it.

Its towers spiraled like coral drawn upward by ancient song. Balconies bloomed like petals from glacial stone. Bridges of translucent crystal arced from peak to peak, and over it all, a dome of woven silver curved like a frozen aurora.

And waiting beneath its archway—draped in white robes lined with pale green embroidery, her hair braided down her back, her hands folded at her waist—was Nooriyah.

She stood as if she had always stood there.

And yet, when Barakiel saw her, it was not this moment he saw first.

It was a memory.

She had not cried when the golden bear led her through the trees

She had walked beside it, silent, steady. The snow thickened. The wind hushed. And then, the world had simply… opened.

One moment, she had been in forest. The next, she was standing on a ledge of snow that looked out over a valley of impossible light. The bear walked beside her, but now its fur shimmered. Its form lengthened. Its back straightened

She turned to see it change—slowly, beautifully. Not into a man. Not exactly. But into something between: a figure draped in silver, eyes vast and glacial, bearing neither crown nor weapon, yet clearly king.

And he bowed to her.

“You have come,” he had said.

“I was given,” she had answered.

And with that, the gates of Svalur had opened.

He never asked her name.

He knew it.

where Nooriyah and Barakiel meet again—not as father and daughter bound by earth, but as souls changed by the sacred. The moment is quiet, layered with memory, reunion, and the beginning of understanding.

She did not move when he approached.

Not at first.

Her gaze held him, still and radiant, like a lamp burning behind crystal. Her face was as he remembered it—but more so. The Nooriyah he had raised had always carried stillness, but this one had become stillness itself. Her presence did not press against the world. It softened it. The cold air around her shimmered slightly, as if reluctant to touch her without permission.

Barakiel stopped a few paces from her.

The snow between them was untouched.

And then—

She smiled.

It was small, like a tremor at the edge of a lake, but it rippled through him. The world seemed to tilt, not physically, but spiritually, as if realigning itself to a long-forgotten music. He stepped forward.

She walked into his arms.

There were no words. Not at first. Just her cheek against his chest, her breath warm through the layers of his robe, and his hands trembling as they found her shoulders, her back, the familiar weight of her. They stood that way, in the archway of a palace sculpted by snow and memory, for longer than time allowed.

At last, she pulled away.

Her voice came soft, as if she had waited years to exhale it, “I saw you come through the veil,” she said “I prayed you would.”

Barakiel could not speak.

His throat had closed with something he had not felt since she first slipped her hand from his and walked toward the golden bear—a grief too holy to weep.

“I wanted to call out,” she continued, “when I crossed over. I looked back. But you had already bowed your head.”

He blinked, “I never saw you turn.”

“I did,” she said, “But by then, the world had changed. And I was already ….. being received.”

She turned her gaze upward, toward the towering crystal vaults of Svalur.

“You will understand,” she said, “but not all at once.”

Barakiel touched her face.

“You are well?”

“I am more than well,” she whispered “I am whole.”

where Nooriyah begins to guide Barakiel through the kingdom of Svalur. She speaks with the calm of one who has been remade—not only sheltered, but shaped—and we begin to see the land through the lens of her transformation.

Nooriyah turned, her hand brushing gently against her father’s as she began to walk.

Barakiel followed, slowly at first, reluctant to break the moment, unsure if stepping forward would wake him from what he feared might still be dream. But as the ground moved beneath his feet—soft, humming, luminous—he knew this was not dream. It was invitation made real.

They crossed under the great arch of the palace. Its stone was pale blue, but not cold—smooth as glass, etched with spiral markings that pulsed faintly as they passed . Light travelled through the walls like breath inside a lung, following their movement, welcoming them deeper.

The halls were wide and high, supported by crystalline columns that rose like the trunks of frozen trees. Between them ran channels of glowing water—streams not of liquid, but of slow-moving light. The ceilings glittered with frost patterns that rearranged themselves in silent rhythm, forming shapes Barakiel didn’t understand but felt—like letters in a language once spoken by the soul before the body ever learned speech.

Nooriyah walked beside him with quiet steps, her robe trailing gently across the polished floor. She did not point to the wonders around them. She had no need. Her silence was not omission—it was reverence.

Finally, she spoke again.

“The bear who led me here—his name is Aurelion.”

Barakiel turned his head toward her.

She did not look back.

“He is the Silver King,” she said, “but not in the way kings rule in the world you left behind. He does not sit on a throne to command. He stands in stillness to keep the balance. His voice is used only when needed. And when he speaks, even the air listens.”

She paused, hand resting briefly on a column as they passed.

“When I arrived,” she continued, “I was not afraid. I expected coldness. Isolation. But the land itself seemed to lean toward me, to recognize something in me. I had not yet seen in myself. The wind curved around me like a shawl. The ice beneath my feet did not crack. The animals watched me—not as prey or stranger, but as kin.”

Barakiel said nothing.

There was no room for questions yet—only listening.

“I did not walk alone long,” she said “Aurelion met me where the veil closed behind me. He did not ask my name. He knew it. He did not tell me I was chosen. He showed me—through silence, through how the snow parted, how the palace opened without touch.”

She turned now, her eyes glistening—not with tears, but with depth.

“And I knew,” she said, “that what I had walked into was not a kingdom. It was a remembering.”

where Barakiel walks deeper into the Palace of Svalur and begins to feel its strange grace move through him—not as awe alone, but as a gentle unraveling of everything he once thought permanent.

They entered a vaulted corridor that curved like a great ribbon of ice, arcing toward a chamber that glowed from within. Barakiel’s footsteps no longer echoed. The floor beneath him had shifted—no longer smooth stone, but a surface that felt like compressed crystal dust. It softened his tread, as though the ground wished not to interrupt his thoughts.

He touched the wall as they passed.

It was cool—but pulsed faintly with life. Not warmth, but presence, as though the very stone remembered the names of those who had walked beside it. It responded to his fingertips with a soft flicker of light that faded as he passed.

“The palace listens,” Nooriyah said, noticing, “It records footsteps—not with weight, but with intention”

Barakiel lowered his hand.

“What happens to those who are not ready for what lies here?” he asked quietly.

She glanced at him “They cannot enter.”

“And if they force their way?”

She paused.

Then answered softly, “The veil does not respond to force. It vanishes.”

Barakiel nodded slowly, and something settled inside him—a recognition that the things of the sacred are not defended with violence, but with invisibility.

They came at last to a circular chamber where light poured from the ceiling in soft shafts, like columns of golden snowfall. In the center stood a great basin carved from clear stone, filled with water so still it reflected not only the room, but the heart of the one who looked into it.

Nooriyah stepped forward.

“This is the mirror pool,” she said “Aurelion brought me here my first night He said: ‘Before you may belong to Svalur, you must see how it belongs to you’ I didn’t understand at first. But when I looked into the water…”

She touched the edge of the basin.

“…I saw myself—not as I appeared, but as I was in the mind of the divine. Not a daughter. Not a sacrifice. Not a gift Just Nooriyah—whole Seen Known.”

Barakiel approached the basin.

And when he looked down, he did not see his face.

He saw the back of himself—kneeling at his hearth. And across from him, Nooriyah as a girl, reciting a verse from memory, her lips moving slowly, carefully, reverently.

The water trembled once.

And stilled.

He did not cry.

But his throat ached with something too sacred for weeping.

where Barakiel begins to feel the transformation of his inner self in the presence of Svalur—not as a man being honored, but as one being emptied of fear. Nooriyah speaks of her union with Aurelion not as destiny, but as revelation.

Barakiel stepped back from the mirror pool, breath slow, heart quiet.

Not heavy—quiet.

Like a field after rain, when the earth has drunk and the sky rests.

He turned to Nooriyah, who stood with her hands clasped before her, the light from above tracing delicate patterns across her cheekbones, her brow, her robe. Her eyes were on him—not watching, but waiting, as one waits for a tree to bear fruit or a prayer to return as silence.

“I feared,” Barakiel whispered, “that I had given you to something I did not understand.”

Nooriyah stepped forward and took his hand.

“You gave me to what you trusted,” she said, “And that trust was not misplaced, You did not give me away—you delivered me.”

Barakiel shook his head slowly, “And yet… I never heard your cry.”

She smiled faintly, “Because I never cried.”

They stood there a long moment, beneath the dome of light.

Then, gently, she said, “Would you like to meet him?”

He knew whom she meant.

“Aurelion?” he asked.

She nodded, “He does not wear a crown. He does not stand on ceremony. But he has waited to receive you. He knows what you carry.”

Barakiel furrowed his brow, “I carry nothing now.”

She reached up and placed a hand over his heart.

“You carry the wound of obedience,” she said, “It shines brighter here than gold.”

At that, the chamber shifted—subtly, like a breath drawn through stone. The walls glimmered once and then turned translucent. A great hallway revealed itself beyond, arched and veined with ice that sparkled like the inside of a geode. At the far end stood a doorway carved in the shape of two rising waves.

Nooriyah turned toward it.

“Come,” she said.

“The king will not summon you”

“He will receive you.”

And she led him forward—past the pool, through the glimmering corridor, and into the presence of the one whose silence ruled the land where memory breathes.

where Barakiel is received by Aurelion—not with royal fanfare, but with a silence so complete, so full, it dissolves every barrier between the divine and the human, between nature and faith. This is not just an audience. It is a sacred encounter.

The doors opened without touch.

They did not creak. They did not groan. They simply parted, like light makes room for morning.

Barakiel entered.

The hall was vast, but not grand in the way of palaces. There were no banners. No guards. No throne he could see. The space was curved like a great shell, with walls of translucent ice that breathed light from within. Snowflakes drifted down from a ceiling so high it disappeared into haze, yet none of them touched the floor—they vanished before landing, like blessings spoken but not heard.

At the centre of the hall, surrounded by stillness, stood Aurelion.

He was not robed in gold. He wore no crown, carried no staff. His form was tall, cloaked in white fur lined with silver thread. His hair fell in long braids, adorned with feathers, bone, and frost. His face was both young and ancient. His eyes—those eyes—gleamed like glacier light: endless, cold, and full of mercy.

He did not speak.

He stepped forward.

Barakiel instinctively lowered his gaze—not from fear, but reverence. He felt as if every unspoken prayer, every night of kneeling in an empty room, had gathered into this moment. And now, they looked back at him through this man—not as judgment, but as acknowledgment.

Aurelion raised a hand and placed it gently over Barakiel’s chest.

There was no flash of light. No trembling.

Only stillness.

And in that stillness, Barakiel felt everything:

Nooriyah walking into snow, barefoot and unafraid.

The grain slipping from his cloth, falling behind them like breadcrumbs of fate.

Mahira’s hands, steady despite the tearful prayer pressed into her fingertips.

The brown bear that growled… then bowed.

The psheno that bloomed where even spring dared not wake.

And Nooriyah—his Nooriyah—reborn in this land as something whole.

Aurelion removed his hand.

Barakiel looked up.

And the Silver King bowed his head—to him.

Not as a subject bow to a king.

But as a son bows to a father who has kept the covenant.

Next Chapter: Chapter 7: A Goat That Lays Gold