Fated mates.
Graham scoffed, dragging a hand through his hair. How stupid he’d been.
She was a queen. He was just a man. Not even a prince. Not even close.
The village stirred around him as he reached its edge. Smoke curled from the chimneys. Market stalls were being set up for the day, their awnings snapping in the wind. Children darted through slush-patched streets, their laughter a sharp contrast to the noise in his head.
Graham cut across the square and headed toward the old barracks. It wasn’t much—a few repurposed buildings on the outer edge of town. It was where the soldiers who survived the Troll Wars had been quartered. His men. His brothers. The ones who’d bled beside him in the dirt and snow.
The land was hard here. Rocky, uneven, half-frozen most of the year. Nothing grew right. Not like in Fenvalen. He couldn’t go back there. The past was buried under too much snow and blood.
Greymoor was the next best thing. It had give. Beneath the frost and pine, the earth held promise. He’d walked the ridge lines, tested the soil with his own hands. Things could grow there—barley, root vegetables, maybe even fruit trees with enough tending. It was land that didn’t demand blood for its loyalty, only sweat. That was a bargain Graham understood.
More than that, it was quiet. Remote enough to slip under the queens’ watchful gazes. Close enough that if Raveena ever needed him, he could be there before nightfall.
No courts. No crowns. No games played with daughters and dowries. Just land. Men and women side by side, building something worth passing down. A different kind of kingdom. One not ruled but lived in.
Raveena had promised it to him for the price of Snow White's head.
Snow had promised him the same boon for the same price.
Graham stared out at the gray fields, jaw tight. If either woman made good on their word, he and his men could build something that lasted. Not just barracks but homes. A future.
But which of them would keep her word?
Raveena—the woman who ruled with silk and steel, who seduced with her eyes and lied with her silence? The one who made him feel like a king one minute and a fool the next?
Or Snow—the girl with ice in her veins and fire behind her smile, who wore innocence like armor and had the gall to command his loyalty like it was her birthright?
One offered him passion, the other purpose.
One knew him in every intimate way and still chose power over him. The other needed him—not for his body but his sword, his name, his fury.
Two women.
Two promises.
One future.
And not a damn bit of trust left in him.
Graham turned away from the land, from the barracks, from the castle looming in the distance. The snow was falling again—soft, quiet, relentless. Just like fate.
He didn’t know which queen would win this war of wits. But he knew he wouldn’t lose again.
The barracks smelled like smoke and steel and men who'd fought too long in the cold. The scent hit Graham the moment he opened the door—sweat, leather, the charred meat someone had been roasting over a barrel of fire in the far corner. It was a welcome smell, grounding in a way the perfume-choked halls of the castle could never be. Here, the air was honest. Here, no one pretended to be something they weren’t.
The men looked up as he stepped inside. A chorus of laughter and hoarse shouts erupted around the room.
“Well, look who finally remembered he’s one of us.”
“Graham the Ghost returns.”
“Thought you’d defected to royal service. Or royal bedchambers.”
Graham gave a tired grunt of acknowledgment as a few of them rose to clasp arms with him. Their grips were hard, familiar. Real. These were the brothers he’d bled beside in the snow, men who’d held the line when the world threatened to fall in.
“You missed the parade,” said Corin. The red-bearded giant had soot on his cheeks and a grin full of mischief. “Should’veseen it. The noble ladies were out in full frost. More than one winked at me."
