The king might end the game, but the queen decided how it was played. She moved in all directions, saw all angles, set the traps and triggered the end. Take her off the board, and the rest would crumble—slowly but surely. Not because the game was over. But because the fight had already been lost.
Raveena's first husband's death and her empty womb had revealed that pitfall. In the matriarchal Snow Kingdoms, it was the daughters who inherited. Raveena was a widow, not a mother. So her crown, the kingdom, her safe haven, would pass to the last remaining daughter.
Raveena had tried to shape the girl into a queen. In those early days, when she still believed her belly would swell with a true-born princess to solidify her claim to Everfrost and Thornhall, she had been… patient. She had offered Snow lessons in statecraft, in subtext, in how to wield a smile like a dagger and read a room with her eyes half-lowered.
The young princess had shrugged off those lessons with the ease of someone who believed she’d never need them. She’d birdwatched through strategy meetings. Replaced poisons and politics with ponies and pouting. She hadn’t wanted to play the game. Eventually, Raveena had stopped trying to teach her.
Right now, her stepdaughter was making a classic mistake. She'd taken her eyes off the prize. Princess Snow had her back to her intended. She reached up to a love bird in a tree to offer it a seed. While she did, the man who was supposed to be courting her licked his lips as he gazed up at Raveena.
Raveena should have turned. She should have stepped back into the dark. She should have reminded herself that she was a queen and not some half-starved mistress hoping to be seen.
But she didn’t.
She let him look.
Let him want her.
The wind caught her cloak and snapped it behind her like a banner, hair blowing loose from its pins in white, silken strands. She didn’t cover herself. Didn’t soften her stance. She stood there, high above them all, frozen and radiant and cruel.
Let him see what he’d touched and abandoned. Let him remember what it felt like to be devoured by her lips. Let himthink, even now, that she might still allow him back into her bed, into her body. Let him remember that she would do things that a little girl would never do, never even imagine a man would want.
If Raveena could tempt him, seduce him, possess him, marry him, she wouldn’t have to step down from her throne. The ceremony would change. The bride would change. A single name scratched from parchment, a crown passed not to the daughter but to the stepmother.
Raveena would do anything to keep this castle. Even get on her knees for him again. And when she dropped to her knees and got her hands on him, he would be the one begging her.
She would do it. She would do anything to keep this castle.
Its hearths. Its vaults. Its black stone halls that remembered her footsteps and echoed only for her. Its banners bearing her crest. Its magic woven through the very foundation like marrow in bone.
To keep the castle, she needed the prince.
To keep the prince, she needed to win him.
Prince Charming, for all his gilded grins and practiced touches, was no king. He was barely even a pawn. But pawns could still be useful.
They cluttered the board, got in the way, distracted, defended. They moved only forward, in simple, direct lines. Which made them predictable. Which made them easy to sacrifice.
Still, Raveena needed him to think he was the one leading the charge. That was the true art of the game. Making a man believe he was in command while maneuvering him exactly where you wanted him. A queen did not seize power with brute force. She took it with elegance. With patience. With blood, when needed.
Snow turned back then, placing her hand gently on the prince’s chest. His smile shifted, dimmed as though a fire hadbeen doused by, well, snow. He didn't look at Raveena like that: warmly. He looked at her like he was on fire and liked the burn.
That was fine. Lust would win out. It was with lust that he looked at her. Not Snow.
Snow looked up and caught sight of her stepmother then. The girl offered her a shy smile, the same smile she'd offered when Snow had come into her home shortly after her mother's death. The same smile she'd offered as her father said his vows to her new stepmother. The same smile she'd offered after they'd laid her father to rest in the ice.
Raveena returned the same smile to her stepdaughter. One that was slow, deliberate, polished to perfection. It was a queen’s smile. All poise, no warmth. Not a greeting, not affection. The kind of smile one might give a rival across a ballroom—or a pawn across a chessboard.
The smile lingered just a moment longer before vanishing like breath against glass. Queen Raveena turned on her heel and headed back into the castle, her fingers trailing on the stone like the caress of a lover.
If she could not win the prince's heart, then she'd have to take the girl's. Take it by force. Better a kingdom stained in red than a crown lost to a simper.
CHAPTER TWO
Graham ducked his head as he stepped into the warmth of the tavern. The door creaked behind him. It swung shut on a gust of wind that carried with it the sharp mineral tang of melting snow and the coppery scent of cold steel. Inside, it was loud. Tankards slammed against tabletops. Boots scraped against old wood. Fire crackled in the hearth.
He paused, letting the warmth hit his shoulders, letting the noise roll over him.
He was back. Home. But his bones didn’t know it yet. Neither did his instincts.
