The classes that she had looked forward to for so long no longer held any appeal. The upcoming projects she had spent so much thought on now seemed like chores instead of adventures.
Her dreams of excelling in medicinal research had changed to the point she didn’t even recognize herself. Still, she went through the motions. Maybe acting was in her future.
Her pen hovered uselessly above her notebook, the page still blank except for the date. She tried to focus on the article open on her screen, something about organic medicinal plants, but her thoughts drifted of their own free will back to snow and mountains.
To peacock-blue eyes and a voice that still echoed in her dreams. The man who had changed her.
Jakob.
She hadn’t heard from him. Not a message. Not a goodbye. Nothing to tell her if what they’d shared had been real or just something she’d imagined because of the thin mountain air.
She told herself that was normal. Rational. He was a king, one of the royal family. Prince William never explained himself. And she was nothing more than a university student with a complicated family history and a bruised heart.
And yet, every night, she dreamed of wings.
She tried to shake it off by diving into research, telling herself this was what she should be doing. But instead of school work, she found herself searching the Iskara Northlands for her own knowledge, and then Onyxheim. The regional histories, the people, and the traditions. She needed something practical that she could justify if anyone asked.
She typed in medicinal plants of the Silver Snow Mountains. There had to be something there that she could use.
Instead, she found stories of white dragons that guarded mountain realms. Myths that dwelled in children’s stories and local lore.
Rulers who were bound to a single mate because of their winged secrets.
Mallory let out a soft, humorless laugh as she closed one book and opened another.
“Fairytales,” she murmured under her breath. But her chest tightened anyway.
Because the folktales felt uncomfortably familiar. The reverence given to the king. The way the land itself responded to him. The insistence, repeated across cultures and centuries, that once a bond was formed, it could not be broken without consequence.
She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples.
This was ridiculous. Her misery was projecting onto the pages of the books. Missing someone didn’t mean rewriting reality. Grief and longing had a way of making patterns where none existed.
Still, when she closed her eyes, she could almost feel Jakob’s coat around her shoulders again, heavy, warm, and protective. The way he’d looked at her as if she mattered more than the entire world he carried. Mostly the way he refused to take from her that which he had never hesitated taking from other women.
Her phone buzzed. Mallory’s heart jumped before she could stop it, a sharp, hopeful beat that immediately betrayed her.
But it wasn’t Jakob. It was another message from the same unknown number.
You left Onyxheim. Why would you do that? Your sister doesn’t have much time.
Mallory’s breath caught painfully, like the air had been knocked from her lungs.
The library faded around her as she stared at the screen. Fear and anger tangled so tightly she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Her fingers curled around the phone until her knuckles ached.
Meg.
The name felt like a bruise she kept pressing just to prove it was still there. She sent a text back.
If I return, will you let me see her?
She knew better than to expect an answer. She swallowed hard and shut down her laptop. Whatever Jakob was fighting inside himself and whatever reasons had kept him distant wouldn’t change this. She was on her own.
Meg was out there.
And Mallory was going to find her.
She headed to her parents’ house instead of her apartment when she left the library. Being alone meant she would stare at her phone. She needed distraction.
