The dark-haired rider actually shows my father a sliver of kindness, placing steady hands on his ribs and lowering him gently from the saddle. The blond rider doesn’t evenpretendto help me. He knows exactly what he’d get for the attempt. I swing down on my own, boots crunching on the steps.
The two riders climb quickly, throwing sharp looks over their shoulders, glares that urge us to hurry, move, keep up. As they reach the great doors, they brace their shoulders against the ancient wood and shove.
The sound is a deep, grinding groan… like an ancient beast dragged from sleep.
I grip my father’s arm, guiding him up the last steps, always half a protective step ahead, shielding him from whatever waits in the dark behind those doors. His breath wheezes beside me. I squeeze gently.
When we step inside, I can’t stop the small gasp that escapes me.
The foyer is breathtaking.
Ivory columns soar upward, vanishing into vaults of veined marble. Above them, a domed ceiling unfolds like a sky of its own, painted with wild silver deer leaping across endless green fields, their bodies caught mid-flight in sweeping strokes of color now chipped and faded with age.
But in one shadowed corner, half-hidden among the painted pines, a white wolf watches. A predator stalking its prey. My skin prickles.
We continue along the hall, where a long row of tall glass doors stands open, inviting the evening wind to cut straight through the space. Gossamer curtains whip violently in the draft, snapping like ghostly wings. Beyond them, the frozen lake lies silent beneath abruised twilight sky, the world blurred into blue-gray haze as snow falls in soft, relentless sheets.
It is frightening. It is beautiful. And before it, I can hardly breathe.
But there’s no time to stand in awe or fear. Father and I are herded like cattle toward the immense wooden doors at the end of the foyer, wolf heads carved into the ancient panels as if watching our approach. The riders halt before them, exchanging tense glances. I watch them straighten their shoulders, draw in slow, steadying breaths, nervous, almost reluctant.
If the Fae themselves fear what waits beyond that door, then I’m a fool for not trembling harder.
With one final exhale, they lift their fists and pound on the wood. The hollow thud reverberates through the castle, a sound that seems to echo in my bones.
“Enter.”
The riders shove against the heavy doors, and they groan open inch by inch.
The air in the throne room hits like a blow.
A wall of cold slams into me the moment we cross the threshold, so sharp it burns, so deep it feels carved from the marrow of winter itself. My breath fogs instantly, curling white in front of my face. My lips sting, going numb. Each inhale sears my chest, and my lashes prickle, frosting over as though tiny crystals are forming on them.
Father shudders violently beside me. I wrap my arm tighter around his middle, pulling him close.
The throne room is vast and cavernous, a cathedral shaped from snow and ancient stone. A sheen of frost clings to everything, the columns, the sweeping arches, the tapestries that must once have been rich and warm but now hang stiff and colorless.
And at the far end, raised upon a dais of pale stone, sits the lord of this frozen ruin.
Luceran Frostwyn.
His throne catches the dappled light like cut crystal, its surface shifting and shimmering with every breath of wind. Curtains drift around him like restless spirits, stirred by the cold drafts pouring in from the open windows at his back, their movement framing the powerful line of his shoulders. He sits half-turned from us, one elbow braced on the armrest, his cheek resting against a closed fist.
He is… arresting.
Long hair, stark white as freshly fallen snow, falls in windswept strands around his shoulders. A thick fur cloak drapes over him, the pelts pale and plush, but not softening the hard, powerful lines of him beneath. His shirt embroidered with golden thread lies open at the top, just enough to expose the faint curl of runes etched into fair skin, runes that pulse faintly with cold blue light.
But his eyes… by the gods.
One glacial blue, cold and cutting enough to freeze bone.The other molten gold, bright as sunlight.
Two mismatched worlds in one gaze.
And that gaze, distant a heartbeat ago, snaps into focus the moment he sees me.
It’s as if something inside him… stirs.
His posture shifts, subtly but unmistakably, his back straightening, shoulders rising from their lazy slump. The frost around the throne seems to still, listening. That mismatched gaze pins me in place with a force that steals the air from my lungs.
