A Debt of Ice and Embers (The Sundered Fates)

Chapter 1

The hero presses the woman against the oak table, his lips brushing hers, softly at first, then deeper, a promise and a claiming all at once. Gods, he’s perfect. Strong, brave, kind and far too beautiful to be real. The sort of man who would cross kingdoms for the one he loves.

I let out a dreamy little sigh and flop forward on my elbows, chin resting on my fists as I read the sentence again… and again. Just for the flutter it gives my chest.

The farmhouse groans around me, old timber settling under the weight of another bitter wind. The fire in the hearth is little more than glowing embers, red as my hair in its frayed braid over my shoulder, my breath fogging faintly in the air.

Still, I linger on the page, because in here, in this book, winter isn’t swallowing everything whole.

“Neve!”

My father’s voice cuts through my daydream, sharp and breathless as the wind itself.

I jolt upright, snapping the book shut so fast the last few pages crumple. Cursing myself, I flip it back open and smooth the bent corner, murmuring an apology to the lovers I’ve just abandoned mid-kiss. Then, I shove the story aside on the desk with the rest of my daydreams.

Reality waits. It always does.

Beneath the books lies a pile of papers. Endless lists in smudged ink: repairs, debts, losses. The list only ever grows longer. Just like the book, I shove them aside and tuck them into a brown leather satchel on the desk. I latch it shut, as if locking the truth away will make any of it less real.

“Coming!” I call, already shrugging into my heavy cloak.

Even through my worn boots, the icy floorboards nip at my feet as I hurry across the room. The cold has crept in everywhere. Beneath the doors, through the hearthstones, between the cracks in the shutters. It’s not supposed to be this cold, not in spring.

I push out into the yard, boots crunching on the thin layer of rime coating the earth.

The cold hits harder out here, sharp enough to sting my lungs.

My father stands near the gate, red-faced and shivering despite his thick wool coat.

Our farm stretches out before us. A place that once thrived under mild seasons and soft, forgiving rains.

We used to grow amberroot grain, a tall golden crop with broad leaves and pale red tassels that shimmered at dusk.

It loved warmth, flourished in rich soil, and grew in rolling, sunlit waves you could see from the road.

When I was young, the fields used to glow.

An endless sweep of color that made people stop their carts just to admire it.

But when the frost began creeping toward us, slowly at first, we tried to adapt. We bred the grain hardier, cut planting cycles shorter, rotated the soil more often. We prayed it would be enough.

It wasn’t.

Now the fields look nothing like the ones etched in my memories.

The amberroot stands stunted and colorless, its once supple stalks frozen into brittle gray spines, each leaf edged with ice, the tassels hanging limp and dead. Every row is another small surrender to the curse.

Father lifts his chin toward the fields as I join him by the fence line. “Another row’s gone,” he says, voice gravelly. “Frost took it overnight.”

My stomach sinks, but I don’t let it show.

I can still remember how this place once was. How warm the soil felt between my fingers, how the grain whispered in the wind, how everything seemed possible.

Now the only sound is ice cracking beneath our boots, and as I stare vacantly at the ruins of our livelihood, something hollow inside me aches for the book on the desk.

For the refuge of imagined worlds, warm hands and brave hearts, sunlight that lingers, and places where winter doesn’t swallow everything it touches.

A world where love exists without duty, without debt. Without fear.

A world nothing like mine.

Father props a boot on the fence rail, staring out at our fields like they’re an enemy army advancing on us. Silence settles between us, but the swallow I try to hide must sound like a crack of thunder.

“Don’t dance around it,” he says, not looking at me. “You’ve got bad news too. I can feel it.”

“I went over our accounts twice this morning.” A second lump gathers in my throat. “We owe the seed store more than we’ll make this harvest. Even if the weather turned tomorrow.”

Father grunts, jaw tightening. “I’ll speak to them. They’ll give us time.”

“They already gave us time,” I say sharply. “Two extensions and we still haven’t paid last season’s debt.”

His silence is as heavy and stubborn as the mule we had to sell just to keep food on our table.

“We’ll need to let the last farmhand go,” I exhale.

Father snaps around to stare at me. “Absolutely not.”

“We can’t pay him!”

“He has a family to feed.”

“So do you,” I choke, pointing at his boots.

The left one has a hole at the toe so large I can see the gray wool of his sock beneath.

“You won’t even buy yourself new shoes. You’re coughing so hard at night I think you might spit up a lung.

We can’t keep pretending we’re one good harvest away from fixing everything. ”

Father coughs, as if the mention alone summons the thing clawing at his chest. He covers his mouth, shoulders shaking.

I step forward, hand outstretched, but he waves me off. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” I whisper.

He turns back to the field. Both of us stare at the frost that clings to the earth in jagged veins. It’s beautiful in a cruel way. Glittering in the pale morning light, shimmering over barren soil.

I breathe out a slow exhale and watch it bloom white in the air, a pale cloud that vanishes as quickly as it forms. This cold…

this endless cold… it began long before I was born.

By the time I was old enough to understand, it was still nothing more than a distant shiver along the horizon, a whisper of winter bleeding down from House Frostwyn.

A thing far away and harmless, the way storms look small from miles off.

But every year it crept closer.

Quiet. Patient. Hungry.

Two seasons ago, it finally reached us. Reached our fields and the little life Father has fought himself half to death to hold together, and it hasn’t left since.

It’s killing everything. The crops, the soil, the warmth in our home… and the strength in Father’s body.

Another gust knifes through the dying fields, sharp with the scent of ice from somewhere impossibly far north, yet close enough to scrape its claws across our land. I pull my coat tighter, though it’s useless.

Frostwyn.

Lord Luceran’s domain.

The winter that never ends.

And the thing that is slowly swallowing our farm whole.

Father rests his rough, chilled hand over mine.

“This is not your concern anymore,” he murmurs, giving my fingers a gentle squeeze. “In a few weeks, you’ll leave for the city. Begin your studies, just as you dreamed.”

I shake my head immediately. “Not anymore. I’m needed here.”

Father grumbles under his breath. “Nonsense. I can manage. The winter will end… Lord Luceran will have to end it if he wants his taxes.”

But his gaze drifts to the frost-bitten horizon, and I see the hollow truth behind his words. Empty hope. A lie he needs to survive another day.

He turns back to me too quickly, forcing a smile that never reaches his tired eyes.“I want you to go, Neve. There’s nothing here for you. I’ve already kept you on this farm far too long.”

My throat tightens. “But who will do the bookkeeping?”

His brows lift. “We’ve barely got a coin between us. What do I need a bookkeeper for when I can count everything we have on one hand and still have fingers to spare?”

He tries to laugh, but it falls flat. The smile wilts, the lines around his mouth deepening as the cold wind cuts through us.

“Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s go inside, have a nice cup of tea, talk more there.”

I nod, letting him slip his arm around my shoulders as we turn back toward the house. The warmth of him, faint as it is, steadies me.

But then, the rhythmic thunder of hooves cracks across the frozen path.

We both stop.

Father’s hand tightens on my shoulder.

We turn at the sound, two gray horses pounding down the road, steam pluming from their nostrils, their riders draped in the pale-blue trappings. Heavy furs cloak their shoulders, glittering faintly with frost as if the winter follows them like a loyal hound.

Father tenses beside me. His eyes water, and I can’t tell if it’s the icy wind or something far more painful.

We stand rooted as the hooves grow louder, shaking the earth beneath our boots, until the riders burst through our gate and yank their reins hard.

The horses rear slightly, kicking up shards of frozen dirt.

“Bartal Devlin,” the dark-haired rider says sternly.

Father straightens, pulling his narrow shoulders back as if that alone might shield us. “Yes. I am Bartal.”

The rider exchanges a look with his fair-haired companion, the kind that never means anything good, before returning his pale eyes to us.

“You were meant to appear before Lord Luceran last week. You did not arrive.”

My breath stops. I snap my gaze to Father. “You told me you went. I saw you off. I packed your lunch.”

His frown deepens, but he refuses to meet my eyes. “I had work to finish here. I didn’t have time to ride that old nag a full day all the way to his castle.” He gestures to our ragged mare wandering the field, nudging hopelessly at dead grass.

I grab the front of his coat and turn him away from the riders. “There is nothing more important than keeping your appearance before Lord Luceran. You know that.”

Father stays stubborn as stone. “And tell him what, Neve? That I do not have his tithe? That I will never have it, no matter how many farmhands we send home? How many more of your mother’s things we sell?”

His words hit like a blade slipped between my ribs. They wound us both.

“He might have understood,” I whisper, though even as I say it, doubt curls cold and certain in my gut.