Chapter 3
Since the day I was born, I have lived under the rule of the Fae of the Sundered Kingdoms, and I suppose they will rule me still until the day I die.
Until now, it has always been distant rule.
Some far-off lord. Some notorious lady. Some winged, cursed prince across the Untold Sea.
Shadows and rumors, names spoken in fear but never in proximity.
Never before have I stood this close to one of our masters. Never has one known my name. Never have I struck a bargain, the one thing every child is taught never to do. Fae are cunning. Fae cannot be trusted. Bargains bind in ways mortals cannot begin to understand.
But what choice did I have?
I do not regret my decision. I would make it again, a thousand times over, if it meant my father was safe.
Still, I mourn the cost. My freedom. My future.
My dreams. I will never walk the fields of home again.
Never travel to the city to study. Never discover whether the lovers in my worn little book found their happy ending.
I am trapped here now, in Castle Frostwyn. Lord Luceran is no longer merely my ruler. He is my master, and I must serve until my father’s debt is paid. It could be years. It could be decades. It could be longer.
I should be more terrified of the pit I have thrown myself into, but every time fear coils in my stomach, his face flashes unbidden behind my eyes.
The hard line of his jaw. The sharp cut of his cheekbones.
That magnificent ivory hair spilling over his shoulders in flawless sheets.
And those eyes. Gods, those eyes. My memory fails to capture the depth of the blue or the shimmer of the gold, but I try all the same.
My heart thumps against my ribs at the recollection. The sheer size of him, looming over me. The breadth of his shoulders. The strength beneath that grand fur-edged coat, glimpsed only in fragments yet felt in the cold authority he exuded, as though he were carved from winter itself.
Now I understand why they once called him the Frostwall. Before he was a lord. When he was a warrior. Centuries ago.
My lips go dry. So does my throat.
Yes, the Fae are wicked. Yes, they lie as easily as breathing. But damn my eyes, they are more beautiful than any creature has a right to be, and Luceran Frostwyn may be the most devastating of them all.
I try not to let my thoughts drift back to him. Surely it is part of his magic, this pull he exerts, this dangerous gravity that makes me, against all reason, fantasize about my captor. I need to move. If not to chase him from my mind, then at least to coax some warmth back into my bones.
I swing my legs over the bed, shoving aside mountains of shimmering satin pillows and thick velvet covers, things far more lavish than the straw mattress and patchwork quilt waiting in my room at home.
Yet none of them are warm. Not even close.
The velvet is icy beneath my fingertips, and I recoil, stepping back straight into the stone lip of the fireplace.
I turn, my gaze tracing the slab of pale stone that glitters faintly beneath moonlight spilling in from the balcony.
Wolves are carved into its face, weaving through pine forests and climbing steep mountainsides.
It should be the heart of a room like this, a promise of comfort.
Instead, the hearth yawns empty. There is no wood, no soot, not a single trace that fire has ever touched these stones.
A fireless hearth. A bed no body has warmed.
A room built for comfort that knows none.
My breath trembles as it leaves me. Something about this place feels abandoned, as if no living creature has set foot here for years, as if I have stepped into a waiting tomb. I wrap my arms around myself and force my legs to keep moving.
The desk near the far wall is carved from pale birchwood, its surface dusted with frost. Two chandeliers hang overhead, fashioned from perfectly clear crystals suspended like dripping icicles, gleaming coldly with every shift of air.
In the corner, nestled in a shallow alcove, sits a hand-painted wash basin and jug edged in gold.
I consider splashing my face, anything to feel awake, but I am certain the water inside would be frozen solid, or worse, cold enough to give me pneumonia just by looking at it. I turn away.
That is when I notice the grand wardrobe dominating the left wall.
Taller than two men, its doors are carved with feathered snowflakes and blooming roses.
When the moonlight strikes just right, I swear the petals seem to unfurl, the snowflakes drifting in slow descent. Surely it is only a trick of the light.
My fingers stick slightly to the bronze handles as I pull the doors open.
Inside hang garments, dozens of them. Long winter coats lined with silver fur.
Gowns embroidered with flowers. Thick wool dresses dyed midnight blue and storm-swept grey.
High collars that whisper of power, plunging necklines that speak of danger.
Clothing fit for a noble lady, something I am absolutely not.
Even with all my pacing, I cannot escape the cold.
A shiver tears through me, and my breath curls into mist the moment it touches the air.
Desperation overrides dignity. I reach into the wardrobe and begin pulling garments out by the handful, dresses, coats, cloaks, anything heavy enough to trap even a sliver of warmth.
I layer them over my own clothes until I feel like some absurd winter doll.
My shape is gone, my chest and waist and hips erased beneath a round, smothering heap of finery.
Even under all those suffocating layers, the cold still gnaws through me.
It is not on my skin but beneath it, buried deep in my bones, frost threaded through my veins.
Slowly, painfully, I begin to feel the smallest relief.
Warmth tingles in my toes, then my fingertips, a fragile ember of comfort flickering to life.
I yawn, louder than I mean to. After everything that has happened today, it is no wonder exhaustion weighs heavier than all these clothes combined.
My eyes drift toward the magnificent bed, but the memory of its icy pillows makes me shudder.
With the balcony doors gaping open beside it and a wind sharp enough to peel skin, I would never survive sleeping there.
But where else?
I shuffle to the balcony doors and tug at them, but the hinges are frozen solid. Then I try the main door, giving the handle a nervous, almost silent twist.
Locked.
Of course. Lord Luceran is not about to risk his newly bargained servant slipping away in the night.
My back hits the cold wood, and I let myself slide down until I am sitting on the floor. If I do not lie down soon, I will pass out where I sit, but any exposed corner of this room feels like a death sentence. My gaze catches on the wardrobe.
Shivering, teeth chattering, I hobble across the room. I shove the doors open, push aside the garments still hanging there, and peer into the cramped hollow inside.
Good enough.
I crawl in and pull the doors shut behind me. Darkness swallows me instantly. A fragile sense of relief washes over me, right before the tears come. They are hot, sudden, unstoppable, spilling down my cheeks only to chill moments later, turning cold as the world outside.
Father.
His name is not a word. It is an ache.
How will he eat on the days his hands shake? How will he manage the fevers that strike without warning? Who will fetch his tinctures, or help him onto that stubborn old nag he pretends to hate? What if he gets worse?
The fear clamps tight around my throat. A sob breaks free of me, raw and violent, shaking my whole body. What if all I have done is leave him to suffer, to die, alone? What if my bargain did not save him at all? What if it doomed him?
I bury my face in the furs, trying to muffle the sound, and curl smaller into myself, into the cold, into the loneliness I chose. Some time later, exhaustion drags me under. Sleep comes thin and fragmented, a flickering thing interrupted by shivers and sharp stabs of cold.
I do not know how much time passes before a sound wakes me. My eyes snap open. The room is darker now, the cold far worse, and whatever meager warmth I had gathered has slipped away.
There is the sound again.
A voice.
I drag myself upright, my limbs protesting, numb and aching. My vision tilts, then steadies as I brace a hand against the wardrobe door and force it open. I stumble out, following the sound toward the balcony.
Moonlight slips through the clouds, casting the garden below in a silver-blue glow. Amid an expanse of frozen roses sealed in clear ice, Luceran Frostwyn walks alone.
He moves like a pale phantom, long ivory hair drifting behind him in slow, weightless waves. Frost mists around his bare feet as they crunch through the snow, curling and recoiling with every step. The roses remain red, vibrant, suspended in perfect bloom within their icy prisons.
He reaches out, brushing the surface of each rose with his fingertips, gentle and reverent, almost heartbreakingly so.
And he is singing.
The sound is low and deep, mournful enough to make the air tremble. Snow spirals in slow, hypnotic swirls, drawn to his voice as if enchanted. From the shadows of the garden, small creatures of sleet emerge, glimmering, shifting little things that skitter over the frost to gather at his feet.
He lifts his face toward the frozen lake in the distance, framed by snow-capped pines, the song rising with him, resonant and aching. Beneath his coat, the runes carved along his chest flare, pulsing softly with power.
He looks otherworldly. Ethereal. Utterly, devastatingly alone.
I am desperate for warmth, yes, but the heavy heat curling low in my stomach is absolutely not the kind I meant.
Then a pressure builds in my nose.
No. Not now.