A Lord of Snow and Greed (The Winter Court #2)

Chapter 1 – Neve

Chapter 1

NEVE

T he question hung in the cold night air, freezing time.

“Neve, will you marry me?”

My heart skipped a beat before taking up an unnatural staccato rhythm. Was he serious?

I stared down into Prince Vale’s deep brown eyes, pools of warmth that were locked on me. He waited for my answer, one knee bent, snow falling languidly around us—a stoic picture of a prince trying to do the right thing. Trying to help one of his own. Help me .

I took a step back and blew out a long stream of white breath that the wind sweeping down the alley quickly whisked away. “There has to be another way.”

The famed Warrior Bear of Winter’s Realm didn’t look crestfallen. He didn’t even appear surprised. The wrongness of the moment made my stomach churn.

But Prince Vale Aaberg hadn’t proposed to me for love. We didn’t have that. Just a fragile trust and simmering attraction stretched between us.

It was not enough to marry for.

The prince wished to marry his soulmate. Not for politics or wealth or status, as was usual in the royal courts. No, this male I’d underestimated in so many ways wanted only the singular fae who could match him. He wanted a love that could rip open the sky and tear the stars from the night. His mate.

As someone robbed of her dreams for so long, how could I rob him of his? Even if denying him meant my death?

From behind Vale, Lord Riis, the king’s spymaster, cleared his throat. “There are no other options.” Unlike Clemencia, Anna, and Sir Caelo, all of whom had also witnessed the proposal and waited for my answer, the spymaster appeared self-assured, not astonished.

“I can run.” I gestured to the horses waiting at the far end of the dark, narrow alley.

Above us, murmurs clouded the air. My throat tightened, and I swallowed to clear it. How long had they been there? How many were up there, watching us? Despite my questions, I didn’t look up for answers. I took heart in knowing they were at least two floors up and likely could not hear this conversation. Though they surely couldn’t miss the prince down on one knee . . .

“I’ll ride like the wind from Avaldenn,” I added. “The king won’t learn that I’m gone. Not for hours.”

Though I sounded confident, a little more doubt crept in with each word. Minutes prior, I’d staked a vampire prince. My gaze strayed to where Prince Gervais’s head had rolled after Prince Vale decapitated him. The skull was disintegrating, turning to ash. His body too, leaving behind his clothing and the cloak he’d worn over his finery. Only an ancient, powerful vampire would turn to ash that fast.

Burning moon. I’d killed a royal of the Blood Court.

And that was after I’d escaped Frostveil Castle, where the King of Winter had publicly claimed me. So I’d killed a royal of one court and defied another, all in one night. Worst of all, I’d allowed the king’s son to help me.

My confidence crumbled, and I began to tremble.

Lord Riis came to stand next to Prince Vale. His long, red mane blew in the wind, reminding me of yet another redhead who had turned my life upside down. Warden of the West, Roar Lisika. My hand slid down to my pant pocket, and I exhaled as I felt what I sought.

Against all odds, the vials containing Roar’s and my blood were still there. Whole and unshattered.

Roar had betrayed me. And in a move of sheer stupidity—or perhaps terror, I wasn’t sure which—he’d fled Frostveil Castle without the vial of blood that sealed our magically binding deal. The blood was his insurance, and mine, against betrayal from the other.

I was not about to let either vial out of my sight.

“Lady Neve, you might make it a respectable distance, but in the end, running is futile,” Lord Riis spoke softly as he came to a stop beside Vale and me. “The news of the vampire’s death is spreading.” He looked up at the apartments, where people whispered about the happenings in the alley. “Take it from one who knows how fast gossip can percolate. This will move faster than you can flee.”

A lump rose in my throat, and vaguely, I heard the others shuffle. I’d brought Anna, Clemencia, and Sir Caelo here tonight. My foolish plea to run and my insistence that Clemencia and Anna escape Avaldenn with me had put us all in danger. Somehow, I had to protect them.

“The king won’t kill me anyway?” The words tried to freeze on my tongue, but I forced them out. Maybe if I did this, my friends could flee. But I wouldn’t do so if it spelled certain death. At the very least, I wanted a chance at life. “Even if we wed?”

Lord Riis shook his head, and snowflakes drifted down from his long, red hair. “Once you and Vale are bound, you become family. King Magnus is many things, but a kinslayer is not one of them. He didn’t even kill his birth father, Prince Calder Falk, and he despised that fae more than any other. Nor did he kill King Harald, Queen Revna, or any of their children during the rebellion. I believe he’d have to be desperate to be labeled as a kinslayer.” The spymaster’s dark brown eyes traveled between me and Vale. “Take the Aaberg name. Use Vale’s reputation. His sword. That is your best chance. I promise you.”

The Lord of Tongues’s tone was soft but firm. And as much as I wanted to deny the idea once more, I could see he believed what he said. Him, a male who had likely spun plots for the crown, seen many betrayals, and watched plans hatch. He believed what he said. How could someone like me dare to think I knew better ?

“Neve.” Prince Vale found his words.

I turned to him, trying hard to keep the tears swimming in my eyes from falling. What a mess I’d made.

“It’s not ideal, not what either of us would have dreamed, but I know my father very well. You’ll never leave this city alone and live for more than two days. This plan”—he took my hand, his own inked with the bear claw tattoos that signified his house—“it’s the best way.”

“You don’t deserve this,” I whispered. “You deserve what your heart wants. We barely know one another.”

“What I know of you, I like and admire. My family has failed you so many times. I want to right those wrongs.” A small smile curled his lips. “Plus, if I’m being honest, I could do worse.” He winked.

My laugh surprised me and lifted a bit of the heaviness pressing down on my heart. Two figures joined me on each side.

Clemencia and Anna, my friends, watched me carefully. I met Anna’s gaze first. Her normally upturned eyes were blue and round rather than their usual dark brown hue. All thanks to Sir Caelo’s glamour. With the knight’s magic, my human friend looked fae, pointy ears and all. Still, in the way she regarded me, I recognized my oldest and dearest friend.

“Do it,” she said. “You have to.”

“I agree with her,” Clemencia whispered. She, too, was still in disguise. Blonde with yellow wings and a large nose, rather than dark brown hair, blue wings, and pert nose she’d been born with. “You won’t be safe anywhere else, my lady. Not from King Magnus. Nor the Blood Court.”

And nor would they. Unless I wanted my friends to die with me, I had only one choice.

I swallowed and turned back to the prince. “I will.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Will what? You took so long deciding that I’ve already forgotten what I asked.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll marry you, Prince Vale.”

“Lucky for you, Vale,” Sir Caelo said, his tone light and teasing. His violet eyes, courtesy of the knight’s own glamour, twinkled. “Otherwise, I would have never let you hear the end of it that a commoner denied your proposal.”

The prince smirked at his friend as he rose from where he’d gone down on one knee. “We’ll need to find a staret.”

“Not any old staret,” Lord Riis said. “You will require the Grand Staret. He’ll be in the Tower of the Living and the Dead. That is where you’ll wed—standing before the Heart Drassil. There is no greater sign of legitimacy than being wed by the most revered holy fae. Before the great northern tree.”

I inhaled a sharp breath of frigid air. A Drassil tree.

No one else knew what had happened moments before. How the whispers of the Faetia, the souls of our fae ancestors who could live in Drassil trees, spoke to me.

Nor did anyone know I’d made a deal with those departed souls. One that had saved Anna’s life— for a price .

What that price was, I had no idea. Nor did I regret my choice. Not even when faced with circumstances such as these .

I wanted freedom, had risked my life multiple times for it. Instead, I’d soon wed a prince and live in a castle, in proximity to King Magnus, a powerful fae who hated me.

But maybe all I had to do was stay alive long enough for Prince Vale and me to plan a better escape. Inside, hope rose like a spring well.

Yes, that was what I’d do. I’d take more time and concoct the perfect plan that would win me freedom and free the prince to find his soulmate. The lingering heaviness in my chest lifted. There was a way forward. But it wouldn’t be done tonight.

“We should go,” Prince Vale said. “Minutes lost might mean the difference between life and death. I?—”

Racing hooves sounded down the street, around the corner. The prince tensed, surely thinking the same as me. We were too late. Somehow word had already gotten to the king, and he’d sent knights after me.

But then three horses appeared, all bearing riders. One with pink hair and wide blue eyes.

“There you are!” Princess Saga, the youngest Aaberg, cried out.

“Sister,” the prince’s voice came out strangled. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw what happened with the vampire, and Neve, and the proposal,” she explained, forcing a shiver down my spine.

Princess Saga had not been present. Nor had she been among those watching from the rooftops. No, she was a seer—one of the rarest and most eerie powers a fae could have .

“And you thought you’d do what?” her brother asked.

Lord Riis answered with an approving nod to the princess. “That she’d wake Lady Sayyida and Lady Marit, and in doing so, provide valuable witnesses from greater houses. Ladies who the king wouldn’t dare to kill to hide his son’s marriage to a murderous commoner.”

“The spider’s right,” Sayyida piped up from behind Saga, her inky curls blowing about wildly. Lady Marit Armenil, from the great house of the far north, nodded as if to emphasize Sayyida’s words. “Now, which of you is Neve?”

Saga must have known from her vision, but she didn’t tell the other two, and none of them could see through glamours. I raised my hand.

Saga dismounted her horse and her pure white fur cloak billowed behind her as she spun to rummage in her saddlebag. “Sorry we’re not dressed appropriately for a wedding, Neve and Vale. But at least the bride will be.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

Saga pulled out a gown. My amethyst gown. The first thing I’d made for myself. “You can’t marry in that getup, now, can you? Even from here, you reek of blood.” Her nose wrinkled as she gestured to my blood-spattered pants and boots. “This is still dirty from the ball, but . . . I figured it was better than nothing.”

“I-I guess so,” I said.

Saga placed the dress back in the saddlebag. “I’ll keep it until we get there. You might get blood on it.”

“Right,” I replied, half amused, half nervous about what I was about to do. “So it seems we should be on our way?”

The prince, still looking thunderstruck at all that had happened as he went to his destrier, brought it over and helped me mount. The others climbed onto their own horses and when Prince Vale swung up to join me, I tensed. Then I laughed dryly at the reaction.

Back when I thought I’d be leaving Avaldenn and figuring it could do no harm, I’d given into temptation and kissed the handsome prince. Now we were about to be wed. And yet I worried about him touching me while I rode? How silly.

There were far more important matters to fret over.

As we set off through the streets, falling in line between Lord Riis at the front and Sir Caelo riding behind us, I twisted to the prince. We were close enough that if I whispered, no one else would hear over the plodding of hooves on cobblestones.

“Promise me something, Prince Vale.”

He arched an eyebrow.

“If there is ever a real chance for me to escape, let me run and start a life I would have chosen. Then you can find your soulmate and marry her. That way we’ll both be free.”

“Are you sure?” He leaned closer, filling my nose with his tempting scent of sandalwood and the first snow of winter. “Even if you run in the distant future, you may never be truly safe without my name to protect you.”

“Only time will tell that. Please, Prince Vale, promise me. I need to believe I’m not robbing you of your one true love.”

A stiff nod. My request was, no doubt, going against his noble nature. “I promise.”

We hadn’t gone far, only three or four blocks, when Lord Riis paused and turned to take in the rest of the line. He was such a large, barrel-chested male that he commanded the attention of all. “Sir Caelo. Lady Clemencia, I have an idea and need a word.”

“Anything, my lord.” Sir Caelo urged his horse forward. Clemencia did the same, and the rest of us waited in a deserted street.

I didn’t hear the request as the Lord of Tongues spoke to the pair in private, but once they were done, the knight and my lady-in-waiting peeled off in two different directions and disappeared.

“What was that about?” I asked warily.

“They’ll return soon,” Lord Riis replied and continued to ride, sure the rest of us would follow, which we did. “With additional reinforcements. And I will send someone I trust to pick up the vampire’s clothing, spread his ashes to the wind, and clean up this scene. We’ll leave as little trace as possible.”

More people? For a moment, I was about to ask why, but as Saga rode up next to us, the question fell away. The princess looked pale.

“So it looks like you’ll be sticking around?”

“Seems so.”

For now, anyway.

“You’d better be good to her, Vale.”

A low chuckle left the prince’s lips, his body vibrating against my back with laughter. “You need not worry about me.”

“No . . .” Saga replied, eyes on me. “I suppose not.”

The hairs on my arms rose. She was holding something back. Had she seen more than what she reported? Or more than what the others had seen?

In her vision, had she seen me make my deal?

I swallowed, hoping that wasn’t the case. I wasn’t ready to talk about that. Not yet.

Perhaps never.