The Frostbound Heir (The Shattered Veil Saga #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Katria

The fever broke with the dawn.

I felt it before I saw it—the subtle cooling beneath the boy’s skin, the way his shallow breaths grew steadier, as if his body had remembered how to fight for itself again.

The fire on the hearth had burned down to embers, painting the walls in dull orange light.

For hours, it had been the only warmth in the room.

When I lifted my hand from his forehead, the mother was already watching me from the corner, wringing her apron until the threads threatened to tear. Fear clung to her like the scent of smoke—old, heavy, impossible to wash away.

“Well?” she asked. Her voice was so small it barely reached me.

“He’ll live,” I said.

Her eyes darted to the door, as if someone might be listening.

The wind hissed through the shutters. I could almost hear the unspoken prayer she whispered under her breath, though it wasn’t to the Light—it was to distance, to secrecy, to the hope that no one would know she’d let the witch of Hollowmere into her house.

I reached for the bowl beside me. The mixture of willow bark and feverleaf had gone cold hours ago. I dumped it into the basin and rinsed my hands, rubbing away the faint green stains.

“No more pond brew,” I added, glancing at her. “Whatever charm you were using to ‘draw out the sickness’ was poisoning him faster than the fever could.”

She nodded too quickly, eyes glistening with tears that had nothing to do with gratitude.

“Thank you,” she murmured, and pressed a single copper coin into my hand. It was damp from her palm. “Please—don’t tell the others you were here.”

I looked at the coin for a heartbeat before setting it back on the table. “Buy him broth instead,” I said, and then I gathered my satchel.

The moment I stepped outside, the fog swallowed me whole.

Hollowmere never truly woke, even when the sun rose.

It just shifted from one kind of silence to another.

The moors breathed mist into the streets, and the wind carried the smell of peat smoke and thawing earth.

Roofs sagged beneath frost. The river that cut through the village whispered faintly beneath its sheet of ice.

People were already stirring—shapes behind shutters, faint voices through thin walls. My boots made soft, wet sounds on the stones. Heads turned when they thought I wouldn’t notice.

“She’s out again,” someone hissed near the bakery door. “Didn’t the priest say not to—”

“Shh. She’ll hear.”

I heard. I always did.

By the time I crossed the bridge at the edge of town, the whispers had quieted into the hum of ordinary morning.

The bridge creaked beneath me, its boards slick with frost, the water below dark as ink.

Beyond it stretched the moor—endless, silvered, and still.

My cottage sat on a low rise where the fog gathered like a curtain, its chimney the only thing visible from a distance.

The villagers called that part of the moor cursed. I called it peace.

Inside, the air smelled of thyme, smoke, and something faintly sweet—the ghost of dried flowers hanging from the rafters. My herbs lay in bundles along the shelves, their labels neat and ordered: frostmint, heartleaf, wolfsbane. To most of Hollowmere, they were proof enough of witchcraft.

To me, they were the only reason half this village was still alive.

I hung my cloak by the door, flexing my fingers to shake off the cold. My hands were stained green at the creases from crushed leaves, my nails rimmed with charcoal. I knelt before the hearth and coaxed the fire back to life, feeding it kindling until warmth began to creep across the floorboards.

For a while, I just sat there. The flames cracked softly, echoing the rhythm of my thoughts.

No one had ever said it outright, but I knew what I was to them—a necessary evil. They’d come crawling when their children burned with fever or when a husband’s cough turned wet and red, but afterward they’d cross themselves when I passed and whisper witch as though the word might bite me.

Let them.

The truth was simpler and far less interesting. I wasn’t cursed. I wasn’t blessed. I was just good with plants and stubborn enough not to die when everyone else decided I should.

Still, sometimes, when the fog lay too thick and the wind howled from the north, I caught myself looking toward the trees beyond the moor—where the land dipped into shadow and the world grew strange.

They said the Veil shimmered there, separating our realm from the fae’s.

I’d never seen it myself. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I was thinking of that shimmer when the knock came.

Three sharp raps, evenly spaced. Not frantic, not pleading. Official.

I froze, then rose slowly and crossed the room. The wind tugged at the edges of the shutters, whispering against the glass.

When I opened the door, three men stood outside. Two wore the gray-blue of the king’s soldiers, the crest of Rhaenor stitched over their hearts. Between them stood a man in a heavy cloak of dark wool. His boots were clean despite the mud. His eyes were colder than the morning.

“Katria Vale,” he said.

I didn’t answer.

He continued as though I had. “By order of His Majesty King Aldric Vayne, you are summoned to serve as envoy to the realm beyond the Veil.”

The words felt like they didn’t belong in the air between us, like something dragged up from an old story.

“Envoy,” I repeated. “That’s an elegant word. You must be lost. I’m no envoy.”

He reached into his cloak and drew a sealed parchment. The wax gleamed faintly in the gray light—a sword bisecting a rising sun. “You’ve been chosen to accompany the northern delegation to the Winter Court. As an offering of goodwill.”

Offering. There it was—the truth, quiet beneath the politeness.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then Hollowmere refuses,” he said simply. “And Winter will not overlook such insult. You’ll leave at dawn.”

The nearest soldier shifted, his jaw tight. The other avoided my eyes. Behind them, the wind curled off the moor, carrying with it the faintest shimmer of frost.

I wanted to laugh. It came out softer than that, almost a sigh. “Tell your king,” I said, “that I’ve spent twenty-seven years trying to keep this place alive. If he thinks sending me to the fae will save it, then I hope they like their peace seasoned with irony.”

The messenger’s expression didn’t change. “Your compliance ensures Hollowmere’s protection. That is all His Majesty requires.”

His tone was polite enough that I could almost pretend it was mercy. Almost.

“Then I’ll be ready,” I said with a brittle smile. “Wouldn’t want to keep His Majesty waiting.”

He inclined his head, turned, and walked back down the path with his soldiers. Their boots made perfect rhythm on the frost.

I shut the door and leaned against it. For a long moment, I just listened to the sound of my own breathing and the soft crackle of the fire.

Then, slowly, I began to laugh—quietly, disbelievingly. It wasn’t hysteria. It was something sharper, a sound scraped from the edge of exhaustion.

A peace envoy. Me.

The irony was almost beautiful.

After they left, the silence felt heavier than before, like the air itself was thinking.

I stood there for a while, staring at the door as if it might change its mind and open again. It didn’t. The mist pressed against the windows, blurring everything beyond the glass into a smear of gray. Even the fire seemed to shrink from it, burning lower, cautious.

So this was how my life would end—not with a pyre or a noose, as the villagers used to whisper, but with a royal decree written in clean ink.

I pulled off my gloves, tossed them onto the table, and stared at my hands.

The green stains along my palms looked darker tonight, the color of bruised leaves.

These hands had brought back breath and steadied heartbeats, stitched wounds, ground herbs.

Tomorrow, they’d belong to the Winter Court—if the fae didn’t freeze them off first.

I almost smiled at the thought.

When dusk fell, I walked to the edge of the moor.

The wind had changed; it carried a sharpness that bit at my cheeks.

Somewhere across the waterlogged fields, the bell from Hollowmere’s chapel tolled seven slow times.

I could see faint lights in the village windows—yellow and wavering, small against the dark.

They looked like hope trying to pretend it wasn’t afraid.

I wondered if any of them were thinking of me. Probably not. People sleep better when they believe their monsters are gone.

I knelt to pick a handful of frostmint sprigs from the ground. They glittered faintly even in the weak light, their scent crisp and bright. I slipped them into a pouch. Old habit. My hands needed something to do.

“Witch,” someone would be saying right now, maybe over a mug of ale. “Told you she’d bring trouble.”

And someone else would nod, relieved, because trouble was easier to stomach when it wore a face you already hated.

Let them tell their stories. Tomorrow, I’d be gone, and they’d have peace again—or something they could mistake for it.

By the time I returned to my cottage, night had crept in full. The fog had thickened, curling under the door like breath. I lit three candles and set them on the windowsill. Their reflections glimmered in the glass, three small suns fighting the dark.

I packed with care, though there wasn’t much to bring.

Dried herbs—enough for a few tonics. My mortar and pestle, wrapped in cloth.

A single book: Medicinal Flora of the Northern Marshes.

Mira’s handwriting filled its margins—notes, corrections, tiny sketches of petals.

I ran a thumb over her name, the ink long faded.

Mira would have told me to face this with grace. She’d have said, Maybe they’ll see what good can come from you after all.

But Mira was buried on the hill above the marsh, and good intentions hadn’t saved her either.