Prologue : When Frost Meets Flame
The forest didn’t breathe at midnight.
Only snow fell, and it fell without sound.
I was seventeen and stupid and running from my father’s men when I crossed that line. No one told me the line was real. No one said the trees past the old stone bridge weren’t trees at all, but teeth.
The cold hit me like a blade. Then the wind stopped.
He was already there.
Sitting on a throne of ice that shouldn’t exist. Crown of black branches. Eyes the color of a winter sky before it kills you. He didn’t stand when I stumbled into the clearing. Fae don’t stand for mortals.
“You’re bleeding,” he said. His voice cracked the air.
“I’m lost,” I said. My teeth chattered. Stupid answer.
“Same thing.”
He rose then. Snow didn’t touch his shoulders. Frost crawled up my boots, up my legs, like it knew him. Like it obeyed him.
“What’s your name, girl?”
I shouldn’t have told him. Mortals know better. Names are power. Names are doors.
But my tongue betrayed me. “Seraphina.”
The king smiled. And winter smiled with him.
“Then hear me, Seraphina,” he said, and the whole forest leaned in to listen. “You crossed into my land. You spilled blood on my snow. By old law, that debt is mine to collect.”
He stepped closer. Cold poured off him like water.
“One winter. That’s all I ask. Serve me until the first bloom. Then you’re free.”
I should’ve run. I should’ve lied.
Instead I asked, “And if I refuse?”
His eyes went flat. “Then winter keeps you forever.”
I took his hand.
And my I felt tingles down my spine like an old memory...
Lost in flames.....
