Sleep was not a refuge; it was a battleground. That night, the memories did not come as fragmented nightmares, but as a total, sensory immersion. The curse that stole her voice did nothing to guard her mind. It flung open the gates and let the past flood in, drowning her in the vivid, technicolor horror of that final night.
In her narrow, scratch-wool cot in the servants' dormitory, Nova was violently yanked from the present. The stone walls of Frostholm melted into the warmer, moonstone-inlaid pillars of her childhood home. The scent of straw and lye soap was replaced by the acrid tang of smoke, the metallic scent of blood, and underneath it all, the pervasive, chilling perfume of winter roses and ozone.
She was sixteen again, small and trembling in her silk nightgown, hiding in the linen closet because her mother had shoved her there, her queenly face etched with a fear Nova had never seen. "Stay silent, my heart. No matter what you hear. Stay silent." The lock had clicked, a sound of finality.
Now, through the crack in the door, her world was painted in hues of orange, black, and crimson. The magnificent Moonstone Throne Room, where she'd played at her father's feet, was a charnel house. The beautiful tapestries were raging torches. The sounds were a symphony of agony: the clash of steel, the guttural snarls of wolves in combat, the high, desperate screams of the dying.
Her father, King Alistair, a mountain of a man and a powerful Alpha, fought not with his wolf, but with a dying guard's sword. His own beast was already fallen beside him, a great, silver-furred mound. He battled shadowy figures that seemed to drink the firelight, their forms melting and reforming like ink in water. "Elara! Get Nova out!" he roared, his voice raw.
Her mother, Queen Elara, was on her knees not ten feet from the closet. Her legendary silver gown, the one that shimmered like a winter sky, was stained a brutal, spreading crimson. One hand was pressed to a deep wound in her side, the other was outstretched towards Nova's hiding place, fingers trembling. Her lips, already paling, formed the same two words, over and over: "Stay. Silent."
And then, She appeared.
Walking through the inferno as if it were a spring garden, untouched, unhurried. Flames bowed away from the hem of her silver gown. Smoke did not dare smudge her perfect, cold beauty. Her white-blonde hair flowed, unbound and pristine. In her hands, she cradled a crystal orb that pulsed with a sickly, stolen light the visible essence of draining wolf magic, the life-force of her dying court.
Morgessa.
The witch stopped before the kneeling queen. Her voice, when she spoke, was pleasant, conversational, a horrifying contrast to the surrounding carnage. "Tell me where you hid it, Elara. The Crown. The heart of your line. Give me the Winterhart legacy, and I will make your end quick. A mercy you do not deserve, but I am feeling… generous."
Her mother lifted her head. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, but her eyes held the ferocity of a blizzard. "It will never be yours. It waits for true blood. For my daughter."
Morgessa's beautiful face twisted into a snarl of pure hatred, the mask slipping to reveal the ancient, rotting jealousy beneath. "Your daughter is ash, like the rest of this pathetic kingdom."
Queen Elara smiled then, a terrible, triumphant smile. She drew a ragged breath, her body failing, but her spirit blazing. "Beware the Frost that isn't frozen," she gasped, her glazing eyes locking with the witch's with prophetic intensity. "Beware… Seraphina."
It was a name. A true name. Spoken with a queen's last breath, woven with the last of her blood magic. A curse and a warning, flung like a spear.
Morgessa Seraphina jerked back as if physically struck. The orb in her hand flickered. Rage, pure and unadulterated, contorted her features. Then, it smoothed into something worse: a cold, gleaming amusement. She laughed, a sound like icicles shattering on stone. "A pretty last word. A final defiance. It changes nothing."
She raised the pulsating orb, aiming its draining light at the queen's heart…
Nova jolted awake, a silent, visceral scream tearing at her cursed throat, her body arching off the thin mattress. No sound escaped, but the force of it strained every muscle, leaving her gasping for air that wouldn't come. She was drenched in a cold sweat that smelled of phantom smoke, her body trembling so violently her teeth chattered. She clamped both hands over her mouth, forcing the panic into her lungs, letting it out in ragged, soundless heaves.
Seraphina.
The name echoed in the dark dormitory, a key turning in a lock of understanding. It wasn't just a similar scent, a haunting coincidence. Her mother, with her dying act, had named the enemy. The Frost that isn't frozen. A frost that burned. A beautiful, deadly lie.
The beautiful, charming noblewoman in the east wing wasn't just like the monster from her nightmares. She was the monster. Morgessa had not just returned; she had audaciously walked into the heart of Frostholm wearing a new face, a stolen name, and a cloud of perfume that was both her signature and her shield, masking the deeper stench of centuries of dark magic.
And she was here for the Crown. The Crown her mother had spoken of with her last breath. The Crown hidden in…
Nova's hand flew to her own chest, pressing against her sternum. A sudden, terrifying certainty, as cold and solid as the moonstone of her lost home, settled in her soul. The Crown of Winter wasn't in a vault or a hidden tomb. Her mother's final, desperate act of blood magic… she had sealed it inside her. In her heart. In her very blood. She was the vault. She was the treasure Morgessa had come to crack open.
The mate bond in her chest, usually a dull, aching pull toward Thorne, now felt like a beacon, a lighthouse beam cutting through the fog, pointing directly at her. Here is the prize. She was a secret wrapped in a curse, hiding in the lair of the wolf she loved, while the witch who orchestrated her ruin smiled at him from across a banquet table, planning her final, gruesome harvest.
The sheer, grotesque irony of it choked her. The loneliness that followed was absolute, a void more profound than the silence she lived in. She had no one. She could tell no one. The weight of the truth was hers alone to carry, and it was crushing her into dust.
Curling into a tight ball, she shook, not from the cold, but from the seismic terror rocking her foundations. The solstice was coming. The witch was here. The mate bond was awakening. And she was trapped, a mouse in a gilded cage, watching the cat circle ever closer, unable to utter a single word of warning.