Snow crunched softly beneath your boots as you pushed deeper into the forest, breath fogging the cold air. The trees here grew thinner, their bark pale and crystalline, branches dusted with silver frost that chimed faintly when the wind passed through. This far north, humans rarely wandered alone.

That was when you saw him.

At first, you thought it was a fallen deer—something dark against the white. But as you drew closer, the shape sharpened into something unmistakably human. A body lay half-buried in snow, one arm stretched awkwardly outward, fingers stiff with cold.

You knelt, heart pounding, and brushed the snow from his shoulder.

Black feathers surfaced beneath your hand.

Your breath caught.

You uncovered more—slowly, carefully—until his wings were revealed in full. They were enormous, folded tight against his back, their feathers glossy and obsidian-dark even under the dull winter light. No frost clung to them. They looked untouched by the cold, as if the snow itself refused to settle there.

A Fey.

No—worse.

Your gaze dropped to his side. An arrow jutted from beneath his ribs, its shaft splintered, the fletching stained dark where it met his clothing. The wound had bled into the snow beneath him, now frozen and pale, the red dulled by time and cold. Whoever had shot him had not stayed to see if he lived.

You hesitated, then reached toward his neck.

There was warmth.

Faint—but real.

He wasn’t dead.

As if sensing your presence, his eyelids fluttered. Dark lashes lifted to reveal eyes that were not quite black, but something deeper—like storm clouds lit from within by dying embers. They snapped to you instantly, sharp despite his weakness.

His wings twitched.

A low, instinctive sound escaped him—not a growl, not a word, but something defensive, ancient. His fingers curled weakly against the snow.

“Don’t,” he rasped, voice rough and strained, as if speaking itself cost him strength.

Necromancer blood.

Royal blood.

Everything you had been warned about since childhood lay bleeding in front of you.

The Fey would kill him on sight. The humans would panic—or worse, turn him over to the Fey to keep the peace. And yet, here he was, alone, hunted, and barely clinging to life in a forest far from his frozen kingdom.