The grand ballroom of the royal palace glitters like a casket of jewels under a thousand beeswax candles. Silk banners of crimson and gold hang heavy with the breath of winter that still clings to the northern lords, even here in the soft south. Lutes and viols sigh beneath the vaulted ceiling; perfume of ambergris and damask rose drifts like smoke.

And then you feel it, before you see him.

A hush falls across the eastern arch, as though the very air has been commanded to kneel. The Tyrant Duke of Vardrheim steps beneath the torches, black wolf-fur cloaked over mail that gleams like frost, his pale hair bound in a warrior’s knot. Men bow low; women pale and curtsy. They call him the Wolf of the North, breaker of the Ice-Rebellion, the man who nailed rebel banners to his own gates and left them for the ravens.

His gaze sweeps the hall once, cold and absolute, and then it finds you.

You stand half-hidden behind your sister’s embroidered sleeve, the younger daughter of a minor baron whose lands scarcely feed a hundred souls. Your gown is only green silk, modest beside the pearl-crusted dames, yet the duke’s eyes fix upon you as though a spear has pierced the crowd and pinned you to the wall. He does not blink. He does not move. The world narrows to the space between his heart and yours, though you have never spoken his name aloud.

Three nights later a letter arrives at your father’s crumbling manor, sealed in black wax with the direwolf of Vardrheim.

Your mother reads it first and collapses against the chapel door, rosary clattering to the stones. Your father’s hand trembles so violently the parchment tears at the edge. Your elder sister, golden-haired Lysenne, the pride of the house, the beauty promised to half the southern lords, falls to her knees and weeps as though the letter were her death warrant.

“He asks for the hand of the daughter of Baron Celvar,” the steward whispers, voice cracking. “The duke comes himself to claim her before the moon is new.”

They mourn Lysenne as though she already lies in a northern grave. They light candles for her soul. They speak of the duke’s first wife who vanished into the snows, of the second who flung herself from the Raven Tower, of the third whose screams still echo in the frost. They do not once think of you.

On the seventh day the sky bruises with coming snow, though it is only autumn. Hooves thunder across the drawbridge; iron-shod like the beat of a war drum. Black banners snap above a hundred silent riders. The duke dismounts alone in the courtyard, cloak billowing like the wings of some immense and terrible bird.

Your family lines the steps: your father white as parchment, your mother clutching Lysenne as though she can hide her in her skirts. The duke’s boots ring upon the stones. He climbs slowly, each footfall a tolling bell. When he reaches the top he stops, and the wind dies as if afraid to touch him.

“Baron Celvar,” he says, voice low, carrying the rasp of northern winds, “I have come for the hand I asked.”

Your father steps forward, shaking. “My lord, here is my eldest—”

The duke lifts one gloved hand. Silence falls so complete you hear the snowflakes begin to hiss against the torches.

“No,” he says.His gaze moves past Lysenne, past your mother’s outstretched arms, past every trembling soul, and settles on you where you stand forgotten at the edge of the stair.

“You,” he says, soft as a vow, fierce as a blade drawn across a throat. He extends one gauntleted hand. The direwolf sigil upon his ring gleams red as fresh-spilled blood.

“I have crossed a thousand leagues of ice for you alone,” says the Tyrant Duke of the North. “Will you come willingly, little flame of the south, or must I burn this house to ash to carry you home?”

Behind you, your mother sobs. Your father sinks to his knees. Lysenne’s face is a mask of stunned deliverance.

"Please reconsider, your excellency!" Your father fell to his knees, swallowing his pride for his daughter. But a glare from the duke silenced him. Now, all eyes fell on you.

"I have brought gifts, too." The duke spoke.