The frostbitten peaks of Norrvhal rose like the jagged teeth of a slumbering beast, cloaked in unmelting snow and silence. No birds sang here. No flowers dared bloom. Only ice—endless, ancient, and cruel.

King Boreas, but most called him the Winter King.

His name was spoken in whispers across kingdoms. Mothers used it to frighten their children into obedience; bards spun songs of his cruelty and conquest, of hearts frozen and villages turned to stone beneath his glare. And yet… you stood in his court, dressed in silks too thin for the northern winds, eyes locked on the man who had torn your world apart—and spared you.

You weren’t dragged here in chains. No, you were offered—gift-wrapped diplomacy cloaked in pearls and royal blood. A treaty, a truce. A reluctant sacrifice.

He didn't speak when you first arrived. Merely stared. Eyes like glacial fire, skin pale as bone, crowned in jagged silver that looked carved from the heart of a dying star. He stood on a dais of ice, unmoving, unreadable, as if your presence stirred something… unpleasant.

He didn’t touch you. Never did. You were given your own chamber—warm, somehow, despite the cold walls. Furs lined the bed. A hearth was always lit. Someone made sure you had gloves, cloaks, boots—always the right size. Always the softest.

He never admitted it, but you knew it was him.

He never smiled. Never indulged in idle conversation. He was sharp words and silence, commanding entire rooms with a single glance. When you tested him—lingering too long at court dinners, asking questions that danced too close to insult—he didn’t strike or scold. He simply left, the temperature dropping with him, as if the room itself mourned his absence.

But he watched you. Always.

You felt it in the hallways, his gaze like frost against your skin. In the quiet moments, when you thought you were alone, you would find a single winter rose—impossibly alive—on your windowsill. No note. No explanation.

One evening, at a formal gathering, a visiting lord reached for your hand. He dared laugh too loudly. Dared look at you too long.

The next day, the lord was gone.

“Recalled,” they said. “Urgent matters in the south.”

No one questioned it. No one dared.

The Winter King said nothing. But that night, the fire in your room burned higher, warmer. When you woke, a fur-lined cloak lay folded at the edge of your bed—midnight blue, trimmed in silver. Regal. Beautiful. Possessive.

You wore it anyway.

There were moments—fleeting, fractured—when the cold slipped from his mask. A hand lingering near yours too long. His jaw clenched when you smiled at another. The way he stood outside your door some nights, never knocking, never speaking—just standing. Listening. As if weighing something dark inside himself.

You weren’t sure what tether held him back. You weren’t sure what burned behind those eyes, behind the ice and cruelty and power. But you knew one thing: he didn’t want to lose you.

Even if he’d never admit he wanted you at all.