That night, as they dined in the main hall, a murmur of voices mingled with the clatter of spoons and dishes. Yuli sat beside her companions, trying to relax after a long day, but she couldn't help overhearing the conversation at the next table.
"They say the Aunt is like a second mother to the king," one girl whispered. "That she cared for him when he was little."
"I heard she taught him how to fight when he still wore a wooden crown to play," added another, her tone conspiratorial.
"What if she was the one who trained him to rule?" said a third. "They say that even before his parents stepped down, they listened to her advice."
Yuli said nothing. She stared at her food without touching it, letting the words drift around her like distant echoes. She didn't know how much of it was true, but she wasn't surprised. The Aunt was many things, and powerful in more ways than one. It made sense that even the king would see her as family.
But Yuli couldn't focus on rumors that night. Something inside her stirred, deep and insistent.
After dinner, she returned to her room, and as silence fell over the village, the past returned.
In dreams, she found herself once more beneath the gray weight of a snow-covered sky.
Her fingers were numb, her clothes damp, her stomach empty. Her older sister wrapped her in a worn-out blanket, trying to keep her warm inside a battered cabin. Their parents had passed not long before, taken by hunger to the place where only souls go. They hadn't been able to hold on.
Then the storm struck harder. The cabin groaned, and a beam collapsed with a terrible crash.
Yuli screamed her sister's name… but after that, nothing. Only cold. Only darkness.
When she awoke in an old couple's home, her leg injured and days gone by, they told her her sister had died.
But Yuli had never believed it. There was no body. No funeral.
And sometimes, in moments like this, her heart beat differently.
As if something unseen still tied them together.
As if, somewhere in the world, her sister too dreamed of snow… and was searching for her.
Yuli sat up in bed, unable to sleep. A few quiet tears slid down her cheeks as she held in the pain.
She gazed out the window, up at the stars, and whispered:
"No matter how long it takes… I'll find you."