The Great Hall of Blackwood Keep was a cavern of shadows and sharp angles, a cathedral to power rather than faith. Dawn's pale light struggled through high, narrow windows, slicing through the gloom to illuminate motes of dust dancing like forgotten spirits. The air was frigid, carrying the scent of woodsmoke, roasting meat, and the underlying, ever-present tang of ice.
I took my place at the high table, the carved oak chair beside the Duke's throne-like seat feeling less like an honor and more like a precipice. The silence that had greeted my arrival yesterday was gone, replaced by a low, simmering hum of conversation that died the moment I appeared. A hundred pairs of eyes—northern lords and ladies, military commanders, guild representatives—tracked my every move. I was the new specimen in the menagerie, and the wolves were deciding if I was mate, rival, or meal.
Lysander was already there. He did not look at me as I sat. He was a statue of obsidian and iron, his profile sharp against the roaring hearth behind us. The exhaustion from the night before was masterfully concealed, buried under a mantle of absolute, unassailable authority. He was the Duke, and this hall was his kingdom.
Steward Valerius stood just behind his right shoulder, a specter of judgment with a ledger in his hands. He began the morning's petitions, his voice a dry rasp that echoed in the vast space.
A wool guildmaster complained of tariffs on southern dyes. A grizzled captain with a scar across his brow requested reinforcements for a remote watchtower, citing increased worg sightings. A farmer, his hands calloused and nervous, begged for a reprieve on his grain tax after an early frost withered his fields.
Lysander listened to each, his gaze fixed on some distant point on the opposite wall. He gave no sign of hearing, no flicker of emotion. Then, he would speak. His decisions were swift, final, and devastatingly pragmatic.
"The tariffs stand. Use local plants for color. Adapt." The guildmaster deflated. "Denied.Shift men from the southern pass. The worgs are a greater threat than bandits." The captain nodded, grimly satisfied. "Tax stands.See the quartermaster for seed from my personal stores. Repay it after the next harvest." The farmer fell to his knees, weeping with gratitude.
It was a masterclass in rule. Cold, unsentimental, but fiercely protective of the whole. He was the spine of this frozen territory, and he would not let it bend.
Then, it was my turn.
A lord with a florid face and a tunic stretched tight over his belly stood, his smile not reaching his cold eyes. "Your Grace," he boomed, his voice too loud for the hall. "A toast! To your new bride! May the… warmth… of the South finally thaw the winter in your heart!"
The backhanded insult was delivered as jolly ribbing. A few sycophantic chuckles rippled through his section of the hall. I saw it then—the factions. The lords who resented their Duke's absolute power, who saw his marriage to a southern "pretty thing" as a sign of weakness.
Lysander's head turned, slowly, deliberately. His grey eyes landed on the lord, and the temperature in the hall seemed to drop another ten degrees. The chuckles died instantly.
Before he could eviscerate the man with a word, I acted.
I let out a soft, melodic laugh. Every eye snapped to me. I picked up my goblet, the wine within it a deep ruby red.
"Lord…?" I let the question hang, my voice carrying easily in the silence.
"Baron Hoff," he supplied, his confidence wavering.
"Baron Hoff," I repeated, as if tasting the name. "What a curious thing to say. One does not thaw a foundation. One does not melt a fortress." I leaned forward slightly, my smile as sharp and cold as an icicle. "The North's strength is its winter. Its power is its ice. Why would anyone wish to dilute that? I am not here to bring warmth, my lord. I am here to learn resilience."
I turned my gaze from the stunned Baron to Lysander. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were fixed on me with a new, intense focus.
I raised my goblet, not to the Baron, but to the entire hall. "I toast to the Winter. May it be ever lasting. And may we all be strong enough to endure it."
For a heartbeat, there was absolute silence. Then, a single, sharp crack of sound.
Lysander had brought his hand down on the arm of his chair. It wasn't loud, but it was a punctuation mark in the quiet.
All down the table, northern nobles and warriors, their faces etched with grudging respect, lifted their own goblets. "To the Winter!" the rumble echoed through the hall, a wave of solidarity that left Baron Hoff flushed and isolated.
I took a sip of the wine. It was dry and bitter, like drinking frozen earth.
Lysander did not toast. He did not smile. But as the conversations cautiously resumed, he spoke, his voice so low only I could hear it.
"Adequate," he murmured.
The word was not praise. It was an assessment. A note in a ledger. But from him, in this viper's nest, it felt like a victory. I had passed my first test. I had not played the southern fool. I had spoken their language. The language of ice and power.
The meal continued, a tense, theatrical performance of power politics. I ate little, my senses hyper-aware. I watched the factions, noted the loyalists who looked to the Duke with fervent devotion, the resentful ones like Hoff who simmered with jealousy, and the vast majority in between, waiting to see which way the wind would blow.
I was no longer just surviving the Duke's curse. I had been thrust onto the chessboard of northern politics. And I had just made my first move.
As the servants began to clear the plates, a guardsman, his armor rimed with frost, entered the hall and marched straight to the high table. He bowed low, his breath pluming in the cold air.
"Your Grace," the guard said, his voice urgent. "A royal emissary from the capital. He arrives at the gates. He bears the seal of the Crown Prince."
The hum of conversation died a final, absolute death.
Every head turned to the high table. To me.
Lysander's gaze, colder and harder than the mountain rock outside, slowly slid from the guard to me. The unspoken question hung in the frozen air between us, a blade poised to fall.
Are you a part of this?
The game had just changed. The viper from my old life had found its way into my new frozen cage.