The weight of the jet wolf sigil was a constant, cold presence on my collar, a reminder of the role I had to play. The Great Hall, still smelling faintly of roasted boar and woodsmoke from the feast, had been rearranged. The long tables were pushed against the walls, and a massive, scarred oak table now dominated the center, surrounded by high-backed chairs. It was a war room.
I took my seat at the head of the table, the Duke's empty throne-like chair to my right. Its presence was a silent, imposing question: Could I fill the space he left behind?
The Northern lords filed in, their boots echoing on the stone floor. The atmosphere was thick with unspoken tension and the chill of the morning air still clinging to their fur-lined cloaks. I noted the seating like a map of allegiance.
To my immediate left sat Marquess Edric Stonewall, a man who looked like he'd been carved from the same granite as his fortresses. His hair was iron-grey, his face a web of old scars, but his eyes were sharp and missed nothing. He offered me a curt, respectful nod. The loyalty of House Stonewall was to the Duke, and by extension, to the symbol he had placed upon me.
Next to him was Earl Korbin Frostforge, his bulk seeming to dwarf the chair. He smelled faintly of soot and forge-fire. He grunted in acknowledgment, his expression unreadable. His loyalty was to stability and strength; I was yet to be proven.
Viscount Malachi Grimshaw slid into his seat like a shadow, his movements silent and efficient. His gaze, when it flicked to me, was assessing, like a hunter sizing up unfamiliar prey. He said nothing.
Further down, Baroness Elara Croft sat straight-backed, her hands, rough from work, folded neatly on the table. Her expression was one of pragmatic curiosity. She would judge me on my sense, not my title.
And then there was Baron Gregor Hoff, who made a show of arriving last, his face still mottled with the humiliation from the feast. He took a seat as far from me as possible, not even granting me a glance. His resentment was a palpable cloud.
Captain Killian and Steward Valerius stood behind my chair, my military and administrative shadows. Killian's presence was a solid comfort; Valerius's was a silent judgment.
"My lords, my lady," I began, my voice clear and steady, cutting through the low murmurs. "Thank you for answering the summons. His Grace is… occupied. He has entrusted me to hear your concerns and to act in the best interest of the North."
Hoff couldn't contain himself. "Entrusted? Or abandoned us to the counsel of a Southron bride who has been among us for less than a week?" A few of his sycophants—lesser lords from fertile, southern valleys—murmured in agreement.
Before I could respond, Marquess Stonewall spoke, his voice a low rumble like shifting stones. "The Duke's word is law, Hoff. He placed his sigil upon her. That is trust enough for me. Unless you question His Grace's judgment?" The threat in his tone was mild but unmistakable.
Hoff subsided, flushing.
"The matter at hand is not my provenance, Lord Hoff," I said, coolly. "It is the worg packs on the Northern Ridge. Captain?"
Killian stepped forward, unrolling a map onto the table, weighting it down with daggers. "The attacks have increased threefold. They're no longer just targeting isolated livestock. They're hunting patrols. They're smarter, more organized. It's as if…" he hesitated.
"As if they are being driven," Viscount Grimshaw finished, his voice a soft, chilling whisper. All eyes turned to him. "The patterns are wrong. It is not hunger. It is strategy."
A cold dread that had nothing to do with the room's temperature seeped into my bones. This was not in the novel. The worgs were background color, a minor nuisance. This was different.
"Driven by what?" Earl Frostforge demanded, his brow furrowed.
"Or by whom," I said softly.
The lords fell silent, considering the terrifying implication. An intelligent enemy using the beasts of the wild as a weapon.
"Captain Killian's request for reinforcements is valid," I continued. "But pulling men from the southern pass leaves us vulnerable to bandits… or other threats." My gaze flicked to Hoff, who shifted uncomfortably. "Therefore, we will adopt a new strategy. Consolidation."
I laid out the plan I'd proposed to Lysander: pulling back from remote outposts, fortifying central villages, forcing the worgs to attack hardened strongpoints.
The reaction was immediate and divided.
"A sound tactic," Stonewall grunted, nodding approval. "It acknowledges the reality of our limited numbers."
"It is a retreat!" Hoff slammed his fist on the table. "The Blackwood way is to hold the line! To meet the threat head-on! We are not cowards to hide behind walls!"
"It is not a retreat," I countered, my voice rising to match his, though it remained controlled. "It is choosing the battlefield. Would you rather have your men picked off one by one in the deep snow, or would you have the beasts break their teeth on a wall of Northern steel, with your archers shooting from a place of safety?" I looked at Baroness Croft. "My lady, would your people feel safer knowing there was a fortified keep nearby to retreat to at the first sign of an unusually large pack?"
The Baroness met my gaze. "My people are farmers, not soldiers. They would sleep easier behind strong walls, aye. And my grain would be safer in a central granary than scattered in a hundred homesteads ripe for burning."
I had secured the Granary. I turned to the Armory. "Earl Frostforge. Could your smiths prioritize the production of arrowheads and reinforce the gates of Wolf's Crag and Stonebridge?" I pointed to the two villages on the map.
The Earl studied the map, his blunt finger tracing the routes. "Aye. It's a better use of ore than replacing splintered shields for dead men." A grim approval.
"Viscount Grimshaw. Your hunters are the best trackers we have. Can you have them shadow the packs? Not to engage, but to learn. To see if there is a pattern, a leader… or a master."
Grimshaw's thin lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "A subtle task. It has been long since we were used for more than culling. It will be done."
The strategy was being accepted, piece by piece. Hoff was isolated, his face a thundercloud of impotent fury.
The council continued for another hour, discussing logistics, supply lines, and communication. I listened more than I spoke, deferring to Killian on military matters and Valerius on stores, but making the final decisions. I was the conductor, and they were the orchestra, each playing their part, however reluctantly.
As the meeting was drawing to a close, a guardsman entered, approaching Captain Killian. He whispered urgently in the captain's ear. Killian's face hardened. He dismissed the man and leaned down between myself and Valerius.
"Your Grace. My lord. A report from the southern pass. Lord Tavish's carriage was ambushed. Just on the other side of the border."
A cold shock went through me. "The emissary? Is he—?"
"Alive," Killian said, his voice grim. "Shaken. His guards fought off the attackers, but they were not common bandits. They were too well-organized. They took nothing. They seemed intent on… sending a message."
"What message?" I asked, though I dreaded the answer.
Killian's eyes met mine, filled with a grim certainty. "They left one of the attackers behind. Dead. He wore no colors, carried no insignia." He paused. "But his sword was of Northern make. Frostheim steel."
The silence in the room was absolute. Every lord was listening.
It was a masterpiece of political sabotage. An attack on the Crown Prince's man, meant to look like it came from the North. An act of war designed to break the fragile peace.
All eyes in the room turned to me. The weight of the sigil on my collar felt like a mountain. This was no longer about worgs. This was about the survival of the Duchy.
I rose to my feet, my expression as cold and impassive as the Duke's ever was.
"It seems we have more than one enemy to hunt," I said, my voice cutting through the tension. "Captain Killian, triple the patrols on the southern pass. Viscount Grimshaw, your trackers have a new priority: find the origin of that sword. Earl Frostforge, I need to know every buyer of that specific batch of steel. Everyone. Now."
The lords, even Hoff, stared at me with a new, grim respect. The Southron bride was gone. In her place was the Duchess of the North, and she was issuing commands.
The game had just become infinitely more dangerous. And as the lords hurried to carry out my orders, I knew Lysander's return couldn't come soon enough. We were under siege from without, and possibly from within.
The silence in the war room after the lords departed was heavier than the northern frost. The map on the table was no longer just lines and symbols; it was a web of impending conflict, and at its center sat a threat far more cunning than wild beasts. An enemy who knew how to wield perception as a weapon.
Steward Valerius was the first to break the silence, his voice like the grating of stone. "The Frostheim steel. It is a deliberate provocation. The smiths mark each batch with a hidden rune. It can be traced."
"See to it," I said, my tone leaving no room for delay. He bowed, his expression unreadable, and retreated from the hall, his footsteps echoing sharply.
Captain Killian remained. "Your orders for the southern pass, Your Grace?"
"Triple the patrols, but make them visible," I instructed, my mind racing through the possibilities. "I want banners flying. I want any traveler, royal or merchant, to see our strength and our vigilance. We are not hiding. We are daring them to try again."
A grim smile touched the captain's lips. "Aye. A show of teeth. They'll like that." He hesitated. "And the Viscount's trackers? The worgs are still a threat."
"The worgs are a symptom," I said, meeting his gaze. "This," I gestured to the map, to the invisible enemy who framed us, "is the disease. Grimshaw's hunters are the only ones who can find the source. The worgs will have to wait."
He nodded, his respect evident. "As you command." He turned to leave, then paused. "He chose well," he said quietly, before striding from the hall.
The words should have warmed me. Instead, they felt like a heavier weight. Lysander hadn't chosen me. He'd gambled on a desperate solution. Every decision I made now either validated that gamble or doomed us both.
I did not return to the East Wing. The opulent rooms felt like a lie. Instead, I walked the battlements, the jet wolf sigil a cold brand against my skin. The wind whipped at my hair and gown, carrying the scent of pine and impending snow. From this height, the Duchy was a breathtaking tapestry of harsh beauty and hidden menace. My kingdom. My prison. My responsibility.
The sound of a door opening below drew my attention. I looked down into the main courtyard. Lysander emerged from the West Wing doorway. He was dressed for riding in black leather and fur, his posture rigid, but even from this distance, I could see the weariness in the set of his shoulders, the pallor of his skin beneath his natural olive tone. The night had taken its toll.
He didn't see me. He strode toward the stables, his movements still carrying that lethal grace, but there was a new tension in him, a wariness that hadn't been there before. He was checking the perimeter, asserting control over his domain after a night of losing it.
I descended from the battlements, my path unconsciously aligning with his. We met at the entrance to the stable yard. The air between us crackled with everything left unsaid—the shattered study, the touch in the darkness, the political storm I had just navigated.
He stopped, his storm-grey eyes sweeping over me, noting the sigil on my collar, the wind-tossed hair, the resolved set of my jaw. "Valerius informed me," he said, his voice a low rasp. "The emissary. The steel."
"I've given orders," I replied, matching his blunt tone. "The patrols are reinforced. Grimshaw is hunting the source of the sword. Valerius is tracing the batch."
His gaze intensified, assessing, calculating. "And the lords?"
"Hoff objected. Stonewall supported. Frostforge and Grimshaw complied. The Baroness saw the tactical advantage for her people."
A faint, almost imperceptible nod. "You consolidated your allies and isolated your opposition. Efficient."
"It was necessary." The wind blew a strand of hair across my face. I didn't brush it away.
His eyes followed the movement. "You are cold."
"It is the North," I said, a simple statement of fact.
For a long moment, he just looked at me, as if seeing me truly for the first time—not as the desperate woman from the balcony, not as the inconvenient bride, but as the partner who had held his line in his absence. The woman who had seen his deepest shame and had not flinched.
He unclasped the heavy fur cloak from his own shoulders. Without a word, he stepped forward and swept it around me. The weight of it was immense, still warm from his body, carrying his scent of frost, sandalwood, and the faint, clean smell of him that was now intimately familiar.
The gesture was so unexpectedly, devastatingly personal that I could not speak. It was a claiming. A protection. An acknowledgment.
His hands lingered on my shoulders for a heartbeat longer than necessary, his fingers pressing into the plush fur. "The cold is a tool," he murmured, his voice so low only I could hear it over the wind. "It hardens steel. It kills weakness. It reveals the true nature of things."
His eyes held mine, and in their stormy depths, I saw the unspoken truth. The cold had revealed me to him. And it had revealed him to me.
"Keep the cloak," he said, his tone final, as he stepped back, the moment broken. "I have business in the village. There is… unrest. The news of the attack is spreading."
He turned and walked into the stables, leaving me standing alone in the courtyard, wrapped in the Duke's own cloak, the symbol of his authority and now, his trust. The physical weight of it was nothing compared to the emotional gravity.
He was not a man of pretty words or gentle touches. His language was one of action, of territory marked and defenses shored. This—the cloak, the shared burden, the silent understanding—was his courtship. It was as harsh and beautiful and uncompromising as the land he ruled.
And as I stood there, the wind tugging at the fur-lined edges of the garment that smelled overwhelmingly of him, I knew with a terrifying certainty that I no longer wished for any other.
The plot was thickening, the side plots converging into a single, dangerous design. The ranks and families were choosing sides. And in the heart of the frozen fortress, a different kind of ice was melting, forged in the fires of shared strategy and a desperate, growing need.