The snow never stopped falling.
It had been thirteen years since Aryelle last saw sunglight kissing the stones of her ancestral castle. Since the day her mother was dragged from the throne room, bloody crown shattered across her brow.
Since the day the frost began its slow and merciless descent across the land, blanketing her kingdom in silence and ice.
Aryelle still remembered the warmth of fireplace of the palace hearth. Now she warmed her hands over crackling stump fire in the heart of a ruined chapel, where ice crept through the broken stained glass like greedy fingers.
"A crown of thorns and flame..." she muttered in a voice which was barely louder than the wind.
A phrase that had haunted her since the last thaw. Whispers in the smoke. Words etched into the hoarfrost on her window. A name. A weapon. A cursebreaker.
She didn't exactly know what it was—but she knew she needed it.
"Talking to yourself again, Your Highness?"
Aryelle looked up sharply. Only to find Halric standing at the chapel door. Shaking the snow from his furs. Former knight, now her most loyal companion—and the most relentless annoyance. He grinned the way wolves do when they are not hungry yet.
"You bring food?" she asked.
"Only rumors and moldy bread. Which is to say, the usual." He tossed her a cloth bundle.
Aryelle caught it, unraveling hard bread and dried berries. Her royal appetite had long since adapted to survival rations.
"There's talk," Halric continued, settling beside her. "Out east. A warlock of the Black Vale. He controls shadow and steel. Claims he can walk between worlds. Calls himself the Shadowblade."
She didn't respond, but the name curled in her mind like smoke. Shadowblade. It sounded like a villain in an old story—or any ally she couldn't afford to ignore.
"They say he killed three kings."
"They say a lot of things," she replied, chewing. "Do they say where he is?"
Halric's grin widened. "Only that he doesn't come when called. He finds you."
Good, she thought. Let him try. If this man had answers, if he knew anything of the Crown of Thorns and Flames, then she'd find a way to bring him to her. Or drag him by throat if necessary.
"Let's move at first light," she said. "North-east. We'll find this... Shadowblade."
Halric raised an eyebrow. "No plan, no invitation, just stomp into cursed warlock territory and ask him politely??"
"I'll bring a blade," she said.
He chuckled. "You always do."
Outside, the wind howled.
Beyond the snow-choked woods and ruined villages, something stirred in the dark—a flicker of movement, silent as thought. Eyes that did not blink, watched the chapel from afar. And deep within the mountains to the east, in halls untouched by sun or snow, the Shadowblade woke from his meditation.
His shadows whispered her name before he ever heard it.
Aryelle.