The last of Eishtal's snow still clung to the carriage wheels as the convoy rolled away from Duke Matthias's stone fortress. The cobbled road, blanketed in icy white, groaned under each turn of the wheels, while the northern wind cut through the air, sharp and metallic, like frozen steel on skin.
Inside the carriage, Greta sat wrapped in a luxurious fur-lined coat, handpicked by the Duke himself. Her breath fogged the window beside her, a thin mist blurring the view as she watched the towering spires of Matthias's mansion shrink into the haze. That place held too much: bone-deep cold, suffocating silence, and the beginning of a dangerous bond with the man who ruled the frozen lands of the south.
"Regretting your decision?" Matthias's voice broke the quiet, low, steady, and unreadable.
