The first snow of winter always brought magic.
It fell in silent, heavy flakes, muffling the world in a pristine blanket of white. It erased the old tracks, smoothed the rough edges of the mountains, and turned the familiar valley into a new, clean, and perfect kingdom.
A kingdom for a boy to rule.
Until the day it brought death.
Adrian was ten years old.
The world was still a place of wonder, a storybook whose final, tragic pages had not yet been turned.
He stood in the center of the clearing before the cottage, a small, solitary figure in a vast, white world. His head was tilted back, his mouth open to catch the fat, wet flakes on his tongue.
They melted instantly, a fleeting taste of cold and purity.
He laughed, a bright, clear sound that was immediately swallowed by the thick, sound-dampening air. It was as if the snow itself was demanding silence.
Fen, their large, shaggy mountain dog, a beast of gray fur and fiercely protective loyalty, bounded around him in wide, joyous circles.
The dog, more wolf than hound, snapped playfully at the falling flakes, its hot breath pluming in the frigid air like a tiny dragon's roar.
To Adrian, this was the greatest day imaginable. The world was new.
He was a king, and this was his white kingdom.
From the window of the cottage, Elara watched her son, a soft, maternal smile touching her lips. Her hands, usually busy grinding herbs or stitching wounds, were still for a rare moment.
"Look at him, Kaz," she murmured, her voice a soft counterpoint to the crackling fire behind them. "He has your spirit. He sees the world as a thing to be conquered. Even the snow."
Kazimir Volkov stood behind her, his large frame filling the space, a silent mountain of a man.
He did not smile.
His stormy eyes were fixed on his son, but his gaze was distant, as if looking through the boy, through the falling snow, at a future only he could see. A future painted in blood.
"He has your heart, Elara," he said, his voice a low rumble, heavy with a sadness she could not yet understand. "And that is what worries me."
The warmth in the room seemed to cool by a few degrees. The crackling of the fire sounded suddenly brittle.
Elara turned from the window, her smile fading. She knew that tone. It was the voice of the General, not the husband. The voice of the Ashen Wolf, not the father.
"What is it?" she asked quietly, her hand instinctively going to the small, silver amulet at her throat. "What have you seen?"
Kazimir did not answer immediately. He walked to the hearth, staring into the dancing flames as if they held the answers he sought.
The greatsword, his old life, leaned against the stone, a silent, grim reminder of the man he used to be. The man the world thought he still was.
"A patrol," he said finally, his back still to her. "Order knights. Five of them. Two days ago, on the western ridge, near the old pass."
Elara's breath hitched. Her knuckles turned white where she gripped her amulet.
"Did they see you? Did they see the valley?"
"No," Kazimir said, his voice hard. "I made sure of it. But they are searching. They are sniffing at the edges of our peace like hungry wolves. It has been ten years. They have not forgotten. They will never forget."
He turned to face her, and the deep love in his eyes was now mingled with a terrible, weary sadness. It was the look of a man who knew his borrowed time was running out.
"Ten years, Elara. We have had ten years of peace. It is more than I ever dared to hope for. More than I deserved."
"This is our home," she said, her voice trembling but firm, a steel spine beneath her gentle words. "This is his home. We will not run from shadows."
"We will not run," Kazimir agreed, his voice hardening, the general returning. "But the time for hiding is over. The wolf has been in its den for too long. They are testing the borders. Soon, they will come."
He looked back out the window at Adrian, who was now engaged in a mock, heroic battle with the dog, using a fallen branch as a sword.
A pang of grief, sharp and profound, twisted Kazimir's face. Grief for the boy who did not know the world was about to end.
Outside, the snow fell harder, faster.
Adrian, laughing, threw his stick high into the air. "Fetch, Fen! Fetch the dragon's tooth!"
The dog, a blur of gray fur and boundless energy, bounded after it, barking with joyous, deep-throated calls that echoed through the silent valley.
It was a familiar, comforting sound. The sound of home. The sound of safety.
Bark. Bark. Bark.
Then, silence.
It was not a gradual fading. It was not a quiet tapering off.
The barking cut off mid-call, as if a giant, invisible hand had suddenly clamped over the dog's muzzle.
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was heavy. A physical presence that pressed in on the valley, suffocating and absolute. A silence that screamed of violence.
Adrian stood frozen, the half-formed snowball in his glove forgotten, slowly crumbling. The smile fell from his face.
"Fen?" he called out, his small voice sounding loud and fragile in the sudden stillness. "Fen, boy! That's not funny!"
There was no answer. Only the soft, whisper-quiet hiss of falling snow.
Inside the cottage, Kazimir was already moving.
The transformation was instantaneous. Frightening.
The gentle father who carved wooden toys was gone. The quiet husband who listened to his wife's songs was gone.
In their place stood the Ashen Wolf.
His eyes were cold steel. His body was a coiled spring of lethal intent. His hand was already on the hilt of the greatsword, his fingers wrapping around the worn leather with a familiarity born of a thousand battles.
Elara stood pale and still, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with a terror Adrian had never seen before. A terror that went beyond fear, into the realm of certainty.
He looked from his mother's terrified face to his father's grim, stone-like profile.
The warmth of the fire felt a world away. The cold that seeped into the room was not from the snow outside.
It was the cold of an open grave.
He did not understand what was happening. He was just a boy.
He only knew that the magic of the day was dead.
He took a step toward the door, toward the unnerving silence where his dog should be.
"Father? What's wrong? Where's Fen?"
Kazimir turned his head, his gaze meeting Adrian's for only a second.
There was no love in his eyes now. No softness. No patience.
Only a command, forged in the fires of a hundred battlefields.
And something else. Something that chilled Adrian to his core.
Fear. Not for himself. He had never seen his father afraid for himself.
This was fear for his son.
"Adrian," his father said, his voice a low, hard growl that Adrian had never heard before. It was not the voice he used for bedtime stories. It was a voice that commanded armies and broke men.
"Get inside. Now."
The boy who had been king of a snowy kingdom just moments before felt a new, unfamiliar feeling twist in his gut. A cold, sharp, metallic taste.
It was the first taste of true fear.
And it was only the beginning.