The imperial carriage devoured the miles with relentless speed, its iron-rimmed wheels biting deep into the frozen ruts of the northern road. Six white horses pulled in perfect unison, their breath rising in rhythmic clouds that froze almost instantly in the pre-dawn air. Inside, the world was velvet and cedar-scented furs, but the luxury felt like a cage closing around Anya with every turn of the wheels.
Three days. Three days since she had been torn from Volkova Manor, from the wild taiga she loved, and set upon this inexorable path south. Three nights of fitful sleep in posting inns where servants bowed too low and whispered too much. Three dawns watching the landscape change from endless pine forest to rolling hills dusted white, each mile dragging her farther from freedom.
Across from her sat Dmitri Volkov—silent, watchful, unreadable. He had not left her side since that night in the storm. Not truly. He rode ahead to scout, arranged the changes of horses, dealt with innkeepers and local officials, yet always returned to the carriage like a shadow that could not be shaken.
He was reading now, a small leather-bound ledger open on his knee, turning pages with deliberate calm as though the world outside did not exist. Candlelight from the small lantern swayed across his sharp features, catching on the faint scar that ran along his left jawline—a mark she had not noticed before.
Anya shifted, drawing the furs tighter. The silence had stretched too long.
"Tell me about him," she said suddenly.
Dmitri did not look up. "Who?"
"The Emperor." She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "And don't pretend you don't know exactly who I mean."
A pause. Then he closed the ledger with a soft snap and met her gaze—storm-gray eyes steady as winter steel.
"What do you wish to know, Lady Anastasia?"
"Everything you're allowed to tell me." Her voice was low, edged with the anger she had carried since the summons. "Is he truly as cold as they say? Does he ever laugh? Or does he simply freeze people where they stand with one of those famous glances?"
Dmitri's mouth curved—not quite a smile, but something close to it.
"He speaks when words are necessary. He laughs… rarely. And yes, he is cold." He glanced out the small window at the passing pines, heavy with snow. "But cold is not the same as cruel. The empire demands much of him."
Anya waited. When he offered nothing more, she pressed.
"They say his mother was poisoned. That his father kept him like a prisoner after. That when the old Emperor died, the court thought they'd have a boy to control." She leaned closer. "They learned differently."
Dmitri's gaze returned to her, assessing. "You've heard the stories."
"I want the truth."
"The truth," he said quietly, "is that Nikolai Romanov was sixteen when he took the throne. The court did expect a boy they could manipulate. They learned quickly that he was something else entirely."
"Something else," Anya repeated. "A tyrant?"
"A survivor."
The carriage lurched over a frozen rut, jolting them both. Outside, the wind howled against the lacquered sides like something trying to get in.
Anya sat back, studying Dmitri. He moved with the quiet economy of a predator—never hurried, never wasteful. When a wheel had threatened to crack outside a riverside village, he had fixed it himself in minutes, sleeves rolled to reveal forearms corded with muscle and pale scars. When mercenaries had eyed the carriage too boldly at a crossroads, one look from him had sent them scurrying.
He was dangerous. And he was the only person she had truly spoken to in days.
"Control," she said at last. "That's what this is about, isn't it? The bride-show. The summons. He wants a wife he can control."
Dmitri's expression shifted—something unreadable flickering across his face.
"Not control," he said. "Alliance. There is a difference."
Before she could challenge him, the carriage slowed abruptly. Shouts from the drivers. Horses whinnied in alarm.
Dmitri was at the door in an instant, hand sliding inside his cloak. "Stay here."
He stepped out, closing the door firmly behind him.
Anya lasted perhaps five heartbeats before following.
The road cut through dense forest here, snow heavy on the branches and the air thick with the scent of pine and cold iron. Ahead, a massive pine lay across the path—felled by an axe, not wind. The guards had fanned out, swords drawn, breath pluming white.
Dmitri stood motionless, scanning the treeline with the stillness of a wolf scenting blood.
"Ambush?" Anya asked, coming up beside him.
He shot her a look sharp enough to cut. "I told you—"
A whistle sliced the air.
Arrows hissed from the shadows.
The first guard fell with a shaft buried in his throat. Chaos erupted—horses rearing, men shouting, steel ringing as the escort formed a desperate ring around the carriage.
Dmitri moved like smoke given form. One moment beside her, the next ten paces away, twin short blades appearing in his hands as if conjured. An attacker in patched furs burst from the trees; Dmitri sidestepped with liquid grace and struck once. The man dropped without a sound.
Anya did not hesitate. She snatched a fallen guard's saber—heavier than her practice blades but well-balanced—and backed toward the carriage wheels.
More bandits poured from the forest. A dozen. Fifteen. Rough men with desperate eyes and the stink of old blood on their clothes.
One broke through the line, charging straight at her. Scarred lip twisted in a sneer, blade raised high.
Anya parried the wild swing, metal screaming. He was stronger, driving her back step by step across the frozen ground. Cold surged in her chest again—that strange, wild pressure rising like a storm tide.
The bandit grinned. "Pretty little noble. You'll fetch a fine—"
She let the power burst.
Frost exploded from her free hand in a whip of razor-sharp ice. It lashed across his face; he screamed, staggering blind. Anya drove the saber through his shoulder and twisted. He fell howling, blood freezing on the snow before it could spread.
The remaining attackers faltered, staring at the impossible.
Dmitri appeared behind the last two standing, blades flashing twice. Silence crashed down, broken only by the wind and the ragged breathing of the survivors.
He wiped his knives clean on a dead man's cloak, then turned to Anya.
"You fight well," he said, something almost like approval in his voice. "And your gift… it's stronger than reported."
Anya tightened her grip on the saber, heart still pounding. "Don't tell him."
Dmitri tilted his head. "He already knows."
Before she could demand what that meant, he knelt beside one of the bodies and pulled back the scarf from the dead man's neck.
A tattoo: a black raven clutching a broken crown.
"Dragunov's mark," he said softly. "Minister of War. These were no common bandits."
Anya felt the cold settle deeper than any winter. "They were sent to kill me."
"Or take you." Dmitri stood. "Either way, someone fears what you might become at his side."
He glanced at her then—really looked—and for the first time, she saw something beyond the mask. Respect, perhaps. Or recognition.
Dmitri turned to the guards. "Clear the tree. We ride hard. No stops until nightfall."
As the men set to work, Anya climbed back into the carriage, blood still singing in her veins.
Through the window, she watched Dmitri direct the cleanup with quiet efficiency. He paused beside one corpse, fingers brushing something small that had fallen into the snow—a silver locket.
He pocketed it without expression.
Hours later, as purple dusk bled across the sky, the carriage finally halted at a fortified inn. Anya stepped down stiffly, legs aching from the long confinement.
Dmitri was waiting with her cloak.
"One more thing," he murmured, handing it over.
Nestled in the folds was the silver locket. Engraved on the front: a delicate rose.
"Belonged to one of the attackers," he said, voice pitched for her ears alone. "Recognize it?"
Anya's breath caught.
She did.
House Voronin.
Lady Sofia Voronina's personal crest.
The first blade had been drawn.
And far ahead, in the Ice Palace, Emperor Nikolai stared into a roaring fire that refused to warm him.
A messenger knelt trembling at his feet.
"Attack on the northern road, Your Majesty. Lady Anastasia's escort was ambushed. She… she is unharmed."
Nikolai's hand tightened on the throne until frost spider-webbed across the crystal.
"Unharmed," he repeated, soft as falling snow.
The messenger dared a glance upward. "There was magic, sire. Witnesses say frost burst from her hands like a blizzard."
For the first time in years, something stirred behind the Emperor's icy mask.
He rose, cloak swirling.
"Prepare my personal sleigh," he ordered. "I will meet her on the road myself."
Someone was trying to take her from him.
He had waited five years.
He would not wait longer.