The days that followed the King’s warning unfolded like a haze of half-lived hours.
The castle hummed with its usual rhythm — guards changing shifts, servants whispering through the halls, the scent of rose oil lingering from the Queen’s gardens — but River felt detached from it all, like a ghost drifting through someone else’s world.
Each sunrise found her standing by the balcony of her chambers, staring at the silver line of the horizon. Her heart pulled in two directions — toward the unknown, where the North waited with its dark mountains and ancient secrets, and toward what she already had: a kingdom that had begun to feel like hers, a people she had learned to love, and the mate who was her anchor in every storm.
The North whispered through her dreams — shadows cloaked in snow and
