*BEYOND THE NORTHERN FOREST Lucan never meant to leave the village. Life at the edge of civilization was simple: hunt, work the forge with his uncle, and listen to the elders warn about the Northern Forest. “Nothing good comes from beyond it,” they said. But when a blizzard brings a wounded stranger to their door, clutching a shard of black ice and whispering one name — Lucan — everything changes.The stranger dies before dawn. In his hand is a map etched in frost, pointing to a ruined citadel deep past the treeline. That night, shadows attack the village. They don’t want gold or food. They want Lucan. With the village burning behind him, Lucan grabs the map and runs, crossing the boundary his people feared for generations.Beyond the Northern Forest isn’t just trees and snow. It’s a broken world. Ancient roads buried in ice. Statues of kings with no faces. And the Veil — a thin place where winter never ends and something old is waking up. The black ice shard starts to hum near Lucan, and he begins seeing memories that aren’t his: a war, a betrayal, a crown offered and refused.He’s not a nobody. He’s the last heir to the Frostline Kingdom, erased from history after his family tried to stop the Veil from consuming the world. The forces behind the shadows — the Hollow Court — want to finish what they started and use Lucan’s blood to reopen the gate.To save his village and stop the endless winter, Lucan must gather the scattered Wardens, learn to wield the ice that answers to his name, and decide if he’ll take the crown his ancestors rejected. But beyond the forest, the truth is colder than the snow: saving the world might mean becoming the very thing everyone feared.