Arctic Princess Frosty Revenge

I barely remember my childhood now. It exists only in fragments—jagged, frost-bitten shards of memory that slip through my fingers the moment I try to hold onto them. I remember the eternal snow. I remember how it blanketed the kingdom like a second skin, soft and silent and endless, erasing the world in a shroud of white. I can still feel the ghost of that cold on my skin, the way it felt to dance in the deep snowdrifts with the village children. Our laughter used to echo off the high castle walls, sounding like tiny, silver bells ringing out in the frigid air. I remember the weight of my mother’s cloak as we fell back into the powdery white, our bodies fanning out like wings to create snow angels. I remember the scent of her, mixed with the crisp, metallic tang of the winter wind. And my father. I remember building snow wolves with him after lunch. His hands were so warm then, guiding my small, clumsy fingers as we shaped icy fangs and frozen paws. We would stand there together, our breath fogging the air in matching clouds, two silhouettes against a horizon of blinding white. But the summers? When I try to reach for them, I find only colours. I remember green grass, bright and startling, cutting through the white world I knew. I remember ice-blue flowers and white blossoms that shimmered like frost even under the glare of the sun. But I don't remember the warmth. I don't remember the heat of the sun on my skin. Just those fleeting, dreamlike colours—unreal and distant, like a painting left out in the rain. Now, the faces are blurring. The voices are fading into a dull hum. As the years pass, my memories slip into the abyss one by one, swallowed by time and a growing, oppressive darkness. Except for that day. The day winter stopped being beautiful. The day everything froze inside of me. CHAPTER 2 — The Last Normal Morning That Morning The morning started like every other. I remember waking to the pale grey light filtering through my frost-laced window, the way it painted silver patterns across my quilts. I remember the smell of hot porridge and honey drifting up from the kitchens below, the distant clatter of servants beginning their daily chores. I remember my handmaiden braiding my hair, her fingers gentle and practiced as she wove the pale strands together. She hummed a soft tune—one of the old winter songs that mothers sang to their children before the long nights. I remember thinking it would be a good day. I was ten years old. I didn't know that the world was about to end. --- Disrupted Lunch Lunch was served in the small dining hall, just the three of us—Mother, Father, and me. The table was laid with warm bread, thick stew, and a pitcher of chilled water from the mountain springs. Steam curled from the bowls, carrying the scent of herbs and roasted meat. Father was telling me about the northern ice fields, how they stretched further than any man had ever traveled, how the glaciers there were older than the kingdom itself. His eyes sparkled as he spoke, the way they always did when he talked about the frozen wonders of our land. Mother smiled at me from across the table, her hand resting lightly on the linen cloth. She looked beautiful that day—her dark hair pinned up with silver clasps, her cheeks rosy from the morning cold. Then the door opened. Father's advisor entered, his face ashen, his steps quick and uneven. He leaned down and whispered something into Father's ear. The sparkle in Father's eyes died. He set down his spoon with a soft clink. "I must attend to something," he said, his voice calm but hollow. "Finish your meal, my darling." He kissed my forehead. His lips were cold. I caught Mother's worried glance as she watched him leave. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table. Just for a moment. Then she smoothed her expression and turned back to me with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Eat, Suzan. You need your strength." But I had already lost my appetite. --- What I Overheard I don't know what made me follow him. Maybe it was the way Mother's hand trembled when she reached for her cup. Maybe it was the silence that settled over the hall after he left, thick and suffocating like a winter fog. I slipped out of my chair and padded through the corridors, keeping to the shadows the way I'd learned from playing hide-and-seek with the castle children. My heart pounded in my chest, small and quick, like a trapped bird. I found them in Father's private study. The door was cracked open just enough for me to press my eye against the gap. Father stood with his back to me, his hands gripping the edge of his desk. His advisor stood before him, unrolling a parchment covered in strange markings. "Seven more last night," the advisor said. "From the eastern village. Entire families, Your Majesty. Vanished without a trace." "When did it start?" Father's voice was low, rough. "Three months ago. At first we thought it was travelers leaving the kingdom. But the patterns..." The advisor shook his head. "They're not leaving. They're being taken." "By what?" Silence stretched between them like a pulled thread. "We don't know. But the scouts found tracks leading into the Frostwood. Tracks that... shouldn't exist." The Frostwood. Even the name made me shiver. A forest so dense and dark that no sunlight ever touched its floor. The elders said it was cursed. That things lived there that had no name. Father turned, and I saw his face. It was pale, his jaw tight, his eyes burning with something I'd never seen before. "Then we prepare." "Prepare for what, Your Majesty?" The words that came next froze my blood. "This means war." I had never seen war. But I had heard about it. The old soldiers who gathered in the courtyard, their voices hushed and heavy, telling tales of burning villages and weeping widows. The tapestries in the great hall that showed knights in bloody armor, their swords raised against enemies I couldn't imagine. War meant death. War meant ending. I pressed my hand over my mouth and crept back to my room, my small body trembling, my mind a storm of questions I didn't dare ask. --- Sunset The rest of the day passed in a haze. I sat by my window, watching the sun crawl across the sky, painting the snow in shades of amber and rose. It was beautiful. Cruelly beautiful. The way beautiful things often are before they shatter. Mother didn't come to check on me. Father didn't call for supper. The castle grew quiet. Too quiet. As if the very stones were holding their breath. Then the sun dipped below the horizon. And the explosion came. --- When the World Ended The sound was unlike anything I'd ever heard. A thunderous crack that split the air, followed by the groaning of stone and the shattering of glass. The floor lurched beneath my feet. I fell, my knees hitting the cold stone, my ears ringing with a high, piercing whine. Then came the shouting. Voices screaming. Metal clashing. Footsteps pounding through the corridors like a stampede of wild beasts. I scrambled to my feet and ran. I didn't know where I was going. My feet just carried me, through halls I'd known my whole life but now looked foreign and twisted, lit by the flickering orange glow of flames. I burst into the throne room. Mother and Father stood on the dais, their swords drawn, their faces set in masks of ferocious calm. They were surrounded—a sea of dark figures, their blades gleaming with fresh blood. I saw Father cut down a man. I saw Mother drive her sword through another's chest. But there were too many. A maid grabbed me from behind, her hands rough and urgent. "Princess, no! You mustn't—" I struggled against her grip, my eyes fixed on the dais. On Father's head separating from his shoulders. On Mother's neck meeting the same fate. Their heads hit the floor before their bodies did. The last thing I saw was Father's eyes—still open, still staring at nothing—as the maid dragged me away, her hand clamped over my mouth, muffling sounds I didn't even know I was making. Did I scream? I don't remember. I don't remember much after that. --- The Maid's Words She pulled me into a small servant's quarters and locked the door behind us. Her hands were shaking as she stripped off my blood-spattered dress and pulled coarse woolen clothes over my head. Servant's clothes. Plain. Grey. Nothing. "Listen to me," she said, gripping my shoulders so tightly that her nails bit through the fabric. Her face was close to mine—her eyes wild, her breath ragged. "No matter what happens. Stay alive." I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. "You are our blizzard of redemption." The words meant nothing to me. "Our frosty revenge." I stared at her, my body numb, my mind blank. "Our chill of truth." She pressed something cold into my palm—a small dagger, its blade etched with frost patterns I didn't recognize. "Remember those words," she whispered. "When the time comes, you'll understand." Then the door burst open. A guard grabbed my arm and pulled me into the chaos. I never saw the maid again. I never saw my home again. I was ten years old. And I still don't know what those words mean. But I know this: I am still alive. And I remember everything. The guard didn't speak. He pulled me through the burning corridors, past crumbling walls and falling timbers, past the bodies of servants and soldiers alike. The air was thick with smoke, acrid and black, stinging my eyes and burning my throat. I stumbled after him, my small legs struggling to keep up with his long strides, my hand still clutching the dagger the maid had pressed into my palm. I didn't know where we were going. I didn't care. All I could see was Mother's head hitting the floor. Father's eyes staring at nothing. The guard yanked me left, down a narrow staircase I'd never noticed before. The stones were rough, uneven, worn by centuries of footsteps. The air grew colder as we descended, the sounds of battle fading into a distant roar, muffled by layers of earth and rock. At the bottom, a dark tunnel stretched before us, its mouth gaping like the throat of some great beast. "Through here," the guard grunted. "Quickly." I hesitated. The darkness was absolute. I couldn't see three feet ahead. The guard shoved me forward. "Move, girl, or we both die." I moved. --- The tunnel spat me out into a world of ash and smoke. I remember the cold biting my cheeks, the rough wool of my servant's clothes scratching against my skin, the guard's grip bruising my wrist as he pulled me through the dark. We emerged near the eastern gate, where the walls had crumbled and the fires still burned. Bodies lay scattered across the snow—some in armor, some in rags, all of them still. I tried not to look. I looked anyway. The guard dragged me past the c*****e, past the burning stables, past the broken bodies of men I'd known my entire life. Cook. The stable boy. The old woman who mended my dresses. Their eyes were open, staring at nothing, their mouths frozen in final screams. A carriage waited beyond the gate. Black. Iron-banded. Drawn by two horses with wild, rolling eyes. The guard threw open the door and shoved me inside. I landed hard on the wooden floor, my knees cracking against the planks. Before I could scramble up, he climbed in after me and slammed the door shut. The lock clicked. The wheels began to roll. I pressed my face against the bars, watching the burning castle shrink in the distance, watching the smoke curl into the darkening sky. My parents were dead. My home was gone. And the man who had done it—who had ordered it—was my own blood. My uncle. I didn't know his name. I'd never met him. Father had spoken of him only in whispers, his voice heavy with something I now recognized as fear. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill him then, with my bare hands, with my teeth, with anything I could find. But I was ten years old. Chained. Trapped. All I could do was watch the flames. --- The journey took three days. Three days of rattling over frozen roads, of cramped darkness, of hunger gnawing at my belly. The guard fed me scraps—hard bread, dried meat, water from a leather flask—but never spoke. He sat across from me, his eyes fixed on some middle distance, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. I spent the hours staring out the small barred window, watching the landscape change. The familiar snowy hills of my homeland gave way to jagged mountains, their peaks lost in grey clouds. The trees grew thicker, darker, their branches twisted and bare like skeletal fingers. The Frostwood. I remembered the name from Father's study. The tracks that shouldn't exist. The disappearances. I shivered and pulled my knees to my chest. On the third night, the carriage stopped. --- We arrived at the temple ruin at dusk. It was an old place, abandoned long before I was born. The stones were blackened with age, the roof collapsed, the walls covered in frost and creeping vines. A row of cells had been built into the base of the ruin—iron cages bolted to the stone, their doors hanging open like hungry mouths. The guard pulled me out of the carriage and dragged me toward the cells. I stumbled, my shackled wrists throwing off my balance, my legs weak from days of sitting. He shoved me into the nearest cage and locked the door behind me. I fell to my knees. The stone floor was cold. Wet. Stained dark. I didn't have to wonder what the stains were. The guard turned and walked away without a word. I was alone. --- The night was silent at first. Then the sounds began. Whimpering. Crying. The rattle of chains from other cages further down the row. I pressed myself against the far wall of my cell, my breath coming in short, panicked gasps. The darkness pressed in around me, thick and suffocating, broken only by the faint glow of moonlight filtering through the collapsed roof. I don't know how long I sat there. Hours. Maybe longer. Then I heard footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Echoing off the stone walls. A figure emerged from the shadows. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Wrapped in furs and leather. His face was hidden in the dark, but I could see his eyes—pale, cold, gleaming like chips of ice. He stopped in front of my cage and looked down at me. "Well, well," he said, his voice low and rough. "The princess survived after all." I didn't answer. I couldn't. He laughed. It was a cruel sound, hollow and sharp. "Don't worry, little one. You're worth more alive than dead. For now." He turned and walked away, his footsteps fading into the dark. I sat there, trembling, clutching the maid's dagger so tightly that my fingers went numb. I was alive. But I didn't know if that was a blessing or a curse. All of them were slaves. And I was one of them. I looked down at myself. The servant's clothes were gone. I wore a rough tunic now, thin and frayed, and a heavy iron collar circled my neck. My wrists were raw from the shackles, my ankles chafed from the chains that connected my legs. I was ten years old. I was caged. I was their youngest. "She's awake." The voice came from somewhere to my left. I turned my head—slowly, painfully—and saw a massive Arctic wolf watching me from the next cage. He was old, his fur gray around the muzzle, one eye clouded with white. But there was something in his gaze that wasn't broken. Something that still burned. "How long was I out?" I croaked. "Two days," he said. His voice was rough, like stones grinding together. "They brought you in yesterday. You've been sleeping since." "Where am I?" "The pack house," he said. "Welcome to hell, little one." --- The Old Wolf's Truth The old wolf's name was Fenrir. He'd been here for three years. Three years in this cage. Three years of chains and collars and the endless, grinding pain of being property. He had been the alpha of a pack in the northern territories, until the raiders came. They killed his family. They broke his spirit. They brought him here to serve. "This is where your people went," he said, his voice low. "The ones who disappeared from the villages. The ones your father's advisor whispered about before the war." I remembered. The weasel-faced man, Aldric, telling my father about villagers vanishing in the night. The tension at the breakfast table. The warning that had come too late. "Why?" I asked. "Why take wolves?" Fenrir's good eye met mine. "Power," he said. "The old powers are waking, little one. The frost that sleeps beneath the ice. The hunger that waits in the dark. They need blood to rise. Wolf blood. Royal blood." "My uncle—" "Your uncle is a tool," Fenrir spat. "A puppet dancing on strings he doesn't understand. He thinks he's the master. He'll learn the truth soon enough." I wanted to ask more, but a door slammed somewhere in the distance. Footsteps echoed through the maze of cages. The wolves around me tensed, their whimpers dying into silence. The guards were coming. --- The footsteps grew louder. Heavier. A door creaked open at the far end of the row, and torchlight spilled in, casting long, dancing shadows across the stone floor. And then I saw him. He walked into the light like a god of destruction. Tall—easily six and a half feet—with shoulders wide enough to block out the flames behind him. His face was a map of violence: a crooked nose that had been broken too many times, thick brows shadowing eyes so dark they looked like pits of tar. A permanent sneer carved into his lips. His hair, black streaked with grey, hung wild and unkempt. His body was a mass of brutal muscle, scarred and weathered, wrapped in furs and leather that smelled of blood and sweat. Behind him, two guards dragged a limp figure between them. A man—or what was left of him. His face was a ruin of swelling and crimson, his fingers bent at wrong angles. They threw him onto the floor in the center of the cage row, and the man whimpered, curling into himself. Alister stopped in front of Fenrir's cage. He planted his boot on the man's back and pressed down. The man screamed. "This," Alister said, his voice a low growl that filled the entire space, "is what happens when a slave tries to run." He looked around the cages, his dead black eyes sweeping over each prisoner. When they landed on me, they paused. I felt my blood freeze. He didn't know who I was. I could see that in his flat gaze—no recognition, no surprise. Just a flicker of curiosity, like a butcher examining a new cut of meat. "A child," he said. "They sent me a child." He laughed—a short, ugly sound. "What use are you, little one? Can you fight? Can you hunt?" I said nothing. My hand, hidden beneath my tunic, closed around the dagger the maid had given me. Still there. Still sharp. Alister's grin widened. "Tough, are you? We'll see how tough you are after a week in the mines." He turned and walked away, his boots thudding against the stone. The guards followed, grabbing the broken man by the ankles and dragging him after them. The door slammed shut. Silence returned. Fenrir let out a long, slow breath. "That's Alister," he said. "Alpha of the Hallowmaw pack. Destroyer of the Arctic. Ruthless tyrant." "I can see that." "He doesn't know who you are," Fenrir said. "If he did, he'd either kill you on the spot or sell you back to your uncle. Either way, you'd be dead in a week." I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. I willed them to stop. "I'm not going to die here," I said. Fenrir was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "Neither am I, little one. But we need a plan." I looked at him through the bars of my cage. "I have a dagger," I whispered. His good eye widened. Then, slowly, a toothy grin spread across his grizzled muzzle. "Good," he said. "That's a start."