The Duke's new obsession

CHAPTER 8: The Heart of the Frost

The Glass House was a miracle of engineering. Tucked into the side of the fortress, it was a massive dome of reinforced crystal and iron, kept warm by a complex system of underground steam pipes. As I stepped through the heavy doors with Bella following close behind, the biting chill of the North vanished.

The air inside was thick, humid, and heavy with the scent of wet earth and blooming jasmine. It was a fragment of the South, captured and preserved in a cage of glass.

"It’s beautiful," Bella whispered, her eyes wide as she looked at the towering palm trees and the vibrant hibiscus shrubs. "It’s like we never left home."

But we had. I looked up through the glass dome where the grey, mountain clouds were swirling, and a light snow had begun to fall. It was an impossible sight—vibrant red petals against a backdrop of falling white flakes.

I walked deeper into the greenery, my plum wool dress feeling a bit too heavy for the artificial heat. At the center of the garden was a small, circular clearing with a stone bench and a single easel holding a canvas. My designer's curiosity took over. I stepped closer, wondering if the Duke was a man of the arts as well as a man of war.

The canvas was blank, but scattered on the small table next to it were sketches. I picked one up, my breath hitching in my throat.

It wasn't a landscape. It was a drawing of a dress.

The lines were confident and sharp, detailing a gown that looked like it was woven from the Northern Lights—high collars, structured shoulders, but with a flowing, ethereal skirt that reminded me of the waves in the Southern ports. It was a masterpiece of "Ice and Fire."

"He has an eye for detail," I murmured, tracing the sketch of the embroidery.

"The Duke designed this structure himself," a voice said from the shadows of a large fern.

I jumped, dropping the sketch. Countess Diana stepped out, her silver-blue gown looking out of place among the green leaves. She looked less like a judge today and more like a woman who was tired of keeping secrets.

"He spent years building this," Diana continued, her eyes fixed on the glass dome. "Everyone in the Council thought he was mad—wasting gold on a garden in a land that only grows iron. But Valdemar is a man of singular focus. When he wants something, he builds a world for it."

She looked at me then, her gaze settling on the silver locket I had pinned to the inside of my bodice, the chain peeking out.

"You found the locket," she noted, her voice devoid of its earlier bite. "He used to carry that every day when he was a boy, after he returned from his 'diplomatic' trip to your father's estate."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "He was at my father's estate? I don't remember him."

"You wouldn't," Diana said with a cold, hollow laugh. "You were a child, and he was a shadow. But he saw you, Elena. He saw how they treated you. He saw how you were tucked away like a shameful secret while your father played his games."

She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He didn't just 'outbid' Nottingham. He has been waiting for the moment your father's greed would finally put you on the market. He didn't save you because he has been obsessed with the idea of 'owning' the only beautiful thing he ever saw in that miserable South."

The warmth of the Glass House suddenly felt suffocating. I looked at the sketches of the dresses—dresses meant for me, designed by a man who had been watching me from the shadows for a decade.

"Is that why you hate me?" I asked Diana. "Because he built this world for a girl he barely knew?"

Diana didn't answer. She simply turned and walked away, her footsteps silent on the mossy ground.

I stood alone in the center of the garden, surrounded by the flowers of my home and the glass of my new master. The Duke wasn't just stoic protector or a cold businessman. He was a man who had built a cage of glass and silk, waiting for the day I would finally be forced to fly into it.

The memory of the boy in the garden from my dream flashed in my mind again. It wasn't just a dream