The Frost Weaver

I learned two things on Christmas Eve. First: holidays are cruel to people who expect too much from them. Second: winter listens. The Strasbourg Christmas market glowed like a promise someone else had made. White lights threaded through bare branches overhead, their reflections catching in the glass ornaments and polished wood stalls. The air smelled like cinnamon, orange peel, roasted chestnuts. Music drifted through the square—soft voices singing in French, bells chiming somewhere deeper in the crowd. It should have felt magical. I stood there instead with numb fingers wrapped around a paper cup of vin chaud that had gone cold, watching my boyfriend kiss another woman under a strand of star-shaped lights. He didn’t even bother to hide it. Her hands were already familiar on his coat, her mouth confident, practiced. When he finally pulled back and saw me, there was a flicker of annoyance in his eyes, as if I’d interrupted something inconvenient. “Elara,” he said. Not gently. Not apologetically. Around us, the market kept moving. People laughed. Someone nearby snapped a photo. A small circle of attention formed the way it always does when pain becomes public. “This isn’t what it looks like,” he added, out of habit more than conviction. I waited for the tears. They didn’t come. “How long?” I asked. He sighed. “Does it matter?” That was the moment something inside me went quiet. I had crossed an ocean for him. Planned my holiday around his schedule. Told myself this trip—this place—might finally feel like belonging. Instead, I felt hollowed out, a winter wind passing straight through me. “You’re being dramatic,” he continued, glancing at the crowd like they were the real problem. “Let’s not make a scene.” The woman beside him smiled. Red scarf. Bright lipstick. The expression of someone who thought she’d won something. I opened my mouth. I don’t know what I meant to say. Something sharp. Something final. The words never made it out. Because the air changed. Not abruptly—nothing dramatic like thunder or sparks—but subtly, as if the square itself inhaled and forgot to exhale. The lights overhead flickered. Conversations softened. The space between people widened without anyone quite noticing why. Someone stepped between me and my boyfriend. He moved with a stillness that didn’t belong to a crowded market. Tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a dark coat cut too elegantly for a tourist, he didn’t touch either of us. He didn’t need to. “That is enough,” he said. His voice was low, accented, calm in a way that made my skin prickle. Not loud. Not angry. Controlled. My boyfriend scoffed. “This doesn’t concern you.” The man’s gaze shifted to him, and something cold and assessing passed through it—like a predator finally acknowledging prey. “It does now.” I felt it then. A pressure in my chest. A warmth curling low in my stomach that made no sense at all. Instinctive. Unwanted. Real. The stranger angled his body slightly, placing himself in front of me. Shielding me from the stares, the phones, the humiliation. I hadn’t asked him to. I didn’t know his name. Still, my body leaned closer. His eyes lifted, scanning the square. I followed his gaze without understanding why—and noticed, suddenly, how many people had gone very still. A woman at a wine stall watching too intently. A man near the choir lowering his head. Faces alert in a way that felt… expectant. As if they were waiting. “This woman,” the stranger said clearly, his words cutting through the cold night, “is under my protection.” My breath caught. “She is claimed.” The market didn’t fall silent, not truly. Music still played. Laughter still existed somewhere beyond the square. But something deeper hushed, like the world itself had paused to listen. I stared at him, shock crashing through me. “I didn’t agree to that,” I whispered. He turned his head just enough for me to see his face fully. Dark eyes. Ancient. Burning with something he kept carefully leashed. “I know,” he said quietly, so only I could hear. “This buys you time. Nothing more—unless you choose it.” Then he looked back at the watching crowd. And beneath the lights and snow and songs, something old stirred, and winter remembered my name. The crowd didn’t disperse all at once. They drifted, slowly and reluctantly, like embers settling after a fire. Conversations resumed in careful murmurs. Music swelled again, tentative at first, then louder. The square reclaimed its cheer with practiced ease, as if nothing extraordinary had just occurred. I stood there, heart hammering, trying to understand how the night had tilted so completely off its axis. The man beside me didn’t move. “You should go,” my ex muttered finally, face flushed—not with shame, but irritation. “This is ridiculous.” The stranger didn’t even look at him. “Leave,” he said simply. Something in his voice made it less a suggestion and more a certainty. My ex opened his mouth, thought better of it, and walked away with the woman in the red scarf. The crowd closed behind them. Just like that. As if they had never mattered at all. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Then I turned on the man who had claimed me. “What the hell was that?” I demanded. He faced me fully now. Up close, he was… unsettling. Not because he was handsome—though he was, in a severe, winter-carved way—but because everything about him felt deliberate. Controlled. Like restraint was a choice he made moment by moment. “You invoked something,” I said, my voice shaking despite my effort to steady it. “You said I was claimed. You don’t get to—” “I know what I said.” His gaze softened just enough to be dangerous. “And you had no right,” I continued. “I don’t belong to anyone.” “No,” he agreed. “You don’t.” That stopped me. The wind cut between us, sharp and cold. Snow dusted the shoulders of his coat, melting slowly as if reluctant to leave him. “Then explain,” I said. “Right now.” He glanced around the square again—not searching, exactly, but assessing. Measuring threats I couldn’t see. “Not here.” “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I snapped. His mouth curved faintly. Not amusement. Approval. “Good,” he said. “Neither am I.” He gestured toward a narrow street branching off the square, lit by lanterns and strung with evergreen boughs. Close enough that the market noise still hummed, far enough that we wouldn’t be overheard. I hesitated. Everything in me screamed that this was a bad idea. I didn’t know him. I didn’t trust him. I certainly didn’t understand what had just happened. But when I took a step away from him, the cold bit harder. Sharper. As if winter itself disapproved. I followed. The alley smelled of pine and old stone. The noise of the market faded to a distant glow. He stopped beneath a lantern, its light catching the planes of his face—dark hair, strong jaw, eyes like a storm held in check. “My name is Adrien,” he said. “Adrien Laurent.” The name settled strangely in my chest. “I didn’t ask for your name,” I said, though I was glad to have it. “No,” he replied calmly. “But you need it.” I crossed my arms, more for grounding than warmth. “You embarrassed me. You scared me. And now half of Strasbourg apparently thinks I’m… what? Yours?” “Protected,” he corrected. I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “That’s not better.” His eyes didn’t leave mine. “You were being watched.” My breath stuttered. “By who?” “By those who would have taken advantage of your pain.” “That’s insane.” “Yes,” he said. “It often feels that way at first.” I shook my head. “I don’t believe in this. Courts hiding in crowds. Claims. Whatever game you’re playing—” “I’m not playing.” Silence stretched between us. Snow drifted down, slow and deliberate. “You felt it,” he said quietly. I hated that he was right. The pressure in my chest. The pull. The way my body had responded before my mind caught up. “That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “It means everything,” he replied. “And nothing—until you decide.” My hands were cold. Colder than they should have been. I tucked them beneath my arms. Adrien’s gaze dropped briefly, to my fingers, pale against the dark fabric of my coat—then lifted again, sharpened. “How long have your hands been cold like that?” he asked. I frowned. “What?” “Always,” he said, answering himself. “Since before tonight.” A chill traced my spine that had nothing to do with winter. “I want you to listen to me,” he said. “The words I spoke tonight invoked the Winter Accord. It binds me to your protection until the solstice passes.” “And after that?” I asked. His jaw tightened. “After that,” he said, “you choose.” The lantern flickered. Somewhere behind us, bells rang, clear, bright, insistent. I looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time wondered if Christmas Eve hadn’t been the end of something after all. But the beginning.