❄️ Prologue — Rumors of the North

The North had always been a place of stories.

Not the kind written in books or sung by poets, but the kind whispered in quiet corners, passed from servant to servant in the dim glow of lantern light. Stories that children were warned not to repeat, yet remembered all the same.

They said the land beyond the mountains was buried in endless snow, where the wind howled like restless spirits and the nights never truly ended. Crops did not grow there as they did in the south, and the people survived on whatever they could take from the harsh land—or from each other.

They said monsters roamed freely.

And among them… lived a king.

A man with white hair and a face marked by scars, as if even the heavens had tried to strike him down and failed. A man who led an army that felt no fear, showed no mercy, and left nothing behind but silence.

They said he was cursed.

That the royal bloodline of the North carried something inhuman within them. That in the darkest hours of night, when the snow fell thickest, the king and his heir became something else entirely—something that hunted, something that fed.

Human flesh, they whispered.

Human blood.

No one could say for certain where these stories began, or how much of them were true. But fear did not need truth to exist. It grew easily in the unknown, feeding on distance and silence.

And the North… was very far away.

In the southern capital, far from the frozen lands, life was warm and bright. The palace stood tall beneath clear skies, its golden roofs shining under the sun, untouched by the shadows of those distant tales.

Yet even here, the North was not entirely forgotten.

It lingered in cautious conversations among ministers, in the uneasy glances exchanged whenever its name was mentioned. It was a place no one wished to anger, and no one truly understood.

A kingdom wrapped in snow.

A throne built on fear.

And somewhere within it—

A prince.

They said he was no different from his father.

Cold. Ruthless. Untouchable.

A demon in human form.

But stories, like snow, often hid what lay beneath.

And sometimes—

What was feared the most…

Was not a monster.

But something far more dangerous.

Because one day—

A princess who had grown up listening to those very stories would step into that frozen land not with fear… but with curiosity.

And the moment she crossed into the North—

The truth would begin to unfold.