Prologue – Winter
The days were cold and long, stuck inside the castle and its grounds. It was not a place humans dared to venture; a castle made of white block and ice, a place where even the sun’s rays could not warm. Impressively carved into the side of a snowy mountain, with spires shooting towards the sky at an almost alarming height.
But it was home.
Winter’s home. My home.
Some might say the land was cursed. Some might say it was because of me, because of my power, that the kingdom between here and there only had two seasons: a bitter, raging winter… and a bright, intensely hot summer.
The latter was my brother’s doing.
Ishan, Summer, my brother since the beginning of time, had always been more free-spirited than me. He’d always stuck his nose in the human world, in the villages and cities that sprouted up in the lands we oversaw. He took joy in them, in their mortality, in their iron-hard wills and the way they fought, even when the odds were turned against them.
I was not like him. I never left my castle. And, even as it was, Ishan and I were not kings. We were not men. Our blood did not run red, simply because it did not run at all. We were not human, because we were gods. We were better than them.
Even so, it was a lonely existence. I wanted what the humans seemed to get so easily, what kept their smiles deep and their eyes bright. I wanted the one thing I was destined to never have: love.
And so, with the help of my magic, my messenger, every twenty-five years I searched for a bride. It had been like that for an eternity now, and though I felt like giving up, though I felt as if fate wanted to keep me locked in this castle, alone, until time itself ceased to exist, I couldn’t.
Winter would find his bride, no matter how long it took.
Chapter One – Morana
The weather had started to change. You could feel it in your bones, a chill steadily growing, a chill that would continue to grow until you were freezing, every part of you desperately searching for warmth. The winters were rough around here, but we managed. We kept a good supply of dried meat to last and enough grain to feed the animals in the barns. We had our system, and it worked.
Years ago, when I was much younger than the nineteen years I was now, I had asked Ma and Pa why we didn’t find somewhere else to live. There were other villages in the valley; north and south dominated by two imposing castles that were said to belong to Winter and Summer themselves. Surely there had to be other places beyond this land? Surely there had to be more to the world?
But it wasn’t my place to question, and Ma and Pa always had something to say to shut me up. Or another chore to give me to punish me for being curious.
I couldn’t help it, though. I yearned for something more, for a life that did not consist of marrying whatever suitor offered my parents a goat or two. I wanted more. So, so much more.
What was strange was that I was the only one who seemed to want more. Everyone else in the village appeared to be happy with their lot in life, with their families and their duties to keep their farms and houses running. I wanted to be free of chores, to be truly free of all responsibilities. Surely there had to be somewhere out there that could give me what I wanted? A far-off kingdom with an actual king or queen and not the deities we worshipped?
Winter and Summer. Two sides of the same thing: nature. Two extremes, one hot and one cold, who we were basically slaves to, dedicating our lives around. If I had to choose one, I’d choose Summer. Many in our town thought I was blessed by Summer himself, my white skin always touched with a warm tint of color, my blonde hair always a few shades lighter and more golden than the rest of my family’s.
Whether or not I was really touched by Summer was beyond me, of course.
The wind lapped around my frame as I pulled water up from the well. Two buckets, which I then had to carry back to the house. It wasn’t my first trip of the afternoon, either. My little sister, Ember, was supposed to do this, but she’d gone off, asking me—no, practically begging me—to do it for her.
I’d already dealt with the cows earlier, so I had simply shrugged and agreed to do her part.
Once both buckets were full, I grabbed them and started the trek back to the house. The village I lived in was a small one, one where everyone knew everyone else’s business, one where there wasn’t a single stranger. It got old, honestly.
Plus, with me being nineteen and all, my parents had been on my case for a few years now, telling me I needed to start paying serious attention to the boys who wanted to marry me. But that was the problem: they were all boys. Completely uninteresting in every way. They were farmers, like their fathers and uncles. Anyone who had a different job in town, like the local blacksmith or carpenter, was highly sought-after.
As far as I knew, the village had never had its own spinster living on the outskirts of town, and I did wonder what my parents would say if I told them that’s what I’d rather be. The old lady who lived by herself, who took care of the forest animals who wound up at her door, rather than an old, married lady popping out kids.
They’d probably laugh at me and tell me to just pick one of the boys who had expressed interest in me.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I made it back to the house. I came around the back of the small, one-story home, blue sky with a few puffy white clouds above. It was a few degrees too cold, and when the wind blew, it only exacerbated the chill creeping up my spine. The warm, summer days when you were immediately drenched in sweat were actually some of my favorites.
Setting down the buckets near the back door, I was about to walk into the house when I overheard my parents talking.
“Aela came to me when I was at the market earlier,” my ma spoke, her tone telling me she wasn’t too happy. “She had a few words to say about Ember and her daughter.”
I froze, careful not to make a sound as I listened.
Pa harrumphed, saying in his low, gravelly voice, “I’ve told that girl dozens of times to stop running around with her. It doesn’t look good on us. They’re too old to be running around all the time like they did when they were younger. She’ll turn off potential husbands—”
I kept myself from rolling my eyes, just barely. Husbands and marriage; it was all my parents seemed to be able to talk about nowadays.
It was a moment before I heard my ma’s voice say, “Aela said she found them in the back field, and when she did, they were both indecent.”
Indecent? What… like naked? I didn’t know what else the word indecent could mean, not in that context. It didn’t matter, though; I’d heard enough. I pushed away from the house, leaving the buckets near the back door.
My parents tried pushing me, but I just didn’t care. Ember, on the other hand, cared too much. She wanted to make them proud, but at the same time, she had to make herself happy. Wasn’t that what mattered, at the end of the day? Your own happiness? It should.
I took the long way through town, my dress blowing all around as I made my way to where I thought I’d find her. Just off the main trail that led out of town, there was a small waterfall. Ember and I used to play there as kids all the time, and even though it was surrounded by trees, I could’ve sworn I always felt the sun kissing my skin.
And, just as I suspected, Ember was there, along with Aela’s daughter, Sorsha. They sat on one of the large rocks lining the waterfall’s pool, their boots unlaced and off, tossed haphazardly on the grass. Their arms touched; they sat especially close.