Chapter 1

T he portrait mounted against the otherwise bare wall stared at me in pitiful silence. Jagged features of the late Queen Adria, so cold and hateful, pricked my skin with ice. How many nights did I stare into those menacing blue eyes and feel nothing? Now, as I awaited the verdict that could ultimately destroy my already feeble existence, I studied the canvas with such disdain. Her subtle cruelty was nauseating.

That resentful gaze held me captive. With her pointed chin tipped slightly up, her last words were a gut-wrenching echo. You're as much of a coward as our father. Sleek black hair, pulled tightly into a neat braid, followed the unending length of her slender neck. Cheeks, the shade of moonlight, hollowed just below the bone. I hated how much I resembled her. My hair was not nearly as pin straight, but just as raven black.

We shared the same forbidding eyes as our mother and the sharp, almost geometric cheek bones of our father. Beads of amethyst and pearl draped across the neckline of her crystalline black gown. Two pale, delicate hands with long skeletal fingers clasped the gleaming hilt of a gunmetal dagger whose point was almost as piercing as the distaste stretched around her thin, white lips.

Part of me was glad she was gone, although I'd never speak those words into existence. I'd surely face the consequences. When that sudden illness consumed my sister, the realm grieved publicly, but rejoiced privately. Her reign of paranoia and destruction had finally, and most abruptly, ended. The future of Ursae now lay in the hands of Adria's successor- her twelve-year-old son, Vikar.

Although still only a boy, I truly believed his reign would far surpass that of his mother's. Vikar had inherited Adria's wisdom without her haunted cruelty and suspicion. Even as a toddler, faint ripples appeared beneath the surface of his small, rounded blue eyes. Vikar was a gentle boy, always curious about the world, always smiling shyly behind his mother's skirts.

When he was three, he fell incredibly ill. I spent many nights praying to the Gods that he'd not cross into their realm. Our family sent for healers from all four realms to find a cure for his ailments. When none were successful, Adria pleaded to our city's goddess, Polaris, to save her young son. She spent countless hours kneeling at the base of the temple, whimpering in the cloak of night. When she finally returned with stiff knees and swollen eyes, all the essence of hope was gone.

Against all odds, Vikar regained his strength and overcame the illness. Adria vowed to never allow him to fall ill again. Her love for her son, entwined with the deep fear of loss, grew so fierce it nearly destroyed her. She locked him away in an isolated wing of the castle so he'd never risk exposure to another illness. Little did she know resentment and hate for her spread through his heart like an infection, far greater than that he contracted as a babe. As each day passed, locked away in that castle wing, Vikar slowly retreated into himself, his blood stream infected with growing frustration and loathing for his overbearing mother.

The late queen's constant paranoia left our kingdom in crumbles. Hated by the other realms, isolated in a wasteland of snow and ice, we survived on meager scraps. Before taking the throne only five years prior, our people had thrived. The deeply rooted treaties our father, King Herald, had spent his entire reign working to establish, snapped in a manner of seconds.

Only minutes after Adria's coronation, she declared our allies to the east, Venia, and west, Canissa, fruitless and disloyal. She turned her back on vital trade agreements and, in doing so, sentenced our realm to a reign of hunger and hardship. With each passing year, as my sister's fears deepened, Ursae sank more and more into its snowy fjord until only the ghost of a great kingdom remained. The winters were harsher, the crops dwindled, and the livestock grew barren. The snowfall eventually became permanent, burying Ursae's resilience until it was snuffed out entirely.

"Lady Elpis. He's ready for you," a voice behind announced, breaking the chains my sister's portrait had seized me in. Breathing deeply, I turned my back on the once mighty queen and entered through the intricately carved oak double doors. A servant closed the doors behind me. Creaking wood broke the thick silence the way a scream hits packed snow, abruptly diffusing into the air. The throne room was brutally cold. Cobwebs and ash engulfed a fireplace on the left wall, lonely from years of neglect. The last time a fire roared beneath that mantle, Vikar had still been in diapers. Dilapidated bookshelves lined the right wall with forgotten ledgers, musty from years of decay. Wolf pelts, sprawled on the slate floor, led to a dais framed by two withered oak columns. A single gunmetal throne sat vacant and bitter atop the dais.

The remnants of my sister's reign still suffocated the room. Even with shallow breaths, my lungs struggled to filter out her very memory.

Vikar stood at the windows overlooking the castle's garden, now blooming only with crystalline ice. His hands crossed behind his back. The weight of the steel crown rested awkwardly atop his small head. His short black hair crimped at sharp, unnatural points. His compact frame drowned in a purple tunic with intricate silver beading along the hem. A boy pretending to be a man. Vikar sighed, his shoulders tense. A lifetime of trepidation already muted those small eyes, like jade tarnished with imperfections.

"I'm sorry Elpis, the Elders have made their decision," he stated firmly. His voice shook slightly, as if he battled to force the words from his tongue.

The four Elders served as the line between each city and its namesake immortal. They held council only in extreme circumstances, and when they came to their verdict, not even a king himself could oppose it.

They lived in a large temple with stark white towers penetrating into the endless sky on an island hundreds of miles from any coastline. The island itself was one cliff-line jutting from the sea, its jagged-edged precipice molded from thousands of years of erosion. At the entrance of the temple, four cloaked stone figures stood at least a hundred feet high with palms outstretched towards the immortal realm above. No mortal had ever entered the Temple of the Elders and returned. Only those who had committed catastrophic crimes passed beneath the outstretched arms of the cloaked, marbled giants. Just the thought of the furious waves crashing against the rocky bluff turned my blood to ice.

"The evidence against you is just too great. I tried to tell them, but they wouldn't listen. Their minds were made up before I could even try to convince them otherwise. It's their judgment that you murdered my mother. There is no alternative explanation." He turned to me, grief streaking down his narrow cheeks in little drops.

I sighed and dropped my gaze to the wolf pelt beneath my bare feet. The grey and white fur was coarse with age as it scratched between each of my toes. I couldn't imagine that this ancient, ratty thing had once had a soul. A life within those round, predatory eyes. When Adria and I were children, we would beg our father to tell us the story of how he'd taken down the mighty wolven king sent from the immortal realm with a single dagger. How he'd skinned the gigantic black wolf and its soldiers alive.

He'd sit us down in front of the roaring fireplace and I'd imagine the wolf pelts coming to life, dancing around the room, stalking their prey, howling at the moon. It was as if our father returned their stolen lives with each word he spoke.

Although the younger of the two, I never grew afraid of the violence and death my father spoke of in his stories. Adria would often burst into tears, begging him to tell us a better story- one with a happy fairytale ending. Who would have thought that now, nearly twenty years later, I would be the one shaking in fear?

Of course the Elders blamed me for the Queen's untimely death. Evil, conniving Elpis. The jealous younger sister who, even as a child, held death and darkness at her fingertips. I could hear Adria's voice again, echoing in my thoughts. It's pathetic, truly. All you've ever wanted was my throne and my title.

"Elpis, I'm so sorry. I tried, I really did." Vikar dropped to his knees, burying his head in his hands. With each heart wrenching sob his small body shook, and I found it more and more difficult to breathe.

"I know. I know you did what you could. I don't blame you, Vikar. It's okay." Reaching for him, I swallowed the realization of what my life would become- what awaited me outside of this throne room. I couldn't afford to crack right now, not for the sake of my nephew.

Vikar cried into his hands as I knelt beside him and placed my hand on his back. The crown atop his head gleamed in the cool moonlight shining through the arched windows behind us. Vikar was fated to live a life worse than mine. The stifling responsibility his mother left him shattered any hope of a normal upbringing, a normal childhood. He would never again get to be that carefree boy who loved imaginary adventures through the castle garden and crafting trinkets from twigs or old pieces of twine.

All he could be now was an empty king in an empty castle, illuminated only by an empty winter sky.

Whatever piece of my heart that had survived the cruelty of my sister shattered instantly as I watched this young boy struggle to withstand the force of his new title.

"The guards are waiting for you outside this room. They'll take you to the tower north of the city where you're meant to live out the rest of your days." He spoke in a low voice.

I gazed out the window at the new flurries of snow drifting down from the sky. The pines, just past the castle gardens, shivered as the nightly winter breeze caressed through their frosted needles. If not for the gaping hole forming in the pit of my stomach, I may have found the sight beautiful. Instead, it filled me with dread.

"I will never forget your kindness, dear Aunt. You were more of a mother to me than my own. You saved me," he said, finally regaining his composure and lifting his head high, the pain only narrowly hidden beneath the surface.

"You will be a great king, Vikar. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. You're not your mother," I said, kissing him on the forehead just below that wretched crown.

He gave me a sad smile, tears pooling on his lower lashes. A knock on the door announced it was my time to go. I let my hand slip away from the newly crowned king and prepared to take my leave.

Tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear, I wiped the few tears I had allowed myself to shed and tipped my chin up, mimicking my sister's portrait. If she taught me anything, it was to never let my enemies see weakness. I stopped in front of the tall wooden doors, not ready to face whatever awaited me. Placing my hand on the cold cast iron handles, I exhaled and glanced back at Vikar, trying to ingrain his likeness into my memories.

"The people of Ursae will thrive under your reign if you promise me one thing." My eyes sharpened, and a tinge of disgust hit my tongue. "Promise me you'll destroy every single remnant of that bitch from this realm."

The new king's mouth dropped to the floor. Not once had anyone spoken a word against Queen Adria. His gaping mouth curled slightly upward and a faint sparkle blinked from his eye.

"I promise."

With that, I swung the oak doors open and stepped into the fate decided for me .