I've lived my life within the walls of the Ice Clan. Deep within those walls lies another—smaller, more suffocating—where the priests and priestesses reside.
I have lived there since the moment I was born.
Not because I belong, but because I don't.
I was not born of the Ice Heart. I do not carry its sacred power. I am different—and within the Ice Clan, difference is a sentence I have been forced to serve every day of my life.
There are four great pillars that bind this clan together, and they chose to keep me alive… but never free. So I remain here, within these cold, watchful walls.
Sometimes I wonder if I am wrong to even exist. I question myself more than I breathe. I try to understand what I am, but confusion is the only truth that ever answers me.
I have tried escaping before.
And I learned something cruel at eighteen years of imprisonment: I could cross every border in this world… but I would never outrun myself."
A sharp knock shattered the silence.
"Elyasan… the Lore wants to see you!"
The voice didn't wait for a response. The door slammed shut with a finality that echoed through my small chamber.
I closed my worn, rusty diary—an old relic I had once discovered hidden beneath a shelf in the Lore's library. The only thing in this place that felt like it belonged to me.
Standing, I brushed the dust from my skirt and exhaled slowly. As always, I prepared myself for the walk through judgment.
I kept my gaze lowered as I stepped into the corridor, careful not to meet the eyes of those who looked at me like I was an error the Ice Clan had refused to erase.
Then I heard him.
"Elyasan."
Luke stepped into my path.
"Are you going to the Lore's library?" he asked, falling into step beside me without hesitation.
Luke had always been… different. The only one who never treated me like a curse. We grew up side by side, and while the rest of the clan kept their distance, he stayed.
It made the world feel less sharp when he walked with me like this. Less like I was invisible.
"The Lore summoned me," I replied quietly. "I think I'm in trouble."
Luke gave a soft chuckle, his hand briefly brushing my shoulder in reassurance.
"The Lore adores you. It's probably just another lecture."
We reached the heavy doors of the Lore's study. Luke gave me a final look—something gentle, steady—before I stepped inside alone.
The door closed behind me.
The silence inside was heavier than stone.
"You sent for me, Lore?" I asked.
He looked up slowly.
The Lore who raised me. The Lore who took me in after my parents died. The Lore who told me my existence had killed my mother at birth… and taken my father not long after.
His gaze studied me like I was a page he had read too many times but still didn't understand.
"The Ice Heart is weakening," he said at last. "And the Four Pillars have decided… you will be sent out of the Clan."
For a moment, the world stopped.
The question rose in me—small, burning, desperate.
Why?
But I already knew the answer before I could speak it.
There was no need for questions when I had always been the reason for their silence, their fear, their decline.
My fingers tightened slightly at my sides.
"So…" I said carefully, steadying my voice, "where do you intend for me to go?"
"You will be married off," the Lore replied without hesitation. "The King has offered your dowry. You are to be wed to the Crown Prince of the Wolf Clan. It is… the most suitable arrangement we could devise."
A hollow laugh almost escaped me.
"I am meant to be a priestess," I said, my voice sharpening. "Devoted to the gods. Not bound to a man. I will continue on that path."
The Lore's expression did not change.
"You have no say in this matter."
The words struck colder than any winter wind.
"Your father and your siblings believe this is the only way to repay what you have endured here," he added. "Eighteen years of darkness. They think this is mercy."
Got it—this adds strong emotional stakes. I'll continue seamlessly from where we stopped, revealing her true origin and deepening the tension.
The Lore's words still echoed in the air, but something inside me finally cracked—not loudly, not violently… but like ice under unbearable pressure.
A marriage.
A sentence.
A disposal wrapped in ceremony.
"To the Wolf Prince…" I repeated slowly, as if tasting the meaning might make it less real.
The Lore's gaze remained fixed on me. Patient. Certain. As though my life had already been written without my permission.
But then—
The door behind me opened.
Not gently. Not politely.
It was pushed open with authority.
A presence filled the room before a single word was spoken.
"The decision has already been made."
My breath caught.
I knew that voice.
I turned.
The King of the Ice Clan stood there.
Not the Lore. Not a priest. Not a messenger.
The King.
Cold silver eyes. A crown carved from ancient frost. And behind him, like shadows that refused to leave his side, stood two of my older brothers.
My chest tightened.
And then I saw him.
The eldest.
Prince Kael.
His gaze landed on me like a blade finding old scars.
Hatred.
Pure. Unforgiving. Familiar.
Something in me already knew—this meeting was not about my future.
It was about my removal.
"You are not a priestess," the King said firmly, stepping into the room. "And you never were meant to be one."
My lips parted slightly, but no words came.
My mind searched for meaning, for denial, for anything that would make this feel less like reality breaking apart.
The King continued, his voice lower now.
"You are Elyasan of Iceblood. Daughter of the Ice Crown. Born to me… and the Queen."
My heart stopped.
For a moment, even the cold in my veins forgot how to move.
"That is impossible," I whispered.
But even as I said it, I felt the shift—the way the room seemed to tilt, the way the Lore avoided my eyes for the first time.
Kael stepped forward.
"You were born," he said sharply, "and she died because of you."
Silence swallowed the room whole.
My breath turned shallow.
"No…" I shook my head slightly. "No, that's not—"
"I saw it," Kael cut in.
His voice broke—but not with sadness.
With rage he had carried for years.
"I was there when Mother died," he said. "I saw her life fade while you cried in her arms. While the healers said your existence was the price."
My knees nearly gave way.
The Queen… my mother…
A face I had never known. A life I had only been told I stole.
The King's expression hardened, but there was something fractured beneath it—something buried too deep to name.
"You were taken from the palace to preserve balance within the clan," he said. "And hidden among the priesthood so your power would not destabilize the Ice Heart further."
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
"So I was… hidden."
"Yes," he said. "For eighteen years."
The weight of it crushed my chest.
Not an outcast.
Not a mistake.
But a secret.
A royal secret buried in silence and guilt.
Kael's eyes burned into me again.
"And now they want to use you again," he said bitterly. "First as a sacrifice to the Ice Clan. Now as a bride to the Wolf Crown."
My throat tightened.
"I am not a weapon," I said quietly.
But even I could hear the doubt in my voice.
The King stepped closer.
"No," he said. "You are worse than a weapon."
My breath caught.
"You are balance itself," he continued. "And balance is never allowed to remain free."
A long silence followed.
Then he gave the final decree.
"You will go to the Wolf Clan as arranged."
My fists clenched.
"And if I refuse?"
For the first time, something like emotion flickered in the King's eyes.
Not anger.
Not command.
Fear.
"Then," he said slowly, "the Ice Heart will fall completely… and this entire clan will freeze from the inside out."
The room went still again.
Kael turned his head slightly, not looking at me anymore.
As if looking at me hurt more than hating me.
And in that moment, I understood something worse than exile.
I was not being sent away because I was unwanted.
I was being sent away because I was necessary.