The Winter Queen (RH/Why Choose, MM, MF, MFM, FF) ✅

Chapter One

Marielle

It was a land devoid of color.

Melancholia wrapped its long, cold arms around me, squeezing tight, chilling me down to the bone.

Or, perhaps, it was simply the snow-laded landscape and my thin cloak that did nothing to stave off the chill within the carriage.

The metal foot warmer that had been filled with boiling water at our last stop had long since gone cold.

From the looks of things, I would need to get accustomed to the cold if I were meant to become the so-called "Winter Queen."

Or it may kill me yet, saving me from this marriage I did not want, but had no choice in regardless.

It was well into spring in my homeland.

There, the fields were bright green with fresh grass, little yellow, purple, and white flowers dotting the landscape, promising warmer days still.

But this new land that was to be my home showed no signs of the seasons changing.

Even the sun that was perched high in the sky, casting its dappled light through the trees and into the windows of the carriage provided little to no warmth.

Casting a glance to both sides, though I had been quite alone since the beginning of the journey, save for the two men leading the carriage seemingly halfway around the world, I slid my hands into my bodice, pressing my frozen fingers against my warm breasts, trying to bring back feeling.

I did not know much about surviving in the cold lands, but I had heard stories of fingers and toes getting so cold that they turned black and fell off.

I did not have high hopes for my future, but I did at least wish to hope to retain my appendages.

On a sigh, I turned my attention back out the window, taking in the barren trees, the thick snow, the occasional large black bird drifting through the endless white landscape.

"Lady," a voice called several long hours later, making me jerk fully awake.

"Yes?" I asked, trying to pull myself together.

"This is where we leave you, lady," he informed me, waving toward a small building with white smoke billowing out of the chimney. A pathetic shiver racked my system at the very idea of a fire.

"Leave me?" I asked, brows furrowing.

"Yes, lady. From here, your husband's guards will take you the rest of the way."

I wanted to object.

I did not know my husband's guards. I did not even yet know my husband.

"Will I be safe?" I asked, hearing the tremble in my voice, but I had never been very good at hiding my true feelings.

"They are the men who defend your husband, lady, who will defend you for the rest of your life," my guard reasoned.

There was not much concern in his voice. And why should there be? He had no loyalty to me. Not since my beloved father had passed. He now defended my uncle, the very man who had condemned me to a life in a frozen wasteland.

He likely wanted to get back home. To spring. To warmth. To a life I would never again know.

I could hardly begrudge him his eagerness.

"Yes, of course," I agreed, giving him a tight nod.

"Here they come," he said, nodding toward the small inn where several large men were making their way toward the carriage.