Eternal Wynter

Prologue

A sharp cry broke out of the woman's mouth as she hit the charred ground. Three burly men stood by her, keeping a watchful eye on her. She had not been easy to contain, much less to drag out into the middle of nowhere. A beautiful carriage pulled up to the group and the woman whimpered.

Her face was bruised and beaten, her brown hair matted and dirty. Her body, on the other hand was in a much worse state than she let on. Every muscle ached and begged her to stop fighting, but her mind did not obey. She shot up from the ground as the carriage door was opened and flung herself at the woman who was getting out. The guards grabbed her just in time and restrained her.

The woman from the carriage sneered at the captive with disdain. She stepped out and silently took a scroll from one of the men who accompanied her."You have been charged with treason and found guilty of the murder of Michael St Helen, prince of Francirico. You shall spend the rest of your days wandering the fields of the cursed. You may never return, on the punishment of torture and death."

She rolled up the scroll with a sneer. The strength seeped out of the charged woman and she felt her knees buckle. "I am innocent, Isabella. You of all people should know that." Traitorous tears burned in her eyes as she looked at Isabella. No matter how hard she tried to keep them in, they came rushing down her cheeks. Isabella shook her head and laughed bitterly. "I doubt that. From now on you shall be known as Wynter." She paused and pulled something out of a fold in her dress. "This will be a physical representation of your cold heart. As well as your powers. Here." Isabella tossed Wynter a heavy chain with a crystal in the form of a heart at the bottom.

Wynter caught the chain, her natural instincts overcoming her rational mind of danger, but the moment her hands made contact with the crystal, she screamed and crumpled to the ground. It felt like her heart had been forcefully ripped from her chest, cut out by a blunt dagger. A sword through the heart would have hurt much less than the gaping hole that now inhabited her body.

The crystal, she thought.

It had been infused with magic, probably just a trick of spite from Isabella. Isabella watched in horror as the scene unfurled in front of her. A blinding light shot out of the crystal as Wynter's emotions poured out of her and into the crystal, trapping them inside. Her tanned skin turned pale, her lips turned purple and started to crust with frost. Her brown hair shimmered, as if it wanted to hold on to its colour, but lost the battle and turned as white as freshly fallen snow.

Her skin seemed to regenerate by itself, leaving no mark of her weeks of torture. Her grimy clothes had changed as well, leaving her in a simple, barely blue dress that shimmered like frost in the morning sun before it melted and the beauty was lost.

Something changed in her mind as well. The fear that had been crippling her melted away into nothingness. Her inner warrior emerged, embracing a power she had always tried to keep hidden and burying another.

Wynter gasped and opened her eyes once the pain ceased. Her limbs had been filled with power and she felt it pulsing through her veins, just waiting to be released. Calmness like she had never known overtook her. She stared at Isabella with icy blue eyes, another change of her features. Isabella swallowed a lump in her throat and stepped back, realising what she had done. Wynter was now like her, immortal until she conceived an heir.

A flash passed through Wynter's eyes and a storm started to brew overhead. "Isabella St Helen, you are no longer welcomed in my presence." The storm erupted and snow, ice and sleet started to beat down on everyone. All of that power Wynter had kept buried inside of her broke loose and wreaked havoc on the world around her. The desert-like area was no longer a desert, that much was clear. "No longer will it be the fields of the cursed, but a kingdom in own right." Her words held more power than Isabella expected and she suddenly realised just how much Wynter had been holding back her whole life.

Wynter regarded Isabella with a cold expression. "You are in the Crystal Court, my domain, and you are not welcomed here. Leave. Return only on the pain of death." Everyone except Isabella scrambled away, the guards toward the prison carriage that had brought Wynter, and the others toward Isabella's carriage. "What have you done?" She asked and regarded the storm raging around her.

Wynter sneered. "The question is what have you done?" She stepped closer to Isabella and grabbed her face roughly. "I know it is you that killed your son. I know why as well. What I do not understand is why you would frame me of all people for the murder." Isabella pulled away, visibly shaking. From the cold or fear, Wynter could not tell.

Yet.

She turned around and headed deeper into the storm. She left most of her memories behind in that place, along with everything she had known.

Isabella stared at her retreating figure for a long time. The last she saw of the Ice Queen was a misty figure of white disappearing between the snowflakes like a memory lost in a summers breeze...