Chapter 1
Bianca
I cursed for the fourth time as I forced my feet to keep going in the knee-deep drifts of snow. This was all Kevin’s fault. I couldn’t believe I was about to die because of that idiot. Who left someone behind on the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere in winter? And to make matters worse, from the looks of it, a storm was gathering.
No, the truth was, I was the idiot. I’d accepted his offer to go snowmobiling in a last-ditch attempt to save our relationship. I was the outdoorsy girl who loved hikes, climbing, and, yes, stuff like getting on a snowmobile. Kevin, he had always preferred e-sports over real sports. Not that I didn’t like a good video game every now and then—that’s how we’d first met—but there was more to life than a dank room and a screen.
I should have balked the moment I discovered there was only one snowmobile. Kevin was too macho to let me drive, and he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Mostly, he didn’t understand navigating worth a damn, and his idea of reconciling was to vehemently argue that women couldn’t read a map. We were so done. Frankly, we’d been done months ago.
If my mom hadn’t overheard his offer, I probably would have said no, but she wanted grandbabies very badly. It was hard to disappoint your mom when she looked at you with big eyes and that sweet smile. I’d been feeling a little more charitable because it was almost Christmas, too, and I knew he didn’t have much in the way of family.
Last week, when I’d agreed to meet Kevin for this outing, it had seemed harmless. After all, he was a lazy douche, but he was not a bad guy. What could it hurt to humor him for a little while and have some fun while I was at it? I loved the winter, loved the snow and the crisp air. It was so fresh and bright—at least, it was unless a fierce snowstorm was gathering overhead. This would have been the perfect moment not to be outside, but to be curled up on the couch next to my Christmas tree, working on my latest crochet project.
I eyed the dark, roiling clouds with trepidation and reconsidered my course. Get to high ground and hope for reception? Or should I alter course and go downhill to try to find shelter? This was pretty rural, empty countryside; the chances of finding a house or a town were pretty slim. If I didn’t have a fire, enough wood, and shelter before that snowstorm hit, I was going to freeze to death. There was no doubt about that.
Biting my lip, I readjusted my self-made crochet beanie. The slope was rough going; I should head downhill. My pace would be much better, and the chance of finding shelter would be higher. I turned to do that, but my foot slipped on a slick tree root beneath the snow. Tumbling forward, I caught myself against a tree, then cursed when I discovered my necklace had slipped out and gotten tangled in the bare branches.
The blue crystal was supposed to resemble the North Star, to guide me home from my adventures. That’s what my mom said when she gave it to me on my eighteenth birthday. I’d worn it ever since and never once had it gotten stuck on something, but it was definitely stuck now. The silver chain wrapped around a brittle, thin twig that still wouldn’t break, and the crystal’sjagged tip angled oddly to the side. My eyes followed it by instinct, and then my breath caught in surprise.
I would never have seen it, half-hidden behind the thick trunk of an oak and partially covered by a snowdrift. If not for the way my necklace had gotten stuck, I would have walked right by it without ever being the wiser. The silver chain slipped free easily now, as if the necklace had done its job.
Straightening, I turned to get a better look at what I’d discovered. A statue of ice in the shape of a deer and her young fawn—almost lifelike in its realism. An ice sculpture that had to be man-made, which meant… My heart skipped a beat as hope filled me. Someone had to be around here somewhere. That sculpture hadn’t popped up like magic, had it? Someone had been by recently enough to make it. It wasn’t covered in snow yet or melted by a morning ray of sunshine.
My footsteps crunched in the fresh snow as I approached the ethereal, temporary sculpture. It made me look down to see if whoever had crafted this masterpiece had left any for themselves. The snow was pristine, though, as if the artist had gone up in smoke. I hoped not—I really needed help.
As if fate decided it wasn’t bad enough yet, snowflakes, fat and slow, began to tumble from the dark clouds. A wind also picked up, howling around the trees as if wolves were nipping at my heels. Shivering, I yanked my coat more tightly around me and stuck my cold fingers into my armpits to heat them back up.
My North Star necklace should have been tucked safely back inside my coat, but I didn’t recall doing that, so I must be wrong. It was out of my coat, and as it swung in the stiff wind, it caughtmy eye again with a pale blue glow. It was warm against my skin as I hurried to tuck it away for real this time.
I craned my head left and right, trying to see through the beginning but rapidly worsening snowfall. There—was that another silhouette of a statue? I rushed uphill toward it, wiping snowflakes from my eyes when they clung to my lashes. Yes! Another statue, this one of a delicate bush of holly, its leaves so thin they quivered like wind chimes.
The sculpture gleamed faintly in the dimming light. I froze and stared at it, blinking, half-convinced I was seeing things. Each vein of the leaf caught what little daylight remained, the ice so clear that it seemed to hum with life. The berries looked almost edible, red caught within the frozen sphere like drops of blood trapped mid-fall.
My breath puffed white in the air with each exhale, stinging my lips with the cold. The storm was coming fast; I could feel it in my bones, in the way the wind pushed at my coat, tugging strands of hair across my mouth. My situation was desperate. If I didn’t find shelter soon, the storm would be on me. On this hillside, surrounded by dark woods and snow deepening with every minute, I felt terrifyingly alone.
I reached out to touch the sculpture, though I hardly had time to dawdle. It was so pretty that I couldn’t resist. It was cold, of course—I felt that even through my gloves—but not brittle. Strong, as though it had bloomed from winter itself rather than being shaped by a human hand. Who could’ve made something like this out here? And why?
A gust of wind rattled the branches overhead. My chest tightened. I couldn’t stay where I was; the storm would swallow me whole. Kevin wasn’t going to be the one to kill me with his incompetence; I refused. I could already hear the obituaries, my mom lamenting my dumb choice to follow a man-child into the wilds right before a snowstorm. If I’d known there’d be one, I wouldn’t have gone, that was for sure. But both Kevin and the snowmobile-renting place had assured me it was safe. Liars, both of them.
The wind and snow were beginning to make it hard to see, but I desperately searched the gloom for more sculptures. They were my only hope. That was when I saw it: another one farther ahead, half-hidden by snowflakes—not holly this time, but a fox, poised mid-step, fur rippling as if it could leap away at any moment. Its tail was a flourish of crystal fire.
Hope sparked. Maybe someone lived nearby, maybe these weren’t art pieces so much as markers. I hurried forward, boots crunching, heart thrumming in rhythm with the wind. Each sculpture led to another. I spotted a lantern of ice, a wreath, and a pair of doves with their wings half-spread. They were like a frozen breadcrumb trail.
By the time the cabin came into view, I nearly cried from relief. A warm amber glow spilled from the windows, slicing through the swirl of white. Smoke rose faintly from a stone chimney, promising heat, safety, life. I stumbled toward it, breath ragged, my fingers stiff with cold despite my gloves. My ears ached as well, as if the wind were picking at them, howling into my eardrums with every icy exhale.
I scanned the place quickly, wondering only briefly what I was dealing with. Normally, I wouldn’t approach a stranger like this, but these were desperate times.
To the side of the cabin stood a smaller building, maybe a workshop. The scent of fresh wood carried even through the storm, resin-sharp and grounding. The road—if it could be called that—was little more than a suggestion, overgrown with branches white from snow and long forgotten. There were no tire tracks, no footprints, not even the barest attempt to clear the driveway. There was no car, unless it was hiding in the workshop or behind the cabin. Whoever lived here didn’t leave often. Someone did live here, though: there was light in the window, smoke from a fire, and thus, warmth. Right now, that’s all I wanted: to be warm again.
I dragged myself up the steps and knocked—once, twice, then harder—desperation rising with each heartbeat. Snow stung my cheeks like tiny knives; ice burned my lungs with each inhale. How rapidly was the temperature dropping? How bad was it going to get? I pressed my forehead to the door. There was no wreath on it to mark the season, not a hint of festive cheer. Please, someone, be here. Please open this door and let me in.
For a long, terrifying moment, there was absolutely nothing. Just the howl of the wind and the ice creeping into my bones. My throat ached with the urge to cry, which was nothing like me. I didn’t cry; I was always the cheerful optimist, cheering up everyone else. This, though—this pervasive cold and the certainty that I’d die without help—was possibly the scariest position I’d ever been in.
Then, slow, heavy steps sounded on the other side. I almost didn’t hear them over the sound of the storm. The door opened just as slowly, or maybe it only seemed that way because of the stutter of my heart; the way time seemed to stand still.
At first, I couldn’t quite understand what I was looking at. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood with the glow of firelight behind him, catching in his hair—blue, not just any blue but truly, impossibly blue, the strands gleaming like glacier glass. It had to be dyed, but whoever had done it had done an amazing job.
His skin held a faint bluish tint too, as if carved from ice itself, and the air around him crackled colder than the storm outside. That had to be the strange cast of light through his magnificent hair, because there was no way he was actually, faintly blue.
