Throne of Frost

Rosalind is a healer with a knife at a scout's throat. Silas is a prince who has come to buy a map she does not have. *Don't move, and I won't drive this through your throat.* The young scout freezes mid-step, one foot hovering above a carpet of wilted moonpetals. His leathers are good, which is the first thing wrong with him, because nobody sent to this part of the wood has ever been able to afford leathers like that. The second thing wrong with him is that he is not alone, and the man standing forty feet back in the trees has been there long enough to have watched the whole exchange without intervening. Silas wants the Venom Well. Everybody in his family wants the Venom Well. What distinguishes him from the rest of them is that he has come to ask rather than to take, and Rosalind has spent long enough among people who take that the difference genuinely disorients her. Moira has the oath. The Court has the prophecy. Neither of those is going to be much comfort by the Festival. What follows: the lie she built her life on, the price of a prince's word, a gamble at Thornmarch, the weight of a father's expectations, a festival of firsts, a queen's shadow, a bridge of stolen promises, and a first touch of fire that changes what she is able to do afterwards. *I will give Silas the map to the Venom Well. I will not betray him to our father. I will help him protect the Verdant healer.* *Not when I finally know what I want, not when I finally have something worth fighting for.* He kissed her, soft and gentle, a promise he could not keep, a farewell he could not — Fae court fantasy romance with a healer living outside every court, a prince who asks rather than takes, an oath sworn against a father, a prophecy nobody can read the same way twice, explicit scenes, and a hard-won happy ending.