I exhaled the moment I stepped out of the shed. The air that left my lungs trembled, white against the darkness. The cramped room had been suffocating—thick with heat, thick with tension, thick with the heavy disappointment of failure. Five deer.
Five.
With over two hundred mouths to feed, five might as well have been none at all. Even carved thinly, smoked, boiled into watery broth—there would never be enough. Every hunt was a gamble. Every hunt was a prayer. And lately, the gods hadn't been listening.
My servant trailed behind me quietly, matching my footsteps without question. She didn't speak; she didn't need to. The entire kingdom wore the same look these days—fear, exhaustion, hunger, all wrapped in silent, desperate obedience.
We walked the creaking pathway past dim lantern posts and snow-hunched shelters until we reached my "house." I hated calling it that. It was barely larger than the shed we'd just come from—four walls, a single room, a low ceiling, and a bed shoved against the corner like an afterthought.
But compared to what most of my people lived in, this place was a palace.
I pushed open the crooked door and stepped inside. The cold met me instantly, biting at my cheeks, clawing under my clothes. My breath fogged before me. A single patchy fur lay over the bed, and the pelt was so thin in places it was practically transparent.
"You may go," I said softly.
The servant nodded and bowed. "Goodnight, My Queen."
When the door shut behind her, I felt something that almost resembled relief.
No eyes watching me.
No expectations.
No title.
Just the cold, the dark, and… me.
Not like there was much else to do. We didn't have luxuries here—not clothes, not food, not water. The river had frozen over years ago. Snow melted into tiny puddles we rationed like treasure. Most evenings, I simply collapsed into bed and prayed the cold would numb me to sleep.
I slipped off my boots and peeled off my stiff fur coat. My fingers burned as blood returned to them. Then I lowered myself onto the bed, pulling the thin pelt over my legs and curling in on myself.
The wind slipped through cracks in the walls, nibbling at my face. I shut my eyes and turned onto my side—
A violent gust roared through the room, ripping the pelt clean off me.
"…fuck," I muttered.
My breath puffed angrily from my lips as I stood up, snatched the pelt from the floor, and marched back to bed. The cold stung my skin like needles. I threw the pelt back over myself and squeezed my eyes shut.
Another gust tore it away again—
this time slamming the door open so hard it bounced off the wall.
"Are you kidding me?!"
Shivering, furious, I flung myself out of bed and stomped toward the door to shut it—
And then I froze.
Because above me…
the sky wasn't black.
It wasn't foggy.
It wasn't anything I recognized.
It was empty.
I blinked. Hard.
The fog that had hung over our kingdom like a suffocating blanket…
was gone.
I looked down.
My feet—my pale feet on the frozen ground—were no longer swallowed by the creeping mist that usually licked at my ankles.
For a heartbeat, I couldn't breathe.
A wave of emotion slammed into me—fear first, sharp and cold, then excitement so fierce it made my hands shake.
"Am I dreaming…?" I whispered.
The wind answered with a soft sigh.
"Or is this real…?"
My heart pounded loud enough to echo in my ears. If this was real—if the fog really had lifted, even for a moment—I had to tell someone, anyone—
Wait.
I stopped mid-thought, hand hovering near the doorframe.
What if it wasn't real?
What if it was just unusually windy tonight?
Wouldn't that make more sense?
Didn't a gust of wind just steal my covers twice?
I wouldn't doubt it.
This cursed land had robbed me of enough already.
Still trembling, I grabbed my boots and shoved my feet into them. My fingers felt clumsy, half-numb as I laced them.
I'll go see for myself.
Before it vanished again.
Before it sealed us in once more.
An elder once whispered to me during a rare village gathering that decades ago—so far back no one alive now remembered it firsthand—the fog had lifted. Only for minutes. Only briefly. But supposedly, the sea had been visible then.
If this was that moment…
My eyes stung.
Hope was dangerous. But gods, I wanted to see the sea.
I stepped outside and began walking, boots crunching across the snow-packed earth. Then walking became rushing. Then rushing became running.
I didn't notice the woman trailing behind me. Didn't hear her soft steps trying to catch up. Didn't sense the panic she radiated.
I only thought of the border.
The place where our land ended and the fog began.
Except—tonight—there was no fog.
When I reached it—
I broke.
I didn't almost cry.
I did cry.
The tears came warm, then froze on my cheeks as I stared out at something I had only ever seen in old books or fragments of stories:
The sea.
A vast, shimmering expanse of moving silver. Waves rolling and crashing. The sound—oh gods, the sound—like distant thunder shivering through the air. The horizon stretched endlessly, a line between darkness and possibility.
My knees buckled, and I caught myself, breath hitching.
Without thinking, without even realizing I'd made the choice, I stepped forward—
and crossed the border.
Cold sand crunched beneath my boots.
I bent down, scooping up handfuls of it. Coarse. Grainy. It sifted between my fingers like crushed gemstones.
"Sand…" I whispered, tasting the word. "This is sand…"
A wave surged forward, splashing up my legs, drenching my pants in icy water.
I gasped—
then grinned.
A real, childlike grin that hurt my cheeks from how foreign it felt.
All this water.
All this water.
If I could bring my people here—even once—if I could gather this water and bring it back…
We wouldn't have to starve.
We wouldn't have to ration every drop.
We could live.
My mind burned with wild hope.
I grabbed a fallen log—then another. My hands were already numb, but I didn't care. I dragged them to the shore, dropped to my knees, and pulled the sword from my belt.
The blade glinted faintly in the dim light.
I set to work carving the logs, slicing out the centers, shaping them, smoothing them. The cold air numbed me to the elbows. My pants clung, soaked. My hair stuck to my face. None of it mattered.
I carved grooves—small, angled digits—to latch the logs together. My fingers bled a little from splinters, and steam curled from my breath with each exhale.
By the time I finished, my hands trembled from exhaustion, but there it was:
A bucket.
Large enough to scoop up water.
Large enough to give people hope.
I placed it proudly in the sand and looked around for rope or anything to carry it—
"My Queen!"
The shout cracked through the night like a whip.
I jerked around, heart thundering.
"My Queen, what are you doing?!" Lira stumbled across the sand, breathless, wild-eyed. "You must come back now!"
She wasn't looking at the sea.
She wasn't looking at the bucket.
She was looking at me—
—as though I had just stepped into the jaws of a monster.