The taiga stretched endless and merciless under a sky the color of forged steel. Snow fell in heavy, deliberate flakes, each one sharp enough to draw blood from exposed skin. The wind carried the scent of pine resin and distant smoke, but beneath it lurked something wilder—hunger, ancient and patient.
Anastasia Volkova—Anya to those few who dared familiarity—rode alone.
Seventeen years old, silver-blonde hair whipping free from its braid, storm-gray eyes narrowed against the gale. Her cloak, lined with wolf fur from a kill two winters past, snapped behind her like a battle standard. Beneath her, Starik plowed forward with stubborn grace, breath steaming in rhythmic clouds.
She had left Volkova Manor before dawn, slipping past sleeping guards and her mother's ever-watchful maids. No note, no explanation. Just the need that burned in her chest like a second heart: to be free, if only for a few stolen hours, from lessons in embroidery and courtly curtseys, from whispers of suitable marriages and the slow suffocation of a life already mapped out for her.
Out here, she was no lady. She was wind and steel and frost.
A foolish risk, her father would say. Wolves had been seen prowling closer to the estate with every passing week—great gray packs driven south by the brutal tundra winter. But Anya had never feared the wild. It had raised her as surely as her parents had.
She crested a low ridge and reined Starik in, surveying the white expanse below. The weak sun hung low, barely piercing the clouds. Somewhere in the distance, ravens called—a harsh, mocking chorus.
Then she heard it.
A low growl, rolling through the frozen pines like thunder trapped underground.
Starik's ears flattened. Anya's hand went instinctively to the bow slung across her back, fingers finding the familiar curve of yew wood. She scanned the treeline.
Nothing.
Then—eyes. Yellow, unblinking, glowing between black trunks.
One wolf stepped into the open. Then another. Seven in all, fanning out with the deliberate patience of born hunters. The leader was massive, scarred across one shoulder, ribs stark beneath its winter coat. It stared at Anya with the calm certainty of a creature that had already decided the outcome.
Anya's pulse thundered in her ears, but her hands were steady as she nocked an arrow.
"Come on, then," she whispered, voice carried away by the wind. "Let's dance."
The pack charged.
Starik screamed and reared. Anya loosed her arrow—true to the leader's shoulder. Blood bloomed dark against gray fur, but the beast barely faltered. She spurred the mare hard, aiming for a narrow gap between pines, but the wolves were faster, closing the trap. One leaped for Starik's flank, jaws snapping inches from leather.
The horse stumbled.
Anya felt herself falling—
And something inside her *broke open*.
It wasn't fear. It was pressure, vast and ancient, rising from the marrow of her bones. A cold so deep it burned. Her vision sharpened; the world slowed. She could see every flake of snow, every twitch of muscle in the lead wolf's shoulders.
Without thought, she threw out her hand.
The air *exploded*.
A violent gust roared outward from her palm, unnatural and ferocious, laced with shards of ice that glittered like shattered glass. The nearest wolf was hurled backward, tumbling head over tail through the snow. The others skidded to a halt, whining, ears pinned flat.
Anya stared at her bare hand. Steam rose from her skin where heat met impossible cold. Her breath froze in crystalline clouds that hung suspended before shattering to the ground.
*What was that?*
The wolves recovered faster than she did. Hunger won over caution. The scarred leader rose, blood dripping from its wound, and lunged again.
Starik bolted in blind terror. Anya clung to the saddle, guiding by instinct alone through whipping branches and drifts deep enough to swallow a horse whole. The pack's howls rose behind her, a furious, hunting song.
She burst into a small clearing—and saw him.
A boy on a black stallion, no more than twelve or thirteen, cloaked in sable so fine it could only belong to nobility. Alone—madness this far north without escort. His face was pale and sharp beneath the fur hood, eyes a striking silver-blue that fixed on the pursuing wolves with eerie calm.
"Run!" Anya shouted, voice raw.
But the boy didn't move. Instead, he raised one small hand.
The temperature *plummeted*.
Frost raced across the ground in jagged spears. The air itself screamed. From the boy's shadow rose something impossible—a massive white tiger, translucent at first, then solidifying into living ice and swirling snow. Its eyes burned with the same pale fire as the boy's.
It *roared*.
The sound shook snow from the pines in heavy avalanches. The wolves scattered instantly, tails tucked, vanishing into the storm that suddenly raged around the clearing.
The ice tiger turned its great head toward the boy—and dissolved into a whirlwind of snow that rushed back into him.
He swayed once.
Then toppled from his saddle, crumpling into the snow like a broken doll.
Anya was off Starik in an instant, dropping to her knees beside him. "Hey—wake up!" She shook his shoulder. His skin burned fever-hot despite the cold. Beneath the hood, his features were finely carved, aristocratic. A silver signet ring caught the weak light—the imperial wolf.
Her blood turned to ice.
*No.*
She had heard the whispers: Grand Prince Nikolai, hidden away after his mother's mysterious death, kept from court by a father who feared weakness.
The boy stirred faintly, murmuring something lost to the wind.
Anya looked around. Night was falling fast. The cold would kill them both if they stayed. She couldn't leave him.
With strength fueled by desperation, she hauled his unconscious body across Starik's saddle, securing him with her belt. His black stallion followed when she took its reins—imperial training showing even now.
She turned toward the distant lights of Volkova Manor, praying the storm would hide their tracks.
Behind them, snow fell thicker, erasing all signs of wolves—and of the great ice tiger that had saved them.
As Anya rode into the gathering dark, the boy's head rested against her shoulder. She didn't see the faint glow in his ring, or notice how the blizzard quieted in their wake, as though the winter itself bowed to them.
Five years later…
A thunder of hooves shattered the quiet of Volkova Manor's courtyard.
Anya, practicing forbidden sword forms in the snow despite her mother's endless lectures on propriety, lowered her blade as an imperial courier dismounted in a spray of white.
His voice rang out, formal and inexorable:
"By order of His Imperial Majesty Nikolai the First, Emperor of all Ruslavia: Lady Anastasia Volkova is summoned to the Ice Palace. She has been chosen as a candidate in the Great Bride-Show."
The scroll he unfurled bore the imperial seal—the same wolf she had glimpsed on a frozen boy's hand years ago.
Anya felt the world tilt beneath her feet.
The wild had called her once, with wolves and wonders.
Now the empire called.
And this time, there would be no escape.