Chapter Text
Once upon a time, a powerful Queen ruled the land of ice and snow far to the north. Like its sovereign, the land was full of wondrous hidden beauty that lurked deep within its bleak, frozen heart. Dense pine forests dotted its southern most edges, the ancient trees whispering secrets to each other as they swayed without even a hint of breeze. Dangerous creatures lurked in its shadows, things not quite man and not quite beast that stalked unwary travelers that wandered where they should not.
Further north, barren, frozen tundras gave way to towering snow-capped mountains and stormy coasts where the wind never stopped howling. Giants lurked among the rocky ranges while dire wolves hunted under the moon. The creatures of this land were monstrous, the few mortals who clung to life along its edges even more so. The only way to survive in the Kingdom of Winter was through cruelty. In this land of eternal frost, the Snow Queen ruled with absolute power from a palace built of stone and ice, surrounded by mountains and a frozen lake that had never thawed.
But even with all of the power and magic of winter at her command, the Queen wanted more. She dreamed of an indescribable warmth that sometimes felt like it could burn her frozen fingers. She longed for the lush lands of the south where the sun coaxed life from the earth of a thousand kinds in brilliant colors she had no names for.
The Queen spent many days sitting in front of her magic mirror, casting her eyes over the lands of summer, jealously wishing she could reach through the glass and steal even a piece of it back to her frigid demesne. She was especially drawn to the humans who lived in those hands, fascinated by their brief lives that ignited with the spark of a flame and burned out just as quickly. They were strange creatures, constantly changing and consumed by passions she couldn’t understand.
Then she saw him.
A Prince from a faraway land, the leader of a proud, honorable people. There was a fury around him, a never-ending vigor that drew her like a moth to a flame. The Queen would be denied no longer. With a stroke of inspiration, she broke a shard off her magic mirror, and summoned her swiftest, most powerful guardian, a great snowy owl. It carried the shard in its beak for many weeks before it found the Prince and used it to pierce his heart.
All the Snow Queen had to do was wait. The shard spread poison through the Prince’s veins, until all he could think of was its mistress. He traveled to the great north, spellbound and ill, to fall to his knees at the Queen’s throne. He became her most trusted servant, a loyal, deadly warrior who would do anything she bid. Something had come alive in the Queen. She imagined that she’d stolen a spark of the human’s vitality. It left her warmer than she ever knew, and made her chest ache with unspoken wants. She would never release the prince from her service, but every day, he grew more cold, like the ice that built her palace.
Until one day, a Hero arrived on her noble steed, braving the eternal winter of the Queen’s realm with fierce determination and an unwavering might. The Queen cursed. The Hero had been allowed to progress too far while she’d been distracted by her newfound love, and it tore through her like a venom.
Her lover stepped forward with sword in hand to defend her against the Hero. Under the thrall of the Snow Queen, the Prince would do anything to ensure his mistress was protected and as the blades clashed in her throne room, the Queen felt a moment of what could only be fear. But even with all of her magic and the skill of her champion, the Hero would not fall.
It wasn’t the battle that was her undoing. It was the power of a true love so strong that her curse shattered under its strength. The Hero beat back the Queen’s protector again and again, spilling crimson across the floor with shaky arms, but even as she stood over the Prince, victorious and pleading, he cried for his Queen until she fell to her knees with a sob. The Hero’s tears washed the shard of mirror from her Prince’s heart, letting him feel again and healing the cold wound of cruelty that had grown inside of him. The Prince and the Hero embraced as the Snow Queen raged before turning on their tormentor. The Snow Queen fought with all the violence of a winter storm, but even she couldn’t freeze the warmth of love between them.
They struck her down and left her living, but grievously injured, before returning to the summer lands hand-in-hand. They won their happily ever after and spent it together.
The Snow Queen barely survived, slowly eaten away from the inside. Her own heart carried a love, twisted and cruel as it was, melting through her ice until she knew she wouldn’t survive. But though she’d lost the mortal that had made her feel joy and passion for the first time in her long life, she kept a tiny piece of him for herself. A child, born from their union with hair as dark as the Prince and skin pale as her own. She named the child Keith, and though she was incapable of any love, she raised him in her icy world until her unhealing wounds stole the last of her power.
It was with her final breath that she drew her son near, desperate to save him from the same tragedy,a kindness in its own way and the only gift she ever gave him. She reached inside him and pulled out his heart, freezing it in her palm so that he would never fall prey to the same weakness. He would be invulnerable and immortal, free from the love that had killed his mother. The child wailed, torn apart in unimaginable agony, but he never shed a tear for his mother’s passing.
The Kingdom of Winter grew colder and more treacherous with each passing year. Terrible stories echoed through the mountains about the unforgiving Snow Prince that reigned over the impassable tundra, taking his mother’s place on the throne. They whispered that he was even more powerful, and more vicious, than the Queen, though no one had ever encountered the Prince and lived to tell their tale.
The Snow Prince was the source of many horrible legends, his name as poisoned a promise as his mother’s touch, but our story is not of his triumphs. Our story is of his downfall, and the young hunter who destroyed him