Milkhause

The first winter in the mountains was a bitter teacher. Prince Erik of Hrafnnes, aged ten, stood knee-deep in a drift of snow so pure it hurt his eyes, his small fingers too numb to properly work the knots in the rabbit snares Sigurd had shown him. The old forester’s voice, when it came, was not unkind, but it was as immutable as the granite peaks around them. “The cold does not care that you are a prince, boy. It only cares that you are slow.” Erik’s lips were chapped, his stomach a hollow, aching thing. He had missed the evening’s catch. Supper had been a husk of tough bark-bread…

After the Ausa Vanti— the day when Prince Erik was accepted into the kingdom, he was taken from the palace and given to two simple farmers who lived on the very edge of the kingdom’s wilds. Leifr and Gunnhildr were not a noble line. Their hands were callused from the earth, their faces weather worn by endless seasons of wind and rain. They owned a modest homestead, a low thatched hall, and two children— Ragna, a bright eyed girl of three summers, and Steinn, a lanky boy who could already lift a sack of barley over his shoulder. When the royal carriage rolled into their yard, the children stared at…

The wind howled through the high cliffs of Hrafnnes, rattling the stone walls of the palace and carrying with it the bitter scent of frozen pine. Inside the great hall, King Akbar paced before the great fire, its orange tongues doing little to chase away the cold that had settled deep in his bones. Beside him, Queen Egrida stood, her silken robes a muted gray that mirrored the sky outside. For years they had stood together on the throne, their rule marked by prosperity and peace, but their joy was incomplete, hollowed by a single, aching absence. “Perhaps the world itself will remember us,” Egrida whispered, her voice barely louder…