The Frostmarked Queen
Wren Ashenvale knows the precise moment a yarrow flower surrenders its bitter perfume, and she knows her village of Briarmoor is running out of time. When an endless winter descends on the kingdom, crops wither in the fields and villagers vanish into the snow, Wren's quiet life as an herbalist becomes her only defense against a creeping frost that answers to a single name: Isolde Winterscar, the frostmarked queen. Whispers say the queen's throne was bought with a blood-pact, that her scarred dynasty feeds on the suffering of the realm, and that her own son, Cassian Winterscar, now questions the cost of his mother's reign. When Wren's closest friend, Sera Briar, is marked for the queen's winter levy, Wren must leave her cottage, her harvest knife, and her woodsmoke mornings behind. Guided by the enigmatic Vesper and aided by Lord Aldric Blackhollow, a lord whose loyalties remain shrouded in shadow, Wren discovers her herbalist's touch may be more than folk remedy. It may be the one magic the queen's winter cannot freeze. Morwen Thistle's forbidden grimoires hint at a deeper truth about the queen's mark. But reaching the frostmarked court means crossing a kingdom already lost to snow, trusting allies who may be hiding daggers, and confronting a queen who has killed to keep her crown cold. To thaw the realm, Wren must do what no peasant has dared: meet the frostmarked queen eye-to-eye, and either break the winter, or be buried by it.