Chapter Text
The air had turned stale, the skies grey. Everything in the kingdom seemed darker somehow, fragile, as though the world itself had become brittle beneath the cold. Warm light glowed behind fogged windows where laughter and love still survived inside small homes. Beyond the glass, however, the world remained still and lifeless, warmth and cold pressing against one another like opposing forces.
The roads had turned to sludge. Every step demanded more effort than the last, slowly wearing a person down bit by bit. The lake, once vibrant and alive with movement, now sat frozen and silent beneath a sheet of ice.
And from deep within the woods came the voices.
Hollow echoes drifted between the trees, calling softly to passing travellers, begging them to wander deeper into the shadows and snow. The voices carried something dangerous within them, curiosity, wonder… even belonging.
Snow bent the trees beneath its crushing weight. Branches snapped free and vanished into the pale blanket below. The woods groaned and whispered in the wind, though many believed the sounds were not made by the wind alone.
Some said the woods remembered the dead.
The spirits of those who once walked these paths still lingered there, searching for the friends and families they had left behind. Their footprints had long since disappeared beneath the snow, buried alongside the past itself. In winter, everything felt frozen. Past, present, and future alike.
This was how Jaeyun felt.
The numbness had lived inside him for a long time now. It had not arrived suddenly; it crept slowly into his life like morning fog crawling through the village streets before dawn.
During winter, the smaller kingdom further down the path merged temporarily with South Humiture. Villagers were offered places to rest, eat, and learn new trades, while the royal’s shared quarters within the palace walls. Livestock were moved into the royal barns and protected from the brutal weather outside.
The agreement had existed for generations. Long ago, during the winter famine of the seventeen hundreds, nearly seventy-five percent of both kingdoms had perished from starvation and exposure. Harvests failed beneath endless snowstorms, animals froze in their pens, and entire families vanished before spring arrived. After the tragedy, the two royal families swore an oath that neither kingdom would face winter alone again.
So, every year, as the first frost settled across the countryside, the smaller outer kingdom travelled through the woods and roads of slush to seek shelter beside the larger kingdom’s walls.
Despite the hardship, winter often brought unexpected joys. Villagers exchanged recipes, songs, tools, fabrics, and stories from distant corners of the land. Fishermen spoke of lively lakes and woods filled with deer tracks, while blacksmiths from South Humiture shared stronger metals and techniques for survival. Friendships formed quickly during winter.
Sometimes even love………
It reminded people that survival depended upon one another.
For Jaeyun and his family, however, winter meant strangers living inside the west wing of the palace. Their arrival was never questioned; it was simply tradition. Still, Jaeyun disliked how unfamiliar voices echoed through the halls late at night, replacing the silence he had grown comfortable with.
He had heard rumours about the royal family from the outer kingdom. Their new king was said to be intelligent and composed, more interested in protecting his people than chasing power. Jaeyun’s father spoke highly of them during council meetings, praising their knowledge of farming, trade routes, and surviving the harsher seasons leading into winter.
Outside his frost-covered window, the woods whispered again.
And somewhere deep beneath his skin, something whispered back.
With his family distracted by celebrations and the arrival of the Park family, Jaeyun finally gave in to the yearning that had followed him for months. The voices from the woods no longer sounded distant. They sounded familiar. Comforting, almost.
Like ancestors calling him home.
He pulled his coat tightly around himself and made his way toward the royal barns. Before he even reached the doors, the rotting stench of horse manure and damp cattle filled his lungs. Jaeyun covered his nose with his sleeve and hurried inside. The barn creaked against the winter wind while animals shuffled restlessly in their stalls, their breathing thick in the cold air.
His eyes settled upon the rope rack.
Jaeyun reached for the thickest rope he could find, rough fibres scratching against his frozen hands as he pulled it free. Without hesitation, he left the barn behind, the sounds of hooves and rustling hay fading into the distance.
The walk toward the woods felt endless. Each step through the sludge dragged heavier than the last, as though the earth itself was trying to pull him back toward the castle. The rope trailed behind him through the snow like a final warning.
Part of him wanted to turn around. Return to the warmth of the palace and forget the voices entirely.
But the woods kept calling.
The closer he came, the louder they became, soft whispers overlapping until they sounded almost like singing. Jaeyun stopped at the entrance of the woods, staring into the endless dark between the trees.
Snow covered the ground in smooth white mounds, untouched and silent. The woods no longer felt like a woods, but a void waiting to swallow him whole.
For the first time in months, Jaeyun felt calm.
He wandered deeper through the trees until the frozen lake appeared faintly beside him. Finding a thick low-hanging branch, Jaeyun stopped beneath it and stared upward.
This was where his story would end.
Where his soul would join the voices buried beneath the snow.
Then suddenly,
A deep cracking sound echoed across the lake.
The noise pierced through the whispers of the woods, sharp enough to make Jaeyun freeze.
At first, he believed the lake itself was beginning to crack beneath the cold, but as he moved closer, the sound became smoother, rhythmic. Controlled.
Drawn by curiosity, Jaeyun carefully approached the edge of the frozen lake.
That was when he saw him.
A tall figure glided effortlessly across the ice, movements sharp yet graceful beneath the pale moonlight. Snow scattered behind his skates as he spun through the air before landing perfectly, one foot stretched behind him.
The stranger moved like winter itself, elegant, cold, and untouchable.
For a moment, Jaeyun forgot about the rope clenched tightly in his hand. Forgot about the woods. Forgot about the voices.
The figure continued skating, back facing Jaeyun as he moved across the frozen lake.
Then suddenly, he stopped.
The stranger looked toward the dark woods surrounding the lake, almost as though he could feel Jaeyun watching him.
After a brief pause, he turned and began skating toward the shore with effortless ease.
As he stepped off the ice, Jaeyun recognised him immediately.
Park Sunghoon. The prince from the outer kingdom.
Jaeyun’s eyes instinctively scanned him from head to toe. He looked far slenderer than he had earlier that evening in the palace sitting room, his dark clothes clinging slightly beneath the cold.
Sunghoon glanced up, catching Jaeyun staring from the edge of the woods.
Heat rushed to the tips of Jaeyun’s ears despite the freezing air.
Had he really just been caught staring at Sunghoon?
Embarrassed, Jaeyun bowed quickly. Sunghoon mirrored the gesture politely before tilting his head with quiet curiosity.
“Hello, Prince Jaeyun,” he said softly. “What are you doing out here so late?”
Jaeyun kept his eyes fixed on him. “I could ask you the same thing.”
A faint smile appeared on Sunghoon’s face as he glanced back toward the lake.
“I suppose the palace walls became too loud.”
Jaeyun understood what he meant. For him, however, it was the opposite, the voices inside the woods had become too loud tonight.
“The walls feel suffocating sometimes,” Sunghoon continued. “Too many people. Too many expectations.”
Jaeyun simply nodded.
The cold wind moved through the trees around them, carrying the distant whispers of the woods once more. Yet somehow, they sounded quieter now. Further away.
Jaeyun looked toward the frozen lake, images of himself disappearing beneath the voices flashing briefly through his mind, his eyes burned as tears threatened to fall.
“Out here feels different tonight,” he admitted quietly. “Like the woods are handing out personal invitations.”
Sunghoon nodded, his breath turning white in the air.
“Exactly. That’s why I came out here to skate.”
And for the first time in months, Jaeyun no longer felt entirely alone beneath the woods’ suffocating hold.
Neither of them realised it then, standing beside the frozen lake beneath the pale winter sky, but Sunghoon had unknowingly pulled Jaeyun away from the edge of something darker and more irreversible than he could ever have imagined. The voices that had once called so loudly now faded quietly beneath the sound of another person breathing beside him.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Jaeyun no longer felt completely hollow.
Winter still wrapped itself tightly around the kingdom, cold and unforgiving, yet somewhere beneath the woods, something small had begun to thaw inside him.