Cinder's dream was covered in snow.

Always, Cinder had dreamed of the warm coming of spring. The colorful petals bursting through the blanket of white beneath them and the skies sweeping away the greyness that kept the sun hidden. The animals awaking from a long sleep as if each were a princess freed from a cursed sleep Cinder read about in her collection of books. A worldwide spring – Cinder's constant dream.

But the sunshine was spotted with white speckles that danced on their decent toward Cinder, resting in the now-covered grass. Her nightgown of lace and ruffles caught many of the freckles that blended with the fabric almost the same pure color. Curious as when she was awake, her gaze lifted to the sky where the dots were born.

She felt the snowflakes kiss her nose with eager lips and linger on her eyelashes with clinging hugs. Between the falling flecks she saw the white powder decorate her hair until even the braided locks turned the glossed color of winter. Every breath she took was filled with the crisp, cold air brimming her with frost.

Somehow, her skin never felt the nip of the snow surrounding her. The flakes melted into tickling pools absorbed into her body without confliction. And yet, the shivering overtaking her shoulders came from a deep knit chill she could not escape.

Soon, Cinder realized the cold consuming her was not around her, but within her.

The tingling pinpricks of ice started in her right hand, where it crawled up her shoulder just skimming her neck. Like a snake, it slithered down her leg to the very tip of her foot. It spread across her chest, cooling her spine and lungs and leaving a wake of numbing throughout her entire body. Slowly, it drew out the warmth of life she held.

After her whole body was touched by the tingling, only then did it reach her source of life – her heart. Instead of light prickling subdued by the numbness, the frost bit into her heart with a cold ferocity. Sharp ice tips dug into the soft organ, piercing her very soul in the process to douse her internal flame.

Pain enveloped her as ice shards slit her apart from the inside out. The jagged slivers circled her heart into a frozen encasing that seeped out into the rest of her immobile body. Her boned chilled to fragile glass and her blood froze as oceans did every winter, trapped behind a sheet of thickness. She could feel the freeze running through her, taking her over until she would be nothing but a lifeless statue of ice.

A scream rocked her head as it echoed in between her ears, not realizing at first that the voice was her own. She couldn't stand the unbearable sensation within her, tearing her up with vicious slashes. Weakness drove away her cries after her voice grew hoarse, but the cold continued to grow, feeding off her pain.

Never wavering, the only feeling her weariness could not pacify was the storming blizzard taking up the space where her feelings of love used to be generated. Cold and barren, a hollowness remained where the heavy burden of a heart used to weigh on her chest. She feared the hollowness was turning into a thick block of ice in wait to be shattered.

Penetrating the tempest within her, a sweet sound sang the song of warmth. The sunshine and blooming spring Cinder could faintly remember dreaming of long ago was written into a single word. Repeated over and over, Cinder desperately strained to hear the angelic voice whispering the mysterious word she could not make out over the blowing winds inside her.

Her body refused to move and her head fogged from a cloudy breeze ready to swallow her up. Deep breaths overtook her, breaths that came out in visible puffs between her barely parted eyelids. There was no longer any pain or feeling; there was only the cold darkness of ice.

With her remaining strength, she pulled her consciousness towards the sound hoping – praying – the burst of spring could warm her ice-locked heart.

"Cinder!"

The alarmed voice of her sister woke Cinder from the awful nightmare. She jolted upward in her luxurious bed, gripping her chest for dear life. Her eyes darted around her hands in search of frostbite that wasn't there. Simultaneously, her mind searched for remnants of the puncturing ice, but none endured the cross from the dram world to reality. Heaviness remained beneath her breast, but she brushed it off as her imagination.

Whipping in the direction the voice came from, Cinder was met with Winter's concerned face, partially covered by askew strands of black hair fallen from her ribbons. A relieved gasp escaped Cinder seeing her sister in no harmful condition, a gasp even more appreciated when Cinder couldn't see it.

Still shaken from shrieks Cinder was sure she let out from within her sleep, the young girl crawled onto Cinder's bed grasping for comfort. She reached out to grip her sister's free hand rested on the covers of the bed.

It was ice cold.

Winter's hands flew away, stinging from the burning cold she didn't expect. Her light whimper sent a wave of guilt and horror throughout an already puzzled Cinder. She raised her hand to inspect the seemingly normal limb, but found nothing that would suggest it was anything but normal.

Normal, however, wouldn't have rejected her sister's loving touch.

Confused as well, Winter found her sister's eyes in hopes that the answer to the sudden cold was somewhere inside. Carefully not to touch her sister's bare skin – and ashamed because of her caution – Winter scuttled back onto her sister's bed in hopes the prickle wouldn't happen again.

A chuckle rang from the room's corner, capturing Cinder's attention. Beyond her bed's end and even beyond her sister's, the crevasse where two of the crème walls met wasn't completely touched by the moon from the nearby window. A glow of blue from the night sky outside tinted both the moon kissed ground and corner soaked in darkness.

In the shadows, a figure loomed, veiled in a sheet of swirling snowflakes. Resting on a crown of icicles and black hair, it cascaded down to her waist and fell in a train behind her. The fabric covering her snow-white skin was made of shimmering ice in glittering designs of diamonds. A shawl of the whitest fur rested just off her shoulders and curled its way down to the floor.

Whispers were traded throughout the kingdom of a figure said to be cloaked in snow. Never seen, only heard, like the wind whistling through the white-tipped mountains, she was the fearsome witch that cursed the world to be a storming tundra. She was the one blamed for ever flurry so severe it destroyed another piece of the world. Though she reigned far away from the world Cinder knew and loved, there wasn't a pin dropped on Earth without her knowledge.

The Snow Queen.

Despite her supposed inability to come to earth, Cinder knew it could be none other than the wicked ruler of the moon. Everywhere her presence touched left a swirl of chipped frost running across the walls in a race away from the heartless queen. Radiating off of her was the chill of cruelty and vanity no other could hold in such higher respect.

Cinder's only knowledge of the woman that wasn't derived from rumors or legends came from her parents who had spoken with the queen through negotiations and visiting second-party officials. All of their conversations began and ended with the queen's demand of Iceland's surrender – and a threat of their destruction otherwise.

Behind the veil, Cinder could only make out the queen's smirking lips, pink as a winter kissed nose. She didn't need to see the veiled eyes to know her gaze was burning holes through Cinder, trying to seep the cold into her soul. The chilling look was enough to send Cinder's skin crawling with fear. Ignoring the cry that would come from the sting of her touch, Cinder shielded her sister from the imposing danger that had Winter trembling – and not from its cold.

With a laughter as light as sleigh bells and as brisk as a wolf's cackle, the queen vanished in a whirlwind of snow. Given no chance to question the queen's motives, the sisters clung to each other for fear that the fearsome woman was not truly gone.

But alas, only her voice remained, echoing off the frozen touched walls.

"Consider this my coronation gift to you, little princess."

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