They tell of no benefit resulting from roaming the woods after dark. They tell of mountains that hold a monster with silver eyes and an accursed heart colder than winter itself. And Lyra had never been one to believe in fairy tales-not until the evening she found him bleeding in the snowfall, his hot and heavy breath against the cold. A wolf, enormous and shaking, fell at her feet as if fate had sent him. She ought to have run. She ought to have left him there to perish. But she did not. She touched him. And that was it. The monster became a man in her touch. Scarred. Handsome. Pitiful. His voice, like thunder low. His eyes, like moonlight trapped in ice. And on his body, a mark that shone like magic and memory. "I am cursed," he told her. "To love me is to lose everything." But it was too late. For in the firelight of her little cottage, candle flame that danced and shadows that provided secrets, her heart began to unravel. And somewhere in the stillness and snowflakes... she began to wonder if the worst peril was not the curse, but to love the one it bound.
Chapter 1 The First Snow
The first snowfall always fell gently to Elowen Woods-like a whisper over the world, like a breath before a kiss. But this time it came with teeth.
Lyra pulled the scarf tighter around her throat, her breath fogging in the chill. Snowflakes clung to her eyelashes as she struggled through the thicker and thicker shroud of white. The wicker basket next to her bumped against her hip, half-filled with frozen herbs and dried root packets she'd picked before the storm had spiraled out of control.
She'd lost the path an hour ago.
Or maybe it'd lost her.
Trees leaned in like guard sentinels, their lanky branches groaning under the weight of snow. The sky, which had been pale gray, was now bruised lavender's color. Her hands throbbed cold, even under gloves. A howl arose in the distance-long and low and dirge-like.
She froze.
Not a wolf. Nearly.
She had heard in childhood the story of this beast, this wretched creature to exist in these woods. Of a prince who had once been disobedient to the gods, transformed into a wolfish fiend to prowl the wilderness forever, fated to love and lose again and again.
Simple lies that frightened children.
And yet...
Something in the howl had wracked something in her chest. It was not lonely. It was hurting.
Lyra ran faster now, limbs cracking under her feet. Snow came up to her knees, and the wind lashed her eyes. A momentary golden flash caught her eye through the blizzard-firelight?
No. Moonlight, off something dark and enormous still and silent in the snow.
She breathed.
A black wolf-giant, too big for any beast of nature-was stretched out across the snowed ground, blood bubbling up like ink through its matted coat. One of its legs was twisted at a gruesome angle, ribs swelling and caving with crude labor.
She should have returned. Should have left things just as they had been intended to be.
But the eyes of the wolf began to flicker open.
Silver. Radiating.
And for a moment, she felt. watched.
"I won't hurt you," she whispered, getting down on her knees next to the creature. Her fingers trembled, not with fear, but some kind of unseen energy that held her to him.
The wolf's breathing slowed now. Snow drifted around them in a blanket.
"I have no idea who you are," she whispered, "but I won't leave you here to die."
She tore her cloak free, tying it around the creature's head and shoulders. Her heart was racing. Her magic-reflexive and subtle-stirred in her blood like a remembered secret.
Somewhere, far in the darkness, she thought she heard a voice.
You came back.
But when she looked up, there was snow, wind, and the beginning of something she did not understand.
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