The Ice Maiden’s Curse

In a land where winter never faded, deep in a forest of endless frost, there wandered a girl of ice. Alisa moved through the snow, her bare feet pressing into the frozen ground without feeling its sting. No warmth coursed through her veins, no heartbeat echoed in her chest—only the cold, deep and unrelenting. She had not always been this way. Once, she had been a girl like any other, with rosy cheeks and golden hair that caught the sunlight. But fate had stolen her warmth, leaving her to wander the icy wilderness, where time stretched endlessly, and no one dared to follow.

The villagers whispered her name in fear, calling her the Cursed Maiden of the North, a specter of ice doomed to roam forever. They never looked too closely, never wondered if she still longed for the life she had lost. And so, she walked—always forward, never stopping—hoping that if she moved far enough, fast enough, she might forget the warmth she had once known.

One day, as the wind howled through the trees, Alisa heard something unusual—the sound of footsteps crunching through the frost. Her head lifted. She had long since abandoned hope of meeting another soul in the wild. She turned toward the noise, her breath curling into the air like a ghost of something once alive. And there, against the backdrop of pure white, stood a solitary figure dressed in a heavy black cloak.

“Hello?” she called, her voice fragile from years of silence.

The figure stopped. Slowly, he pulled back his hood. Beneath it was a young man, no older than twenty, with tousled brown hair and piercing blue eyes. He stared at her, concern flickering in his gaze. “Aren’t you cold?”

She followed his eyes to her own reflection—her tattered lilac dress, its lace worn and frayed. To him, she must have looked like a ghost, a relic of a long-forgotten past. Alisa gave a small, wistful smile. “No. I can’t get cold.”

She had learned to expect what would come next—fear, disgust, the hurried retreat of someone who realized she was unnatural. But then—

“Alisa?”

Her breath caught. How could he know her name?

She searched his face, her mind spinning, until a memory surfaced—a distant summer, a boy with bright blue eyes and laughter that echoed in the fields.

“Parker?” she whispered.

A grin broke across his face. “You remember me.”

They had been friends, once, long before the ice had claimed her. Before she had vanished from the world.

“What happened to you?” Parker asked, stepping closer, reaching for her hand.

She hesitated, but did not pull away. And so, she told him. Of the day she wandered too far onto the frozen lake, of the moment the ice cracked beneath her feet, of the shock, the weight of her soaked clothes dragging her down, the darkness closing in. She had not expected to wake again.

But she had.

She had awoken in the snow, her body changed—her skin smooth and glass-like, her hair shimmering with frost. And then, a voice on the wind had whispered to her:

“You may live, but warmth will unmake you.”

So she had run. Run into the forest, away from the village, away from everyone she had once loved. Because she was no longer Alisa. She was a creature of ice.

Parker listened, his expression unreadable. But in his eyes, she saw something unexpected—not fear, not pity, but sorrow.

“Everyone told me you were dead,” he murmured. “But I never believed it. I couldn’t.”

His words warmed something deep inside her, a feeling she had thought lost forever. For the first time in years, Alisa smiled.

The warmth spread through her like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. Then—

Drip.

A single drop of water slid from her fingertips. Drip. Another.

Panic surged through her as she stared at her hand—the tips of her fingers were melting, the ice giving way to nothingness.

Her smile faded. Tears welled in her eyes, slipping down her frost-kissed cheeks, leaving crystalline trails in their wake. Happiness was not hers to have. Warmth, even the faintest flicker, would destroy her.

Parker reached for her again, but she stumbled back, shaking her head.

“No. You can’t.”

“Alisa—”

She trembled, her entire form beginning to fracture. She had been cursed to wander the cold, forever untouched by warmth or love. And she had broken that curse. She had let herself feel. And now, she would fade away.

Parker stepped forward, desperation in his eyes. “There has to be a way—”

Alisa gave him one last, aching look. “I think I was always meant to melt.”

Cracks splintered across her frozen skin, delicate as glass under pressure. Her body unraveled, vanishing into the air like frost caught in the morning sun.

Parker lunged forward, his fingers grasping at nothing. She was gone.

The next morning, the snow lay untouched, save for a single puddle where she had stood. Parker knelt beside it, his breath curling into the frozen air. From his pocket, he pulled out a lilac ribbon, the only thing that remained of her. She had been a girl once. Then she had been a ghost of winter. And for one fleeting moment—she had been warm again.