Eternal reign of the frost

In a world carved up by five brutal ruling families, twenty-three-year-old Elena Mirabel Castillo was never meant to fall in love-she was meant to lead.
As the daughter of the European dictator and a decorated General in the New Regime's army, Elena has always played by the rules-until the rules change. Overnight, her freedom is snatched away when her father announces she'll be marrying the Supreme Leader's son to seal a political alliance. No warning. No choice.
Her fiancé, Costantino Salvatore Accardi, is everything she's been taught to hate: cold, unreadable, and raised inside a family where emotions are considered a weakness. He's got his own scars-some inherited, some earned-and zero interest in being tethered to a stranger, even one as dangerously composed as Elena.
Thrown together in a world where power is currency and rebellion is suicide, Elena and Costantino must navigate politics, betrayal, and each other-while pretending to be the perfect couple under the world's sharpest gaze.
But underneath the cold diplomacy and broken expectations is something neither of them prepared for: understanding. Maybe even desire. And in a place where love is punishable and loyalty is bought in blood, that might be the most dangerous thing of all.
Equal parts sharp-edged and emotionally gutting, this is a story about duty, defiance, and two people raised to lead-who might burn the empire down just to choose each other.