The sledge cut through the snow of Narnia like a razor. Pale trees blurred past in spectral procession, their branches bowed not from frost but reverence or fear. Wind whispered beneath the silver runners, carrying the distant howl of wolves, and something fainter still: the brittle creak of reins pulled tight by a creature straining to please a mistress who never noticed effort. The air felt like shards of glass against exposed skin, each breath burning as it entered freezing lungs.

The White Queen reclined beneath a heap of white furs, head tilted back as though carved from ivory. She did not shiver. Cold belonged to other people. Her platinum hair cascaded over the furs like frozen waterfalls, catching what little light filtered through Narnia's eternal winter sky. The scent of pine and something metallic clung to the air around her.

The dwarf at the reins hunched small and stinking while his breathe fogged into little ghosts. His beard had frozen in places, stiff as old straw scratching against his chin. He dared not speak, not with the Queen's icy gaze capable of turning flesh to stone with a mere thought. The leather reins bit into his palms, already raw from hours of driving.

"Must you jostle me so?" Her voice broke the silence like a glass goblet cracking against stone. "You drive as though your ancestors were moles. Do you require eyes, or simply permission to use them?" The words hung in the air, crystalline and deadly as icicles.