Queen Glaciana Frostborne Alpineglow's Arc

Chapter 10 of 33

The snow no longer blessed the wedding. It fell too thick, too fast, and the wind turned sharp on the steps of the ice castle. Guests pulled their cloaks close. Glaciana felt the cold bite her cheeks and knew it for what it was. The unnatural winter had come to her wedding, and now it meant to swallow the day. Victor stepped in front of her, one arm out to shield her from the gust. He scanned the courtyard the way he watched every threat to his family. "Get them inside," he said. "I'll clear the steps." Glaciana caught his wrist. "No. This one is mine." She had not shown her people this in years. She had ruled with ledgers and heated corridors, with rations and rotating shelters. She had hidden the other thing, the power in her blood, because a queen who could not stop three winters of cold did not want to remind anyone she was born of it. But this storm was small. This one she could hold. Glaciana walked past Victor into the driving snow. She raised both hands. Her eyes filled with white light, and her palms glowed the same, bright as fresh snow under a noon sun. The wind pushed her braid back. She turned her hands slowly, drawing wide circles in the air, and pulled the storm toward her like thread onto a spool. The wind died first. Then the thick flakes thinned. The snow slowed until it drifted, soft and gentle, the way powder should fall on a wedding. The courtyard went quiet. Her people stared. They had known her as an engineer queen, a ruler of supply lines. Now they saw her calm the sky with her hands. The light faded from her eyes. Glaciana lowered her arms and turned. Victor stood where she had left him, snow melting on his sapphire crown. His grey eyes were wide. He had married a woman who calmed weather, and no one had told him. "You didn't say," he said. It was not an accusation. It was closer to wonder. "I stopped showing it," she answered. "After the cold came and I couldn't break it, I kept it hidden." Victor crossed to her. He took her cold hand in his and did not let go. "Then you can touch it," he said. "The winter. You've fought it three years with carts and coal. But it's yours to fight this way too." Glaciana looked at her own hand in his. The small storm had bent to her. Three winters of unnatural cold had not. For years she had treated the cold as an enemy to survive. Now a new question opened, sharp and certain. If her power could calm a wedding storm, it might reach the thing that had gripped her whole kingdom. She had never dared try. She had never had a reason strong enough to risk failing. "Then after tonight," she said, "I stop enduring the cold. I’ll find-“ Victor presses his finger to her lips and corrected her with a loving smile, “We will find.”