Queen Glaciana Frostborne Alpineglow's Arc

Chapter 26 of 33

Morning came, and the work began. Glaciana spread both kingdoms' ledgers across the long table in the ice keep's council hall. Victor sat beside her. Together they would fold two courts into one before the child arrived. The elders of both lands wanted proof it could be done. Today, in this room, she meant to give it to them. She worked through the supply counts first. Her frost villages had lived on rations for three winters. Victor's stores were full. She matched his surplus to her shortfall, column by column, in her own neat hand. Victor read each figure and gave a short nod. When she moved a shelter rotation onto his roads, he said only, "That road holds in snow. Use it." He did not explain further. He did not need to. But the crowns were harder than the grain. Two thrones. Two seals. Two sets of laws. Glaciana pressed her palm flat on the table and felt the old weight return. "They'll ask who rules," she said. "If we name one crown above the other, one court rebels." The door banged open. Kira slid in, tail lashing, a scroll clutched to her chest. She had leapt too fast down the corridor again and nearly took a banner with her. "Message," she said, breathless, grinning. "From your elders. And his. They're coming. Both courts. Tomorrow." She set the scroll down and steadied it before it rolled off. "They want to see the queen who thinks she can knot two kingdoms together." Glaciana's stomach dropped. She had wanted weeks. She had a day. Kira crouched beside her, playful gone from her grey eyes. "You broke a curse three winters long," the maid said. "Two rooms of old men don't scare me. Don't let them scare you." That cut the fear loose. Glaciana looked at the ledgers again and saw the answer she'd been circling. Not one crown above the other. One line beneath both. She dipped her pen and wrote a new charter across a fresh page. The child would inherit both thrones as one. Until then, she and Victor would rule together, each keeping their own seal, bound by a single law they signed side by side. "Read it," she told Victor. He read. He took the pen from her hand and signed his name under hers. "Done," he said. They stood before both courts the next morning in the ice keep's great hall. Glaciana read the charter aloud. She showed them the two seals pressed together at the foot of the page. No crown ranked above the other. The child would carry both. The elders murmured, then bowed. The union held. Victor got an idea and smirked as he led his wife into their private chambers, "My love, how about we start thinking about another child someday to rule the other kingdom?" She blushed and looked up into her dear husband's eyes and nodded.