Queen Glaciana Frostborne Alpineglow's Arc

Chapter 29 of 33

Victor carried Glaciana through the palace doors himself. He would not let a guard take her, or set her down to walk. She kept one hand on her belly the whole way up the stairs. Her body still shook from the slope, from the moment her cold had failed her. The dragon had saved the child. Frosty had gone home spent. And her own power, the thing she had always trusted, had left her empty when it mattered. He brought her to their chambers and laid her on the bed. He tugged her boots off. He found soft sleeping clothes and helped her into them, careful of the child. Then he pulled the blankets to her chin and sat beside her. "You're safe, my love" he said. "Both of you." "My power didn't come," Glaciana said. "I reached for the cold and it wasn't there." Her voice cracked. "If the dragon had been slow, I couldn't have shielded us." Victor stroked her hair back from her face. He did not rush to fix it. "You're carrying our child," he said. "The cold went into the child. Not gone. Spent on someone worth it." Glaciana went still. She had counted her failure as weakness. He had counted it as proof the child was strong, drawing on her the way any child draws on a mother. She pressed her hand flat to her belly and felt the truth of it settle in. "You think that's what happened," she said. "I think you fought a whole winter and won," he said. "One creature doesn't undo that." He leaned down and kissed her, slow, his hand warm against her cheek. "Rest baby. That's an order from your king." A knock came at the door. Kira slipped in, her tail low, her ears still pricked from the climb. Glaciana's maid and best friend had checked every hall herself before letting anyone sleep. She would trust no other eyes with it. "The halls are clear," Kira said. "No melt on the lower floors. No sign anything else came down with that thing." She met Glaciana's eyes. "It's over. The mountain's quiet." Glaciana let the breath leave her chest. For three winters she had waited for the next crack of ice, the next failure. Now Kira stood at the door and told her the danger had passed, and she believed it. "Then I'll sleep," Glaciana said. Kira smiled and pulled the door shut behind her. Victor kept his place at Glaciana's side, his hand in her hair, until her eyes closed. Glaciana slept without fear for the first time in three years. Her power had not returned. But she no longer needed it to hold the whole mountain up. She had a husband who carried her, a friend who guarded her door, a dragon to guard the both kingdoms, and a child who would grow strong on the cold she had spent. That was the kingdom she had wanted. She would wake to build the rest of it.