Queen Glaciana Frostborne Alpineglow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 33

On the third day, Victor climbed her mountain in daylight, his crown catching the pale sun. Glaciana waited in the great hall with the signet ring hidden in her palm. Her court lined the walls. She had made the ring in secret. Now she had to give it in front of everyone, and she still did not know how he would answer. Victor crossed the hall without hurry. He was blonde and grey-eyed, wrapped in heavy blue and gold. The sapphire in his crown was worth more than every plate in her vaults. He stopped before her throne and looked only at her, not the watching court. "You climbed all this way," Glaciana said. "You asked me to." He said nothing more. She opened her hand. The silver ring lay flat on her palm, plain against her cold skin. Beside his gold, it looked like nothing. Her fingers wanted to close again. She did not let them. "I made this," she said. "Not a jeweler. Me. A signet, so you can seal your letters to me." She held it out. "It won't match your crown. I didn't want it to." The hall went quiet. A queen offering a king a gift he could buy a thousand times over. She heard someone shift near the wall. Victor looked at the ring a long moment. He did not take it right away. Then he lifted it from her palm and turned it in the light, reading the pattern she had cut by hand. "You engraved this yourself," he said. Not a question. "My father taught me." Victor slid the ring onto his finger, above the gold. It fit. He closed his hand around it, testing the weight. When he looked up, something in his grey eyes had changed. He was not a man easily moved, and he did not pretend to be moved now. He simply was. "Everyone gives me gold," he said. "No one has ever made me a thing with their own hands." He paused. "I'll seal every letter with it." The court let out a low murmur. Glaciana felt the fear go out of her chest. He had not laughed. He had not thanked her like a subject. He wore it. Victor stepped closer, so only she could hear. "I came to see if you were real," he said. "You are." He took her cold hand in his. "Thank you, your majesty.” He whispers in her ear, “Will I be seeing you in public or in secret for now?” Glaciana could feel her cheeks heat up as her heart skipped a beat from his offer. She stuttered, “O-Oh, um…. Maybe secret for now? To see if you’ll even like me-“ He chuckles at her cute reply and whispers again in her ear, “Oh, I’ve already started falling for you, your majesty.”