Queen Glaciana Frostborne Alpineglow's Arc

Chapter 6 of 33

The letters flowed now, but the whispers in Glaciana's hall grew louder. Her court had watched her rule alone through three winters. They saw no king at her side, only a queen who bent over ledgers and rationed bread. That morning, two elders stood before her throne and asked plainly when she would marry. She had no answer they would accept. Silence had held before. It would not hold today. Kira found her afterward, pacing her private rooms. "You looked like you wanted to freeze them both," Kira said. She flicked her spotted tail and hopped onto the window ledge, quick and light. "They mean well. They're just scared. A kingdom needs to know its future." "They need a king," Glaciana said. "And I have hidden mine like a stolen coin." Kira's grin faded. She dropped from the ledge and landed without a sound. "Then stop hiding him. Not to the whole kingdom." She leaned close. "Let me carry more than letters. Let me carry the truth to Victor. Ask him to come again, in his crown, in daylight. Show your people he's real." Glaciana's chest tightened. It was the risk she had feared. But the doubt in her hall was a worse risk. She wrote the letter herself. She asked Victor to climb her mountain once more, openly this time, and stand beside her before her court. She sealed it and pressed it into Kira's hands. Kira ran the hidden passages and sent the owl. Two days later, the answer came back sealed in silver wax. Glaciana broke it with her thumb. Victor's words were short, as they always were. "I will come, my love. Three days. I can’t wait to see you." Then, below that, a line that stopped her breath. "A king who hides is no king. Neither is a queen. We end the secret." Glaciana read it twice. Her hands were steady now. She had asked him to show himself, and he had gone further. He wanted the whole truth out, both their names, before both their courts. She called Kira back. "He's coming. And he wants it open. All of it." Kira let out a whoop and spun once, her tail knocking a cup from the table. She caught it before it shattered and set it down, sheepish. "See? No more sneaking. No more owls at midnight." Then her grin softened into something careful. "The court will know everything now. There's no taking it back." "No," Glaciana said. "There isn't." She looked out at the pale banners of her keep, blue and white against the ice. In three days a king would climb her mountain in daylight, and she would name him before every doubting elder in her hall. The silence was over. What came next she could not undo, and she no longer wanted to.