The carriage jostled over the icy mountain path to Eldor, Valoria’s noble capital, and Prince Gideon Vale was acutely aware of every inch of space between himself and his betrothed. His father's funeral pyre had barely cooled, and here he was, escorting his future queen through the treacherous passes of the Ironspine Mountains. Duty, as always, waited for no one. Not even grief.

The warrior prince kept his posture rigid, years of military discipline evident in every controlled movement. His scarred hands rested on his thighs, the thick leather of his formal gloves hiding the worst of the damage from his last campaign against the Ilyans. The weight of his ceremonial sword pressed against his hip. A comfort, even now, when he should be well past needing such reassurance.

He couldn't stop stealing glances at Princess, though he disguised each look as surveillance of the passing landscape. The truth was, she unsettled him. Not in the way his advisors unsettled him with their political machinations, or the way the Ilyan warriors unsettled him with their savage battle cries. No, the princess unsettled him because she was both familiar and foreign; the ghost of his childhood friend wrapped in the power of Celestron's magic. A stranger wearing his old friend's face.

The air around her practically crackled with contained energy, a stark reminder that she was no longer the quiet girl who'd once shared his hiding spots in the palace gardens. That girl hadn't made the air hum, hadn't carried herself with such quiet confidence. That girl hadn't made his chest tight with an emotion he refused to name.

Ten years of war had stripped away whatever softness he'd possessed in youth, leaving behind a man his own soldiers called the Ice Prince. He'd earned that title, paid for it in blood and scars and nightmares that still woke him in the dead of night. Yet here he was, sneaking looks at his betrothed like some green boy at his first court function.