Morning arrived slowly, filtered through gauzy curtains and spilling honey-gold light across the walls of my chamber. The air carried the faint scent of linen and last night's extinguished candles, warm and quiet in a way the castle rarely was.
For several long moments, I did not open my eyes.
I simply lay there, suspended between sleep and waking, aware only of warmth.
Not the distant warmth of sunlight.
Something closer.
Something solid.
Something alive.
My thoughts surfaced in fragments. The gates opening. The cheers from the city. Elias riding through first. The look in his eyes when he saw me. The way he had crossed the distance between us without hesitation, as though nothing else in the world mattered.
Then the rest followed.
The kisses.
The laughter.
The way my Frosty Princess persona had collapsed in a single night.
Heat flooded my face so quickly it felt unbearable. I buried half my face into the pillow as if that might erase memory itself.
What have I done?
