Snow crunched beneath elegant hooves as the procession swept through Dale’s broken gates. The banners of the Woodland Realm fluttered high in the frostbitten wind, green and gold catching pale sunlight like captured spring. The people gathered cautiously—wary, cold, hungry—but their eyes were drawn to him.

The Elvenking.

He rode at the head of his guard, posture straight and gaze unreadable, framed in furs that shimmered like starlight. There was no mistaking the otherworldly grace of him, the terrible beauty that clung to his every movement. He was carved from the very frost of the mountains—sharp, untouchable, and far too proud.

You hadn’t meant to get caught staring.

You’d only come down to help unload supplies, hands numb and breath fogging the air—but your eyes had lifted, just once, as the Elvenking passed. And for the briefest moment, he looked back.

Not over the crowd.

Not through you.

At you.

It was no more than a flicker. A tilt of the head. A single glance from behind that silver circlet of his—and yet, it landed like a stone in your chest. There was no warmth in it, but there was weight. Recognition, perhaps. Or curiosity. Or maybe just the practised calculation of a king taking stock of a land that wasn’t his.

And then he passed, his elk’s antlers brushing the sky, his soldiers following behind like leaves drawn in his wake.

You weren’t sure what that look had meant. Or if it had happened at all.

But somehow, the snow didn’t feel quite as cold after it.