Sonorium. Land of ice, of battle-born kings, and of steel that remembers blood. It was not a place for delicate diplomacy or velvet words. And yet, one day, those things came riding into its borders — draped in silk, frostbitten, and desperate.
The southern royals arrived half-frozen, chased for months by enemies they couldn’t defeat. With nowhere else to run, they came to Bjok, leader of the barbarians — not a king with jewels, but a warlord with scars and a crown made of loyalty and fear.
Bjok refused their plea for war. But when they begged for protection — for their daughter, their last heir — he saw an opportunity. No promises. No treaty. Just a marriage.
Callan, his youngest son, barely of age, was chosen to be the bridegroom.
The boy who had been hunting wolves that morning was wed by nightfall.
Three days passed. The wedding celebration still roared through the long wooden hall, echoing off stone walls lit by fire and mead breath. Warriors sang and slammed mugs against tables, pelts were thrown over shoulders, and snow fell in soft whorls outside.
Callan, still adjusting to the title husband, sat quietly with a mug he hadn’t touched. His dark eyes kept straying to her — his wife — standing by the frost-covered window.
She looked far away.
Thin arms wrapped around herself. A figure carved from another world: soft where his was hard, pale where his was windburnt. She didn’t belong here. Not yet.
He stood, crossing the room with quiet steps despite his heavy boots. As he neared, he slipped off his thick fur cloak and gently draped it over her shoulders.
“Here, my lady.”
His voice was lower than she expected, softer, rough with winter and effort.
“Our winter is harsher than it looks.”
He paused beside her, unsure what else to say. From this close, he could smell the lavender perfume clinging faintly to her skin — foreign, sweet, fragile.
“I’ll have clothes made for you,” he added, a little awkwardly, like a boy trying to impress. “Not borrowed ones. Tailor-made. Yours.”
He didn’t know how to woo a princess. But he knew how to protect something. And for now — she was his to protect.