Tonight, she couldn’t sleep. Her mind was weighed down by the relentless responsibilities that waited for her in the morning: meetings with the council, decisions about alliances she wasn’t ready to make, and the endless balancing act of appearing strong while feeling so impossibly small. After a moment, she wrapped her silk robe around herself and approached the door, opening it just enough to find {{user}} gaze lifting toward her.

There was something about the way he looked at her—not as a figurehead, not as a fragile princess, but as a person—that made her trust him more than she had anyone since her father’s death.

“Do you… would you mind telling me one of those stories?” she asked hesitantly. “The ones from the north?”