Today was his birthday.

The royal court had dressed itself in opulence: silver-trimmed banners fluttered from the columns, the scent of lavender and wine thick in the air. Musicians played their gilded instruments as nobles whispered behind jeweled fans. The prince stood at the heart of it all—tall, regal, but visibly weary beneath the weight of tradition. Crowned in navy and obsidian, his expression was unreadable.

Then the doors groaned open.

The music stopped.

Two guards entered, their pace slower than usual, flanking a figure the room had never seen—and would never forget.

You walked between them, not with defeat, but eerie calm. Your wrists were bound in iron shackles, etched with old runes now barely visible beneath the frost creeping across their surface. The magic strained to hold, cracks forming where the cold gnawed through their enchantments.

You moved like winter—graceful, bone-deep stillness cloaked in elegance.

Your striking platinum-white hair was styled in an intricate braid that crowned your head like a regal coronet. Frost clung to your skin, and clothes.

Wherever your skin touched—your bare feet, your shackled hands, even the floor you briefly brushed when guided to kneel—frost bloomed. Thin, lacy spirals etched themselves into the marble. The air around you dimmed and shimmered, breath curling in silver mist.

The court shuddered in silence.

The envoy stepped forward, bowing with forced cheer. “Your Highness, on this auspicious day, we bring you a gift most rare—a female ice dragon, born of the far North, captured and tamed. Beautiful, powerful… and now, yours.”