His voice was low when he finally spoke. “I’ll do what needs to be done, Your Highness.”
CHAPTER NINE
The bells rang cold through the corridor. Three chimes, crisp and sharp as chisel strikes. Parliament was in session.
Raveena swept through the palace with the composure of an avalanche contained in crystal. Her gown was a tailored marvel of midnight velvet, the hem frosted with embroidered silver thorns. A crown of jet and ice nestled in her hair, gleaming like the edges of a well-honed blade. She moved without hurry, her steps a study in control. Every heel-click on the marble was an assertion:I am still queen.
The doors to the Frost Hall opened before her. Arctic air rushed to greet her like an old friend. The scent of frost permeated the hall with a faint, metallic layer of ozone. High above, icicle chandeliers caught and fractured the light into frozen rainbows. The chamber held the White Table, carved from a single slab of glacier-stone, gleaming and cold enough to sting bare skin. Around it sat the House of Ladies, the ruling body of the Snow Kingdom—nobles, generals, mistresses of coin and trade, queens without thrones, and queens who had made thrones out of bone.
Raveena took her place at the northmost arc of the table. Her seat was taller, darker, less decorative than the rest. Just how she liked it.
The day’s docket unraveled in the hands of the Lady Archivist. Her gloved fingers were steady as she smoothed the parchment across the long obsidian table. Trade routes to reopen, grain stores to redistribute. Merchant guilds pressing for winter tariffs to be lifted now that the Troll Wars had ended. The archivist's voice, calm and clipped, carried over the flickering hush of the chamber.
The conversation soon curled into arguments as the ladies debated treaties and alliances, their jeweled hands gesturing sharply in the firelight. Old grudges resurfaced like thawed beasts. Every proposed accord was met with pointed suspicion or gilded derision.
“The Eastern Reaches are vulnerable,” said Lady Hollowmere, fingers drumming her cup. “If we do not reestablish trade, we risk losing influence entirely.”
“They grow nothing of value,” said Lady Veyne. “Better to let them beg.”
A murmur of agreement rippled. Across the table, Lady Tern raised her voice over the clamor. “What of the Forest Kingdom? And the Coastal Kingdom? They held the line when the trolls broke through.”
“Both ruled by fresh blood,” someone scoffed. “Those two boys are barely crowned and already seeking our approval.”
Raveena spoke then, her voice slicing clean through the room. “Which is precisely why we should consider alliances with King Phillip and King Eric. I'm hearing good things about their brides, Queen Maleficent and Queen Ursula. Queens who rise through fire are often far more capable than kings who inherit through birthright.”
A hush followed, wary but attentive. Each woman was wise enough to hold her peace as they watched how the game of the Thornhall throne played out.
Raveena steepled her fingers. “The Forest Queen is young, yes, but she held her borders while we bled on ours. I hear the Coastal Queen dismantled her brother's maritime council before the first session."
That brought a titter of praise from the room of bloodthirsty noble ladies gathered. Though each held their pieces close to their chests, they could admire another woman's gameplay from afar. Especially when her moves crushed an entire patriarchal society.
"I do not care if they are newly throned. I care that they understand power and how to wield it.”
Lady Charming made a soft, disdainful chirp at this.
Raveena turned her gaze on her with all the cold grace of a glacier shifting toward ruin. “You have thoughts you'd like to share with the group, Lady Charming?”
The older woman’s smile was brittle. “Only that it’s a bold position for someone whose seat is… shall we say… temporarily occupied. With your stepdaughter’s impending marriage, I wonder how much longer your voice will carry weight in this chamber.”
Ah. There it was. The blood-scent beneath the perfume.
“Impending marriage, you say? That’s curious. I hadn’t heard of any proposal.” Raveena glanced at her nails. The same nails that had made half-moons in Prince Charming's back. The same nails she wouldn't hesitate to stab into Lady Charming's back if the woman kept interfering with her plans. “Though I had heard a rather intriguing rumor—something about Prince Charming seen sneaking back to his chambers last night… from the opposite direction of my stepdaughter’s rooms.”
A ripple of muffled laughter and thinly veiled coughs moved around the White Table.
Lady Charming’s knuckles whitened on the rim of her goblet. Her smile tightened, brittle as ice at the center of a deep, still pool—the kind that only looked calm until it cracks beneath the weight of something heavier than pride. The plum silk of her bodice rose and fell with a breath drawn too carefully, too slowly. Only the flare of her nostrils betrayed the fury coiled beneath her jeweled composure.
She lifted her chin a fraction—imperious, unbowed. Her eyes glittered with the calculation of a hawk denied its prey.
Raveena snorted. The one thing she would never be accused of was being prey. “Perhaps the prince has found his appetites… elsewhere.”
Lady Charming’s face darkened like a sky before a snowstorm, but she said nothing.
Raveena turned her attention back to the table, her voice smooth as glass. “The Troll Wars are over. This kingdom cannot thrive on tradition or outdated alliances. We must surge forward on strategy—and on the company we choose to keep.”
She let her words hang in the cold air like icicles ready to drop. She was still queen, and she had no plans to relinquish her crown. Especially if her stepdaughter's crown just so happened to fall off her severed head.
Raveena knew Graham would not let her down. Well, not outside of a withheld orgasm. But even that was temporary. The huntsman always paid his debts in the bedroom. She couldn't wait until their next match.
