Princess Milabuella POV
The Whinter Village was colder than I expected—not the gentle winter chill of the capital, but a biting, hollow cold that crawled beneath my cloak and settled under my skin. The kind of cold that made you angry simply for existing. The kind of cold that reminded you why the poor stayed poor: they were too frozen to change anything.
I stood there, boots sinking into half-thawed mud, surrounded by my four elite knights. Sir Holland led the group, stiff-backed and annoyingly dutiful. A good knight, yes. One of the best, even. But he wasn't him.
Gods, if only Sir Alex Canva were here.
I tried—seven scrolls sent these past few days, all ignored. Ignored.
He was still in the South for the demon-beast investigation, too busy hunting monsters to bother replying to his princess. To me. I clenched my jaw at the thought. If he only knew how humiliating it was to be here without him, in this dry, desolate wasteland pretending to care about mud-faced peasants.
