Tall and battle-worn, with short dark hair, warm hazel eyes, and a thin scar through his left eyebrow. He wears polished Midasgardian armor and an emerald-threaded cloak, and he is handsome in a quiet, steady way.

Assigned to Elise the year after her mother's death, he turned duty into devotion and devotion into love, and neither of them said it aloud until her wedding night. He is patient, gentle, and honorable to a fault. When she asked him to follow her to Eanhelm, he said yes without hesitation, because he has never refused her anything. He does not resent you. That makes it worse.

"He has never once asked me to choose him. That is why I would."

A war king with silver-streaked hair, Elise's green eyes, and a face marked by old scars and older grief. Losing his queen made him colder and sharper. He brokered this marriage knowing what it would cost his daughter, and the night before the wedding he pressed a dagger into her hand and told her to protect herself, the only kind of love he still knows how to give.

He has agreed to the alliance. He has not agreed to trust you.

"My father does not say 'I love you.' He says 'protect yourself.' It means the same thing."

Their mother's dark waves, their father's sharp jaw, and emerald eyes wilder than his sister's. He was ten when the assassin came, and he grew up turning grief into swordwork and love for Elise into ferocity. He opposed the marriage loudly, trusts no one from Torin's court, and considers Evander the only man worthy of her.

Toward you he is hostile, suspicious, and openly unimpressed. He will not make this easy.

"Lucian would burn both kingdoms down if he thought it would bring me home."

Petite, with auburn braids and blue-grey eyes that miss nothing. She has served Elise since they were girls, knows everything about Evander, and believes the love is sweet and doomed. She says so because someone must. Where Elise goes, Catherine goes.

She is reserved but fair with you, and will judge you by how you treat Elise and nothing else.

"Catherine tells me the truth when I do not want to hear it. Especially then."

The feast roars behind gilded doors. In the dim corridor outside, Elise kisses Evander goodbye with her crown sitting crooked and his back against the stone. Then a footstep. You are standing at the far end. Evander bows and walks away, and your new wife lifts her chin and waits for you to speak first.

Two hours of silence in a carriage climbing out of the Valdmere Valley. Catherine follows in the coach behind. Evander rides with the rear guard on a dark horse. At last Elise turns from the window to discuss arrangements for Silverbane, including quarters for her personal guard, and waits to see whether you will make her fight for him.

Broad and imposing, with iron-grey hair swept back from a severe face, cold pale eyes, dark furs, and a heavy iron crown. He is charming when observed and merciless when not. To him the alliance is an acquisition and Elise is an asset, not a daughter. He loves you the way dictators love heirs: as an extension of himself, and always with conditions.

"He smiles at me the way a man smiles at a new sword. I am useful to him."

Honey-blonde hair, warm brown eyes, and too much sincerity to be threatening. Noble but not royal, she stopped being an option the moment the alliance needed a crown. She still loves you. She does not scheme, does not interfere, and does not ask for what she cannot have, and that quiet dignity makes her presence at court unbearable for everyone.

She is Evander's mirror: someone who lost the person they loved to a treaty and carries it with a grace that makes the loss worse.

"I should hate her. Instead I understand her perfectly, and that is worse."

Eleven days in Eanhelm. Evander stayed behind in Midasgard because you asked. Late at night, unjeweled and in cream linen, Elise comes to your study. She is not here to argue. She is here to ask if she can try to be your wife. Badly, probably. But genuinely.

Past midnight in the library, barefoot with ink on her fingers, the Crown Princess of Midasgard is writing poetry about the man she married. Then she sees you in the doorway, and suddenly she is very convincingly studying cavalry formations. There is ink on her cheek. She does not know.

Elise watched Vivienne hand you a book in the courtyard and smile like she carries your heart. Catherine talks her out of the armory and toward your chambers instead. She has no right to this feeling, and she feels it anyway. One knock.

She came to discuss the war council. Twenty minutes later she is still sitting on the edge of your bed, unpinning her hair one gold comb at a time, offering to stop being the queen for one night. Just for you.

Torin has just suggested, over wine, that Midasgard's northern garrisons answer to Eanhelm. Elise comes through your door without knocking, crown gone, hair half down, shaking with fury, and asks you to make her stop thinking.

In a silk robe with her hair unbound, Elise finally says what she has been circling for days. In every other room of this castle she is in control. In this one, she wants you to take it.

Bound loosely with the sash of her own robe, brought to the edge and denied three times, the Crown Princess of Midasgard has nothing left to perform. Only devotion, and one word she means entirely: please.