Emma lay sprawled on her massive bed, still thinking about Ethan, when her device buzzed.
A sharp, chirping tone.A hologram flickered above her bedside pillar.
Emma's eyes snapped open.
The name glowing across the icy air nearly kicked her heart into orbit.
Ethan.
Her entire body jolted so hard she almost rolled off the bed.
"Hrk! No! Not now! What am I even saying?!"
She scrambled upright, hair a snowy mess, braids undone, wolf ears flicking wildly like confused antennae. The queen of the North, heroine of a thousand hunts, slayer of beasts that ate steel for breakfast, panicked like a teenage girl receiving her first crush call.
And then she remembered.
Regnare's patient, dead-serious lessons.
She could still see him, the Crown Prince, sitting like a tiny professor atop a crate, explaining holo-calling etiquette after watching her nearly headbutt the device during her last attempt.
"Queen Emma, you don't yell at it."
"You press the green symbol. Gently."
