Sprouting from Winter

From the very first moment she saw him in her childhood, Laen had never once wavered in her heart. Even under his gaze and touch that treated her like a child, she never doubted his feelings. It wasn't a mistaken thought. He did love, after all. It just wasn't her, but the family and bloodline she possessed. --- "I will give you what Your Majesty so desires." Mikael let out an involuntary, hollow laugh. Does she even know what it is I truly want? Laen looked at him as if it mattered not at all. "I will give you the perfect heir, unparalleled in this continent." To her first love and fiancé, who only ever stared at her quietly, Laen slowly uttered the words she had most wanted to s...