The Snow Prince - Raleigh Ruebins Page 0,77

I could see Tracy at a loss for words. She was usually so quick to joke, so wise and calm. But she looked overtaken, right now.

“You all right, Trace?” I asked. A worker walked past with a tray of champagne glasses, and I grabbed one, handing it to Tracy.

“I’m just really happy for you two,” she said. I could see a slight wateriness forming in her eyes.

It was at that moment I fully realized that Tracy wasn’t just a lawyer to me, or even just a friend. She was someone who had cared about me, in some small way, since I was a kid. She may not have always had a huge presence in my life, but she had always accepted me for exactly who I was. She had always accepted Sebastian for who he was, too—royal or not.

In a lot of ways, she was like a mom to me, in ways that my mom never was.

And I knew that was something that Sebastian had to feel, too. We’d both had bad luck when it came to parents, but it didn’t mean we had no one.

“Thank you so much,” Sebastian said. He reached out and squeezed Tracy’s hand. “The days of Frostmonte Castle being closed off to the townspeople are over. Really over. I want to transform this place into somewhere for everyone.”

“It’s a beautiful thing,” she said. “Something I wish had existed when I was younger.”

“Me, too,” Sebastian said. “We’re going to start holding classes here. Gardening classes, ice sculpture carving, ice skating out on the rink, and then more boring ones like international diplomacy and global relations.”

“Who needs that?” Tracy joked.

“I’m still petitioning to get Sebastian to teach work out classes,” I said. “The townsfolk deserve to see the king in all his beautiful, muscley glory.”

“Never gonna happen,” he said.

“Never say never.”

“The taxpayer dollars aren’t going to go to frivolous trips and ballgowns anymore,” Sebastian said. “All of the classes will be free, first come, first served. The castle should be a part of the community, not a glass tower.”

Tracy pulled in a deep breath. She was clearly as proud of Sebastian as I was.

She turned to me, winking. “I told you so,” she said.

She had believed in him, when I thought I was the only person who did. We had seen behind his cold exterior to the true Sebastian deep inside.

“I’m going to go mingle,” Tracy said, looking back and forth between the two of us. “But I’m just letting you know right now: whenever a proposal happens, I better be the first to know.”

I smiled wide. “You’ll be the first to know,” I said. “Promise.”

Over the course of the next hour, the party blossomed as more and more people showed up. Sebastian had known that fully opening the castle to the public would attract a lot of visitors, but it was staggering to see the amount of people who showed up, dressed to the nines and ready to usher in a new era of Frostmonte.

There were people taking pictures left and right. I ran into dozens of people who I’d known as kids, who were now grown, some of them with their own children. It felt like slipping into another world, seeing Frostmonte Castle so open, so warm, so bustling.

It really was like a curse had been lifted. Frostmonte was alive again. For the first time in… as long as we’d been alive, at least.

Sebastian had only officially been king for just over twenty-four hours, but early this morning, he had put in place revisions to the royal decrees that would allow him to marry anyone he liked. He’d brought a copy of the decree to me in bed this morning, dropping it down next to a plate of fresh sliced tangerines, toast, and a warm mocha latte.

I couldn’t exactly say I was used to the royal lifestyle yet. But I sure as hell wasn’t complaining.

“Sir?” I heard Genoveve say from behind us. When we turned, she was there, a hesitant smile on her face. “Look who came to see you.”

“Princess Emma,” Sebastian said, a smile passing over his face. “I wasn’t sure… I didn’t know if you’d want to come—”

“Are you kidding me?” Princess Emma said in her beautiful accent. She looked even more relaxed than I’d ever seen her, like she felt better knowing she wasn’t going to marry Sebastian. “I wanted to be here. I cancelled meetings to be here.”

“It means a lot to me,” Sebastian said, reaching out and clasping her hand.