Chapter Two
William
Losing touch with reality wasn’t something William feared. It was his goal.
Concubines, wine and grand balls kept him from thinking about his royal duties, the orcs raiding his southern villages for men, and the growing stack of paperwork that menacingly stared at him every time he entered his study.
It was why he kept the door shut. He should’ve dealt with it while it had still been manageable.
The truth was his responsibilities had overwhelmed him from the day he’d ascended to the throne.
He’d been reeling with grief over his father’s death, regardless of how complicated and distant their relationship had been. Or perhaps because of it.
“You’re dreaming again,” Beatrice said in his ear, laughing softly. She kissed his jawline, then the corner of his mouth. Her long, dark curls tickled his skin.
William’s throat was parched. Where was the wine? He found his empty glass on the nightstand. Someone must’ve taken it from him.
He freed himself of Beatrice and the rest of the eager courtesans caressing him. They’d drained his body, though he didn’t feel sated. Something was always missing when he joined them in this playroom of a bedchamber.
He rubbed his face and sat up, gazing at the gap in the curtains. As his concubines had pleasured him, he could have sworn he’d seen a shadow pass outside the window. He must’ve had too much wine.
William staggered to his feet, ignoring the concubines as he picked his crumpled tunic off the floor and slipped into it.
He stumbled to the door, behind which a servant was waiting to help him down the spiral staircase to the monarch’s apartment.
He was too drunk to be embarrassed by his state of undress or the fact that he needed help to get to his chambers.
William never took his concubines there.
For some reason, he didn’t feel comfortable having them in his royal apartment.
Instead, he kept them in the empty consort’s wing.
Back in his chambers, he crashed onto his bed and passed out. His dreams were a jumble of fantastical nonsense, and he slept into the late morning.
It was past noon when he took his breakfast of buttered bread, fried eggs and a tall glass of beer in the Green Room. Here, the blazing fireplace heated everything to a comfortable temperature. Wood paneling and hunting scenes lined the walls, and from the high, vaulted ceiling hung a chandelier.
William sat by the arched, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Sapphire Lake.
In the distance lay Winterbourne, the capital of Vale.
Much closer, the approach to the castle snaked up the hill in tight switchbacks, where a lone rider was trotting toward Silverlight.
William squinted, but the figure was too far away to make out who it was—there was no banner fluttering in the wind, no brightly colored coat of arms gracing the cuirass.
William leaned back and took another swig of his beer.
If it was an important visitor, he’d hear about it soon enough.
Perhaps Duchess Ilona of Winterbourne had sent a messenger with an invitation to a ball.
William had hosted plenty of those over the years, and she’d said she wanted to reciprocate. It’d be a nice diversion.
He had just washed down the final bite of his breakfast with the remainder of his beer when a knock on the door sounded.
It opened on his order, and a tall man of muscular build dressed in leather armor entered, his boots squeaking on the polished wooden floor.
Thick, black hair fell past his ears, a trimmed beard lining his square jaw.
William stood as the man bowed in deference.
“Eric,” William said. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you back.”
“Your Majesty.” Eric bowed deeper. “I come with news from the front.”
Eric was one of the last remaining male soldiers in the employ of the Crown.
Ever since the orcs, whose females had vanished decades ago, discovered they could procreate with human men, all knights had been women.
Men at the front risked orcs taking them prisoner and using them to carry their offspring.
Women were of no interest to orcs. They might be killed in battle, but they’d never face that dreaded fate worse than death.
Eric was brave. He’d been William’s right-hand man since the day he’d ascended to the throne.
He had volunteered to ride south and pass messages between William in Vale’s far north and his southern lords.
Trained as a scout, Eric gathered intelligence about the orcs’ troop strengths, positioning and movements.
“The orcs have made disturbing progress in the western valleys,” Eric said. “They’re pushing north everywhere, but they’ve come the farthest in the west. In my last meeting with James of Castlehill, he handed me a missive for you.”
He pulled a folded piece of parchment from his pocket. William took it, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. James was the bane of his existence. He sent weekly letters containing requests for support: knights, supplies and a thousand other things.
William broke the wax seal imprinted with James’s stag coat of arms and unfolded the letter. Sure enough, it contained James’s latest wish list along with dire warnings of impending doom. He even claimed his House’s ancestral home, Castlehill, was in danger if William didn’t send troops.
Unsure what to do, William chewed his bottom lip. He could send knights, but he had no idea how many he had. And weren’t they all tasked with other duties?
“I have something else for you, Your Majesty,” Eric said, pulling him out of his thoughts. He passed William another letter. “It was quite strange… On the last leg of my journey to Silverlight, a fae messenger from the Winter Court passed this to me with instructions to give it to you.”
A fae? From the Winter Court? What could they want from him?
The parchment was pristine white and cool to the touch, silver wax embossed with a snowflake securing it.
William nearly dropped the letter when he read its contents. It was a proposal of marriage by no other than Iver, king of the Winter Court.
They’d never met—fae usually stayed out of human affairs. That had, of course, changed when the king of the Autumn Court had married James’s younger brother, Henry. Since then, the faerie courts had been vying for the attention of powerful human Houses.
William’s eyes flitted across the page. Only the letter suggested a political marriage, a “mutually beneficial arrangement.” It was in both William’s and Iver’s interests to strike an advantageous match. If they joined their courts, nobody could rival their power.
The missive continued, Iver expressing interest in incorporating Silverlight Castle into the Winter Court. In exchange, William would receive the protection of the faerie realm.
High fae were known to desire human castles—they elevated their status, and once Silverlight was part of the faerie realm, Iver could raise the wards, sealing it—and William—off from intruders.
No enemy, orc, human or otherwise, would be able to pass through.
William would be safe inside a snowy bubble of protection.
Furthermore, Iver expressed the desire to produce an heir. That could be arranged. Iver had sisters, and William’s cousin Charlotte had offered to carry a child should he marry a man.
William’s brow furrowed. The child would be fae in either case. One drop of fae blood points the ear, the old saying went. And fae couldn’t inherit the throne of Vale. Any child their marriage produced would be in the Winter Court’s line of succession, not Vale’s.
Marrying Iver would remove the Crown from William’s descendants.
Charlotte had no interest in the throne, and neither did she want the three children she had with her late husband to ascend.
William didn’t know who’d be next in line after them.
He’d have to name an heir to prevent the Valian nobility from tearing each other to pieces in a war of succession.
William snorted. He knew a man who’d love to inherit the throne of Vale.
Wait—Was he considering Iver’s offer?
William didn’t care what happened to the throne once he passed. He’d always known he wouldn’t be able to marry for love, and another king was as good a match as he was going to get.
The missive concluded with an invitation to meet on neutral ground to discuss further details: at the Duchess of Winterbourne’s castle. She was a widow who had recently remarried a high fae, making her home an appropriate place to meet.
Over the next few days, William mulled over his response to Iver. He spoke with Charlotte, who reaffirmed both her commitment to carry a child for him and his husband and her disinterest in the throne. In title, Charlotte was a countess, and that was as much power as she was willing to bear.
William wasn’t going to get a better marriage offer than Iver’s.
As the Winter King, he was the only unmarried sovereign far and wide.
There were princes and princesses, but none of them would be able to afford William what Iver could.
He was the most powerful of the fae—not even the sovereigns of the other courts matched his command of magic.
Meeting him couldn’t hurt. William jotted down a message and tasked Eric with delivering it to the Winter Court.
The veil that separated the faerie realm from the human world ran not far from Silverlight Castle—across the lake and past the capital lay a dense forest humans feared to enter, for it was the gate to the Winter Court.
Eric, entirely unafraid, wasn’t worried.