Chapter 3 Alarik
Alarik
It was just after midday when Alarik Felsing arrived at his mother’s private chambers in the most westerly turret of Grinstad Palace.
Like a hangman dragging his feet to the gallows, he wound his way up the never-ending spiral staircase, where oil portraits of stern-faced kings and queens peered down at him in silent judgement.
His bootsteps were silent on the midnight-blue carpet but his pulse was a drumbeat in his ears.
At the top of the stairwell, he stalled outside the door, sconce-light gilding his wheat-blond hair as he steeled himself for what lay on the other side.
It had been months since his mother had summoned him here, since she had sought his company at all beyond the odd stilted exchange at breakfast or a passing smile in the palace hallways.
The same hallways that once rang with her laughter and echoed with the notes of her beloved pianoforte.
Ever since the death of her youngest son, Prince Ansel, a year and a half ago, the dowager Queen Valeska had never quite returned to herself.
Just like Alarik’s father, the late King Soren, long lost to the sea, his mother was a ghost. Alarik had tried to paint in the edges of her with invitations to the garden where they could stroll together, or to the opera where they might forget their sorrows, or even to her own music room where she would play for him, her only surviving son, but they had all been met with the same tepid response – perhaps tomorrow.
Tomorrow had yet to come.
Though Alarik would not deny his mother’s summons now – or ever – it pained him to be in her company, to look into her glassy eyes as she looked right through him, thinking of her other son. Her better son. Ansel.
Even Anika, Alarik’s fiery, sharp-tongued sister had sailed south a year ago, removing herself from the whorls of grief that surrounded the palace in pursuit of the love she had found with a witch from Eana called Celeste.
Often in the midnight dark, when sleep evaded him, Alarik thought of his sister and envied her freedom to travel far beyond the bounds of Gevra.
Freedom from the weight of their father’s crown, and from the grief that stalked these hallowed halls in his absence.
But Alarik was the king, and the king did not get to leave. Not the country. Nor its pain.
Drawing a breath, he knocked on the door.
His mother’s response came at once. ‘Come in!’
Alarik blinked at the chirpiness in her voice.
He stalked inside, barely registering the staggering beauty of the domed stained-glass ceiling, which was coated in a blanket of fresh snow.
Aside from the library and his painting studio, his mother’s reading chamber was his favourite room in the entire palace.
It was warm and inviting, the walls bordered by curving walnut shelves filled to the brim with all manner of books, from dense Gevran war treatises to tales of swashbuckling adventure.
Everything a young prince could possibly want. A king, too.
A glittering snowflake chandelier hung from the high ceiling, and in the middle of the room, a set of blue velvet couches were arranged around a roaring stone fireplace.
On the glass coffee table between them sat a silver tray of tea and sandwiches, warm butter biscuits and coconut cream tarts.
The king’s favourite. And jutting out of an ice bucket on the side was a vintage bottle of frostfizz.
Alarik frowned at the bottle, suspicion grumbling deep in his bones.
A study of poise and stillness, the dowager queen was seated by the fireplace.
Her flowing silver dress was the same shade as her sheath of long hair.
Her skin was pale but there was colour in her cheeks today.
Colour in her eyes, which were as bright and blue as his own.
Beside her sat Lief, the Queen’s Hand and longest-serving steward, a middle-aged man who gave the vague impression of a forest nymph from a children’s fairy tale.
He had smooth golden skin, a veil of long white hair and unnervingly large eyes of pine green.
He was as tall and narrow as a beanpole, and always smiled with every one of his teeth.
‘Good afternoon, Your Majesty,’ he said, smiling now.
The grumble of suspicion inside Alarik grew.
His mother waved him over. ‘Come and sit, Alarik. I hope we haven’t interrupted anything important.’
‘I was about to spar with a mountain lion.’
Lief burst into laughter, the sound dying in his throat when he saw that the king was deadly serious. ‘Terribly sorry to keep you from … uh … that rousing activity,’ he said, hastily. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’
Alarik lowered himself on to the opposite couch, looking between his mother and her steward.
‘It’s been a while since we’ve had tea together, Mother.
’ His gaze flicked once more to the bottle.
‘Or indeed frostfizz …’ In fact, Alarik could not remember the last time they had cause to celebrate anything.
Valeska knitted her hands together on her lap, sharing a conspiratorial smile with Lief. Which reminded Alarik … ‘Lief, I don’t believe you and I have ever had tea together.’
Lief dipped his chin. ‘It is my honour, Your Majesty.’
‘Yes, it is.’ Alarik kicked his legs out and looked to his mother, brows raised. ‘To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’
‘Lief,’ she hissed. ‘The frostfizz.’
The steward practically leaped across the table, hands trembling as he popped the cork, sending it soaring towards the domed ceiling. He poured it into three goblets. Valeska scooped hers up, prompting the steward to do the same. She looked expectantly at Alarik.
He did not move to take his goblet. ‘What are we toasting to?’
Valeska’s lips curled and if Alarik didn’t know her better, he might not have noticed the anxiety vibrating around the edges of her smile. ‘Your upcoming wedding.’
There was a thunderous silence.
Alarik stared at his mother, waiting for the joke – terribly misjudged as it was – to land.
‘Such glad tidings!’ crowed Lief, before the silence strangled him. He took a loud slurp of frostfizz. ‘It’s been so long since Grinstad has had such a joyous—’
‘Shut up,’ snapped the king.
Lief nearly swallowed his own tongue.
Alarik had not broken his stare with his mother, the same frosted-blue eyes meeting across the room.
She cleared her throat, summoning a sliver of the authority she’d once wielded like a sword. ‘Alarik, the time has come for you to take a bride.’
He might have laughed if she didn’t sound so serious. Instead, he crooked a brow, a challenge rising in his voice. ‘Has it indeed, Mother?’
Lief drained his goblet and poured another. ‘So fragrant,’ he said, between gulps. ‘You can really tell it’s vintage.’
Undeterred by the frigid snap of her son’s mood, Valeska went on.
‘We are teetering on the verge of war. Queen Regna has been watching our borders for months, coveting our ore. Our mines. Our very kingdom.’ Alarik’s lips twisted at the salient reminder of his own weakened position.
As if it didn’t already plague his every waking thought.
She set her goblet down. ‘What do you plan to do about it?’
He didn’t miss a beat. ‘I plan to butcher Regna’s soldiers with my beasts, then storm the border and take her head as a trophy.
’ Lief quailed, shrinking back into the cushions.
Alarik curled his lip as he spoke his next words.
‘Or would you prefer I bend the knee to the queen and marry one of her odious daughters instead?’
‘Of course not,’ said Valeska, wrinkling her nose. ‘I’d sooner see you wed an elk than a princess of Vask.’
‘So there is a standard,’ remarked Alarik.
‘Of course there is a standard. You are a formidable prize, my son.’
He recoiled from the words.
‘You must see the sense in making an alliance,’ Valeska went on, an old fire inside her rekindling. ‘Gevra’s position on this continent is the weakest it has been in centuries. Vask’s designs are just the beginning. Our enemies will soon be clamouring at our doorstep.’
Alarik flinched at her hidden meaning, whether she intended it or not.
That he was as weak as his kingdom, that he was bowing under the pressure of King Soren’s legacy.
‘I have it in hand.’ He shot to his feet and went to the window to keep from hurling the tea tray in a tantrum.
He was trying to cut back on those. The last time he punched a suit of armour in a rage, it’d nearly shattered his fist. ‘I am preparing for war.’
‘It will take more than a new wrangler, Alarik.’
Alarik couldn’t keep the bite from his voice when he turned on her. ‘What will it take, Mother?’
‘A wife with an army at her back. A kingdom of her own.’
‘And a heart as pure as a lark’s song!’ said Lief, perking up.
Alarik turned his blistering glare on the steward, who shrunk back into his seat.
‘Or just the war stuff,’ Lief squeaked. ‘A big, scary army with lots of stomping soldiers. In a way, that’s just as romantic. Dare I say even more romantic than—’
‘Stop talking.’ Alarik’s nostrils flared.
‘Stopping. I’ve stopped.’
Valeska laid a bracing hand on Lief’s knee. ‘Alarik’s heart is his own business.’
The king didn’t give a damn about his heart.
He cared about his reputation. He cared about his kingdom and its future.
And his mother, wise as she had always been, even in her sorrow, knew there was a greater chance of the Fovarr Mountains splitting open than Alarik Felsing ever making a love match.
He turned back to the window, gazing out at his beloved mountains as they glistened under the pale sun. ‘Who do you have in mind?’ he said, if only to satisfy his curiosity.
There was a long breath of anticipation.
Lief rattled his hands against the table, using it like a drum.
Alarik rolled his eyes.
‘Princess Elva of Halgard!’ announced the steward.
The name frittered past Alarik like a cool wind. ‘I am not familiar with Princess Elva.’
Nor do I plan to be.
Though he knew Halgard well enough. A verdant, wealthy country of rolling hills and pooling lakes, silver mountains and bustling farms, where the livestock outnumbered its people three to one, and the rivers were so clear they glittered.
Halgard was his mother’s home country. As a favoured third cousin of the queen there, she had been a member of court before marrying Alarik’s father almost thirty years ago.
While Vask hugged the north-west of Gevra, Halgard shared a smaller mountain range with Gevra to the north-east, and though it was barely half the size of Alarik’s kingdom, Halgard was well-armed and twice as wealthy.
It was undoubtedly the best-placed kingdom to help him stave off the threat of invasion from Vask.
The alliance made sense.
But the idea of a wedding, of an entire marriage, sent a shudder skittering down Alarik’s spine.
‘Elva is clever. Well-read and well-respected …’ his mother went on, listing the princess’s qualities like they might make a dent in his resolve. Alarik tuned her out, watching the sky for Vaskan birds.
Before him, the mountains shifted, as though they were taking a breath.
He frowned, sure he had imagined the movement, but on closer inspection, there was a crack in the terrain that hadn’t been there the day before.
He stared and stared, until the earth rose once more, unsettling a snow drift and sending it sliding down the mountainside.
He strained, listening for the faraway rumble of an avalanche but there was only the north wind wreathing the glass dome.
He spun on his heel. ‘Is it my imagination or are the mountains breathing?’
Valeska frowned. ‘Have you been listening to a single word I’ve said?’
Unease stirred inside Alarik. He rubbed the spot between his brows, sure the stress of the last few months was finally getting to him. Foreign birds and foreign spies, feral beasts … and still, his wrangler had yet to arrive. ‘I think I’m losing my mind.’
‘Ah, but you are gaining a most illustrious bride,’ said Lief, raising another bubbling goblet. ‘I, for one, cannot wait to meet Princess Elva when she arrives with her delegation.’
Alarik stared at the steward. ‘What did you just say?’
‘I’ve already written to King Nilas. The date has been set,’ said Valeska, rising from her perch and coming towards her son with such light in her eyes it made a dent in Alarik’s chest. ‘Princess Elva is coming to Grinstad in two weeks. And when she arrives, we must welcome her with open arms.’ She took his hand and squeezed it, just as she used to when Alarik was a boy, afraid of the brutal battle tapestries in the war room, and then as a young teenager, afraid of the sea that had stolen his father.
‘Please, Alarik. Won’t you at least try with Elva, for me? ’
Alarik stared down at his mother and let all the angry, hateful things he wanted to say dissolve on his tongue. It had been long months since he had seen her face alight with such hope.
He had no intention of getting married. But nor did he wish to dash the fragile happiness that now dwelled in his mother’s heart. If he could give her nothing else, he could give her this: an answer that might keep that fire inside her eyes flickering, if only for a little while longer.
So, he lied and said, ‘I’ll consider it.’
Her answering smile was as lovely as a sunrise. She laid her head against his shoulder and turned to face the sky. ‘At long last, I have something to look forward to.’
With a weary sigh, Alarik rested his head atop his mother’s and watched his mountains inhale, as though they were steeling themselves for what lay ahead. It occurred to him that perhaps he should steel himself, too.