Chapter 33 Alarik
Alarik
Alarik was arguing with a hysterical Lief when his mother swept into the ballroom.
Sunlight gilded her yellow gown and cast pinwheels across her slippers as her steps echoed in the cavernous room.
It was a far cry from the grand majesty it had beheld at the welcome ball.
The room lay empty now, a blank canvas that Lief would bring to life in the days to come.
It would soon be a ballroom fit for a royal wedding.
A glittering monstrosity for hundreds of noblefolk to feast on.
Whether Alarik liked it or not.
‘What on earth is going on?’ demanded the dowager queen. ‘I can hear you yelling from the west wing.’
Alarik folded his arms. ‘Nothing. It’s all in hand.’
‘It is not in hand!’ cried Lief, rushing to the queen like a shameless tattletale. ‘The king’s wolf chewed up Herbert’s prized cello and then made off with my best neckerchief!’
Queen Valeska released a long-suffering sigh.
‘It’s sabotage!’ said the steward. ‘He has sent his beasts to sabotage my vision!’
Alarik rolled his eyes. ‘If I wanted to sabotage this wedding, Lief, you would be dead.’
The steward whimpered.
‘Alarik,’ chasisted the dowager queen. ‘I know you’ve just returned from battle, but Grinstad is a civilized place. Please do try to be less murderous while you’re here.’
‘I’m trying,’ he said, through his teeth. ‘I’ve already offered to replace the cello and the gaudy neckerchief. But if you want my opinion, Lief, you could stand to lose it.’
Lief threw his hands up. ‘That’s more of it! Abuse! Ungratefulness! And now slander! Why do I even bother?’ He stomped off towards the door, muttering a slew of swear words. Alarik had never liked him more. ‘You can deal with His Majesty’s foul humour. I’ve had enough.’
Alarik watched him go. ‘You should lend him to the local theatre. He’d make a killing.’
‘What is this really about?’ said Valeska, wearily.
He arched a brow. ‘You mean other than my complete and utter aversion to this marriage?’
‘Please keep your voice down,’ she hissed. ‘Princess Elva might hear you.’
‘Elva has gone ice skating with Captain Vine,’ said Alarik, in a bored voice.
He had spied them that morning from his balcony, talking and laughing as they donned their skates at the edge of the lake.
The recent battle was already a distant thought to Vine.
Or perhaps his captain had sought out the princess to take her mind off it.
They hadn’t lost exactly. But they hadn’t won either.
Everything remained uncomfortably … unfinished.
In any case, Alarik hadn’t so much as flinched when he watched them bend their heads together, Elva turning to plant a stolen kiss on Vine’s cheek. Let them skate. Let them flirt. Let them fall madly in love for all he cared.
‘Trust me, she’s no more in love with me than I am with her.’
‘Time will take care of that,’ said his mother, with infuriating simplicity. ‘For now, your alliance is what matters.’
Frustration burned in the pit of Alarik’s stomach. He went to the window to look out at the whirling snow, trying not to think of the wrangler in his bed. There was no measure of time that would install the princess of Halgard into his heart. Not when it was already filled with someone else.
Another matter that remained frustratingly unfinished.
Not that they had even begun.
‘You lost half of King Nilas’s elk at the Blackspires.’ His mother’s voice drifted after him. ‘Almost a third of his soldiers. And your own.’
‘I know that,’ he said, tersely.
‘Queen Regna will strike again, Alarik. It’s only a matter of time.’
‘I know,’ he growled.
But where? And when?
Not for the first time that day, he thought of the beast trapped in his mountain. A true dragon, if the old rumours held true. Was Regna goading him to free it? Or did she truly want it for himself? Did she really believe it could be tamed?
With the right wrangler, perhaps.
Which would explain her sudden interest in Greta Iversen.
‘You need this alliance,’ said his mother.
It remained the unavoidable truth. A thorn in his heart that pricked deeper every day.
He closed his eyes, imagining a future with Elva.
But when he tried to conjure the princess in her lovely gowns and sparkling tiaras, his traitorous thoughts returned to Greta.
Soft and beautiful and singing to his beasts.
Strong and wild and roaring into battle.
Pale and bruised and bleeding in his arms.
Safe and sleeping in his bed.
A hand came to his arm, jolting him from the vision. ‘Alarik. Is there something else going on?’
He turned to his mother, suddenly desperate to lay his struggle at her feet. To unload the burden of his own heart, if just for a moment. But he stilled at the look on her face. It was pale and drawn, worry deepening the lines around her eyes.
She looked tired. Fearful. Old.
Long ago, Alarik had made a promise to the memory of his father that he would keep his mother safe, that he would strive, every day, to make her happy. He had failed, year after year, to keep that promise. He was still failing.
‘I know you do not wish to marry Elva,’ she went on.
‘In truth, I always believed it was Ansel who would make the perfect alliance for this kingdom. Leaving you to live as you like, with your freedom and your beasts.’ Her smile was edged with sadness.
‘The day he sailed to marry his bride in Eana, I stood at my balcony and wept. What kind of mother is too afraid of the sea to attend her own son’s wedding? ’
‘The kind that lost her husband to the ocean,’ said Alarik. ‘No one blamed you for not being there.’
Alarik was glad of it now, that her crippling fear of the crossing had kept her from getting on his ship. That she did not have to sit in that pew and witness the sword skewering Ansel’s heart, see the rivers of blood that flowed from his chest, painting his ivory doublet crimson.
She closed her eyes, a sigh sweeping out of her. ‘I still wonder if I could have saved him.’
‘No.’ The word was swift and final. ‘There was nothing you could have done.’
Another failure that was his to bear.
‘You know, I love you and your sister very much,’ she murmured, turning her gaze to the window, looking past the bounds of Grinstad into another time.
‘But you are both so mercurial, married to the rogue winds of battle and adventure in a way your brother was not. You and Anika are my very heart, but Ansel was my hope for the future. For family and company, and the laughter of grandchildren filling these cold, empty halls. I placed all my hopes in that boy, and when he died …’ She trailed off, a silent tear trickling down her cheek.
Alarik fisted his hands, rage and sadness thrashing inside him.
It all felt so unfair, that he was here, and Ansel was not, that he had bowed so quickly under the weight of his legacy.
If he couldn’t protect his kingdom from invasion, or his own family from pain, then what good was he as a king? As a man?
She turned from the window. ‘Now, there is hope again,’ she said, her lips flickering. ‘Hope for something beautiful, beyond battle and bloodshed. Beyond loss.’
Alarik laid his head against the window, his breath fogging the glass.
For his mother, his marriage to Princess Elva was about more than an alliance.
He could see it plainly now, her desire to reclaim the warmth that once lit these halls, the love and laughter that echoed here.
For the first time in years, she was looking to the future, not the past.
But how could he tell her that the mere thought of that future filled him with dread? Not for what he might gain in the end, but for who he would have to give up to get there.
When he stepped back from the window, she was gone. He was alone in the ballroom, dreading the moment in five days’ time, when he would have to step inside it again. Not as king, but as a groom.
When Alarik returned to his bedchamber, Greta was no longer there. Like a fool, he went to his bed and checked under the pile of blankets to look for her. Luna watched him from her spot on her pillow, judgement glowing in her golden eyes.
You really messed this up, he imagined her saying.
‘I know,’ he muttered. ‘I’m messing everything up.’
‘Your wrangler left a while ago.’ He turned at the sound of his sister’s voice.
Anika was standing in the doorway in a long white coat and matching fur hat, with her crimson hair styled in twin braids.
Despite the toll of battle, there wasn’t a scratch on her.
In fact, she looked revitalized, better now than when she had first arrived home last week. ‘Johan said she bolted like a deer.’
Alarik ground his teeth. ‘She’s supposed to be resting.’
‘She can rest in her own bed.’ Anika stepped into the room and shut the door. ‘You are betrothed to someone else.’
‘Elva doesn’t care,’ said Alarik, curtly. In fact, it was Elva who ran to meet them upon their return from battle two days ago, fetching the palace physician and an armful of extra blankets to help warm Greta up.
Anika tossed his words aside. ‘You can’t have them both.’
‘Get out of my room, Anika.’
‘No.’
He glared at her.
She glared right back.
‘Grow up, Alarik,’ she snapped. ‘We are at war. Don’t doom your kingdom over some foolish fling with your wrangler.’
‘You have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said, working to keep his anger at bay. ‘And I would caution you not to annoy me today. I’m feeling particularly vicious.’
‘Go eat a cello, then.’
Alarik opened his mouth to snap back, but at the defiant look in her eyes, the fight inside him sputtered out. He wasn’t angry at his sister. He was angry because she was telling him the truth. He slumped on to the bed, raking his hands through his hair. ‘I don’t know what to do, Anika.’
Her voice softened at his distress, the mattress creaking as she sat down beside him. ‘Yes, you do.’ She tapped his chest. ‘War before desire, brother. Kingdom before heart.’
His stomach twisted. ‘I don’t want to let her go.’
‘She’s already gone, Alarik,’ she said, gently.
I want to chase her. He almost leaped from the bed, caught in the primal rush of his need. In that moment he wasn’t a king or a son or a groom. He felt like a snow leopard, desperate to find his mate.
Anika must have sensed the shift in his energy because she leaped to her feet and made a wall of her body.
‘Leave her be,’ she warned.
He jerked his chin up. ‘Or what?’
‘Or I’ll send word to Tor Iversen. And then you really will be sorry.’
He snorted at the threat but didn’t rise to it. Deep down, he knew his sister was right. It wasn’t fair to chase Greta. No matter his feelings, he had nothing to offer her.
And the truth was, she deserved better.