Chapter 39 Alarik
Alarik
Alarik spent the day before his wedding in a daze.
He drifted through the halls of Grinstad like a ghost, trying not to think about Greta Iversen, and failing at every turn.
He spent the morning sulking in his art studio, painting the weaver elk in the grazing fields, his fingers itching to add his wrangler there, too, immortalizing the afternoon they had spent laughing and riding together.
He refrained, sticking to the landscape and the beasts, smudging brushstrokes of amber and pink across the sky.
It was beautiful, and hollow. Devoid of the joy that marked that day in his memory, and yet it would look pretty, he supposed, hanging on a wall.
When Anika came by with coffee and fresh pastries, she suggested he make a wedding gift of it to Elva. He had presented no argument. After all, they were to be married. After all, wasn’t that what a good husband did? Gave thoughtful presents to his wife, and not to his wrangler?
Despite his low mood, he was glad of his sister’s company, and eager to learn of her adventures overseas, of her lover, Celeste, and their plans for the future now that she had been cured of the terrible sickness that had befallen her some months before.
Indeed, it was quite the story, a journey that had taken Celeste’s brother, Captain Marino Pegasi, far beyond the known maps of their world to an island that glittered with strange magic and was guarded by fierce mermaids.
A dangerous quest made possible by the kind of dauntless family loyalty that Alarik could only admire.
While Elva spent the day with her lady’s maids, no doubt primping and preening for the wedding, Alarik passed the rest of the afternoon in his bedroom, pacing a hole in the carpet.
It was there he took an early dinner, barely picking at his food, sitting under a portrait of a stern-faced King Soren.
Tomorrow, I will do my duty as king, he silently promised his father.
Tomorrow, I will save our kingdom.
Tomorrow, I will make you proud of me.
It was a strange feeling to do something that made others proud of you, and yet to feel no pride in yourself. Only defeat.
By the time Lief arrived for his final wedding fitting, carrying an armful of doublets and frock coats, the fight had gone out of Alarik entirely.
He stood by the window as the steward flitted around him like a chatty butterfly.
Alarik stared past him, watching the Fovarr Mountains tremble, imagining the beast that stirred deep within.
Every so often, fresh drifts of snow thundered down the slope, the avalanches growing bigger and thicker with each passing day.
The problem would have to keep until after the wedding. Once the war was won, he would deal with the beast. Somehow.
Night fell, cold and starless and far too quiet.
Or perhaps Alarik’s thoughts were simply too loud.
He left his bedchamber to pace the palace halls, hoping the exercise would wear his mind out.
It was an effort to keep himself away from the forest to see if she was out there, singing to his beasts, but he had promised himself not to be selfish with Greta.
No matter how badly he wanted to be.
He went instead to the library, where he lit a fire and made a stack of his most treasured books from childhood – the ones his father had read to him, Anika and Ansel, during winter solstices when even the king of Gevra found himself with the day off.
Alarik sat in Ansel’s favourite chair and lost himself in ancient tales of brave pirates and buried treasure, and mermaids that swam far beyond the edges of the map.
It was here that his mother found him in the middle of the night. Queen Valeska was wearing her velvet dressing gown and fur slippers, her long hair wound into tight curlers ahead of tomorrow’s festivities. She lowered herself into the chair opposite him.
‘Can’t sleep?’ he said, setting his novel aside.
‘Nanna saw you walking the halls. She was worried about you.’
Nanna should learn to mind her own business.
He swallowed his cruelty. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you nervous about tomorrow?’
He shook his head. Tomorrow wasn’t the problem. It was the rest of his life. ‘I’m sure Lief has it all in hand.’
‘Well, it is his greatest life’s work.’
‘How sad for him.’
His mother surprised him with a trill of laughter. ‘Even despite Lief’s most admirable efforts, there is a lingering issue we must address.’
‘Oh?’ he said, his brows lifting.
‘You’ll recall the unfortunate issue with Herbert’s cello.’
‘Vividly.’
‘Well, we have lost our string quartet over it. And Princess Elva cannot walk down the aisle in silence.’
Alarik hummed. ‘I could have Borvil roar for her?’
Her lips twisted. ‘I’m not sure King Nilas would approve.’
‘Then have a servant do it,’ said Alarik, with a shrug. ‘There must be someone around here who can sing.’
She smiled. ‘I was thinking we could ask your wrangler?’
Alarik went still.
‘I hear she sings to the beasts all the time. Nanna tells me sometimes the soldiers even sneak into the forest to listen to her. Apparently, she’s magnificent.’
He drew a slow, steadying breath, trying to quell the sudden fire raging in his chest. It was the worst suggestion he’d ever heard, asking the woman he loved to sing his bride down the aisle.
Asking Greta Iversen to bless his union with the perfect spell of her voice.
Asking him to listen to her sing without running to her.
‘Alarik?’ His mother pitched forward in her chair, waving her hand in front of his face. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘I heard you,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘My answer is no.’
‘But you haven’t even heard her sing,’ she protested. ‘We could wake her right now and ask her to—’
‘I have heard her sing,’ he said, curtly. ‘Nanna is right. She is magnificent.’
‘Oh.’ She beamed. ‘Then you can—’
‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘I will not ask her to sing for us.’
Her smile faltered. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want to,’ he snapped.
‘Then I’ll do it.’
‘No,’ he said, in a half growl. ‘I don’t want her to sing for me.’
‘Don’t be so unreasonable, Alarik.’
He stood up. ‘Just forget it. All right?’
She stood, too. ‘Not until you explain yourself.’
He brushed past her and went to the windows, where the night wind spun silvered snow in great, glittering whorls. He wished he could hurl himself into one.
His mother stalked after him. ‘Why are you so angry all of a sudden?’
‘Just leave it,’ he said, with a huff.
He glimpsed her reflection in the window, her scowling face appearing ghoulish through the glass. ‘I’m sure the wrangler would be happy to oblige. We can certainly pay her handsomely for the trouble.’
Alarik’s jaw twitched. What part of no did his mother not understand? And why was she insisting on prodding him about it? ‘She’s not doing it.’
She threw her hands up. ‘For goodness’ sake, why not?’
He spun around, all that fire bursting from him before he could help it. ‘Because I’m in love with her!’
Silence came swiftly, those six words commanding all the space in the room.
His mother stilled, her mouth agape.
‘Because I love her too much to humiliate her like that! Because if I ask Greta to stand there and sing for me, I’ll never be able to go through with marrying Elva!’ He scraped his hands through his hair. ‘And that’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what everyone wants.’
His mother barely blinked as she absorbed his words. He slumped on to the windowsill, suddenly feeling the bone-deep exhaustion he had been craving. He wished now he had never bothered to come to the library.
‘You’re in love with your wrangler?’ Her voice was soft as a whisper.
He nodded glumly.
‘Since when?’
Since she scolded me over a damned lemon.
He dropped his head, looking at his boots. ‘Since she looked past my crown and my reputation and saw someone worth knowing.’
‘Is that why you love her?’ she said, gently.
‘I love her because she’s perfect.’ Wasn’t that obvious to everyone else?
It was irritating that he even had to explain it.
It was like asking why snow was cold or rain was wet.
‘She’s fearless and wild and kind and smart and honest.’ He grimaced, wishing he could say it better, so his mother would understand.
His words sounded paltry and pathetic, a poor tribute to the wonder of Greta Iversen.
There was only this – simple and succinct as it was: ‘She’s everything that’s beautiful about Gevra. ’
Silence came again, the only sound now the slow shuffle of his mother’s footsteps. She took his hands in hers, squeezing tightly until he looked up at her. There were tears in her eyes. ‘Then why on earth are you marrying Princess Elva?’
Alarik stared at his mother, sure he had misheard her. But her expression was earnest, flickering between sadness and confusion.
‘Because that’s what my kingdom needs. That’s the only way we can survive Regna’s war,’ he said, the bite returning to his voice. ‘This entire wedding was your idea.’
She stepped backwards, her hands coming to her face. ‘Oh, Alarik,’ she said, with such devastation he could barely bring himself to look at her. ‘That was before.’
‘Before what?’
‘Before Greta. Before love. I didn’t think … I didn’t know …’
‘That I had it in me?’ he said, bitterly.
‘That you were open to it.’ She swiped a tear from her cheek. ‘I had no idea.’
He gave a rueful laugh. ‘Well, now you know. And so do I.’
‘Oh, goodness.’
‘And what does it matter anyway?’ he muttered, convincing himself as much as her. ‘Kingdom before heart.’ Isn’t that what he had always been taught? ‘That’s what Father would say.’
Her frown deepened. ‘I don’t know what Soren would say but I do know something about the great kings and queens of this wild, windswept land.’ Her voice grew stronger, surer. ‘They weren’t perfect, Alarik. But they were always honest. True to themselves, and true to their hearts.’
Alarik thought of Greta, and the unbridled honesty that so often got her in trouble, and smiled, despite his sorrow.
‘That’s what makes our rulers so brutal,’ she went on.
‘Not hate for other kingdoms but love for this one. Devotion to the beating heart of this land, and all its living creatures. A love so fierce, it has claws.’ She laid her hand on her heart.
‘Love is the strongest weapon in this kingdom. Love is your greatest ally, Alarik. And if you feel its great, unyielding force pounding in your heart, then you must do what all true Gevran leaders do and follow it.’
Her words gave him pause. ‘Even to ruin?’
‘Who’s to say it will be ruin?’
‘If I don’t marry Elva, the kingdom will fall.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said, quietly. ‘Or perhaps not.’
Alarik’s heart hitched, a part of him grasping at the tiny shred of hope in her words. His head spun, his mind alight with other pathways, other possibilities. ‘Are you telling me to cancel the wedding?’
She gave a sad smile. ‘I’m not telling you to do anything, son.
I’m only saying that no matter what you decide about tomorrow, about the rest of your life, I will support you.
’ She looked past him then, to the snow-swept sky, her eyes glittering with conviction.
‘And wherever your father is, I know in my heart he will support you, too.’
Alarik sat on the windowsill for a long time after his mother left, replaying her words in his head.
Love is your greatest ally, Alarik. And if you feel its great, unyielding force pounding in your heart, then you must do what all true Gevran leaders do and follow it.
As dawn broke across the Fovarr Mountains, and the beasts of Grinstad began to stir, Alarik came to a decision that would change the course of his life – and his kingdom – forever.
He steeled himself as he left the library, thinking not of wars and weddings, but of love. Pure and true and powerful. He was so lost in thought he didn’t hear the ferocious roaring on the wind or feel the rattle of the ground beneath his feet.