Chapter 21
Aeryn stood in the sitting room with a piece of parchment in her hand. “Again.”
Khaeric exhaled through his nose but inclined his head. “Princess Aeryn of the Silver Bough and the Unified Crown,” he began, voice steady, “and I thank the Council for grantin’ us audience.”
“Granting,” she corrected automatically. “Softening the ‘g.’”
His brow lifted. “Softening it.”
“Yes. And perhaps lower your voice slightly. The chamber carries sound.”
Khaeric repeated the phrase, his voice lower this time, and the ‘g’ in granting came out softer, though still not quite right. Close enough, perhaps, for elven ears that had never heard orcish accents before.
“Better.” Aeryn set the parchment on the side table, smoothing out a crease that had formed at the corner. “When you bow, make sure it’s not too deep.”
He demonstrated the movement, stiff and formal. Nothing like the easy nods he’d exchange with other orcs, or the way he’d clasp forearms with warriors of Clan Druin.
“Good.” The word came out tired. She’d been at this for the better part of an hour, and somewhere during the third repetition of the formal greeting, a headache had crept in—a dull throb behind her temples that the mint tea hadn’t touched.
She pressed two fingers to her right temple, willing the pain to subside. The pregnancy seemed determined to announce itself through every available avenue—nausea in the mornings, exhaustion by midday, and now these headaches that crept in without warning.
A knock sounded at the door—sharp, perfunctory. Aeryn pressed harder against her temple, the brief respite from the headache already fading. “Enter,” she called.
A young woman with auburn hair pinned back walked in, carrying a silver tray laden with a teapot, cups, and what looked like small pastries arranged on delicate porcelain.
“Lady Eliara sent refreshments, Princess.” The servant’s voice remained carefully neutral as she crossed the room, but her gaze flickered to Khaeric and away, quick as a bird startled from a branch. “She thought you might need sustenance before the evening meal.”
“Thank you.” Aeryn walked toward the low table near the window. “You may set it here.”
The servant approached the table. The teapot rattled against the tray—just once, barely audible—as she set it down. Her hands moved quickly to arrange the cups, fingers trembling slightly as they touched the delicate porcelain.
The pastries came next. “Will there be anything else, Princess?” The servant straightened, her hands folding primly at her waist. Her eyes remained fixed on Aeryn, carefully avoiding the space where Khaeric stood.
“No, thank you.” Aeryn moved closer to examine the offerings.
The servant bobbed a curtsy and turned to leave, but her path brought her within three feet of Khaeric. Her trajectory shifted immediately, arcing wider around him. The door closed with a soft click.
The woman had moved around Khaeric the way you move around a hazard—a fallen beam, a patch of ice. Something that might hurt you without meaning to.
The teapot steamed on the table, fragrant and inviting, but Aeryn’s stomach turned at the thought of eating. She sank into the chair nearest the window instead, the cushion soft beneath her.
“That one was worse than the seamstress,” Khaeric said. He hadn’t moved from his position in the center of the room.
“She was young.” The excuse sounded hollow even to her own ears. “Perhaps she’s new to the household.”
“Or perhaps she’s heard the same stories every other elf in this city has heard about orcs.” He moved to the window, standing beside her chair but not sitting.
Aeryn’s fingers found the armrest of the chair, tracing the carved wood grain.
Outside, the afternoon light slanted through the gardens, casting long shadows across manicured lawns.
How many times had she walked those paths as a child, secure in the knowledge that she belonged here?
That this was her home, her birthright, her place in the world?
Now it felt like foreign territory.
“You’re doing well with the protocols,” she offered, though the praise felt inadequate. What good were proper bows and softened consonants when every servant in the household looked at him like he might devour them whole?
“Aye,” he said, voice flat. “I can bow and speak like a trained hound. That’ll solve everything.”
Aeryn pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. The darkness behind her eyelids offered no relief—just red-tinged blackness and the lingering impression of afternoon light burned into her vision.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Isnae it?” His shadow fell across her, blocking the window’s light even through her closed lids. “Ye’re teachin’ me tricks to make me more palatable to yer people. Sit. Stay. Speak properly.”
Her fingers pressed harder against the bridge of her nose, as if she could physically hold back the frustration building in her skull. “I’m trying to prepare you for the Council. They will judge every word, every gesture. If you can’t see that—”
“I see it fine.” He moved away from the window, his footsteps heavy on the floorboards. “What I cannae see is how any of this matters when they’ve already decided what I am.”
She dropped her hand from her face and opened her eyes, though the afternoon light sent a fresh spike of pain through her head.
“Khaeric.” She could feel the headache spreading, tendrils of pain wrapping around her skull like vines—sounds too loud, lights too bright, emotions too raw and close to the surface. “I need you to work with me,” she said, forcing her voice level. “Not against me.”
“I am workin’ wi’ ye.” He stopped pacing, turning to face her. “I’m standin’ here lettin’ ye teach me how to bow and scrape like I’m apologizin’ for existin’. What more d’ye want?”
Aeryn stood abruptly, the movement sending her chair scraping backward against the floorboards. The sudden shift made her head swim, the headache blooming into something sharper, more vicious.
“What I want,” she said, “is for you to understand that I’m not doing this to humiliate you. I’m doing this because if you walk into that Council chamber speaking and moving like—like you do in Beinn Ork, they will dismiss everything you say before you finish your first sentence.”
“And if I walk in there speakin’ like an elf? They’ll what? Forget what I am? Hard to look past the gray skin and tusks, lass.”
“That’s not—” She stopped. “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”
“Am I?” He took a step closer, and she could feel the heat radiating from him even through the layers of fabric between them. “Or are ye just realizin’ that no amount of proper bows will make me fit into yer world?”
The pain in her skull pulsed in time with her heartbeat, each throb sending fresh nausea rolling through her stomach. She needed to sit down. Needed to lie down. Needed him to stop pushing, stop questioning, stop making everything harder than it already was.
“Well,” she snapped, “you married a princess.”
She watched his expression shift—surprise, then something harder to read.
“So I did.”
“Yes.” Aeryn straightened despite the nausea churning in her stomach.
“You married a princess of the Silver Bough. Which means you married into protocols and expectations and centuries of tradition don’t care whether or not you like them.
” Her hands dropped from her temples, though the pain screamed in protest. “And I married a chieftain’s son who can’t seem to understand that survival here requires compromise. ”
“Survival,” he repeated.
The headache pounded against the inside of her skull, each pulse accompanied by a wave of nausea that made her throat tight.
She should apologize. Should take back the words that had come from that cold, sharp place inside her.
But exhaustion weighed on her bones, and the pain made thinking difficult, made everything feel raw and exposed.
A sharp knock struck the door—harder than the servant’s measured tap, urgent enough to cut through the tension crackling between them.
“Princess?” Eliara’s voice carried through the heavy wood, pitched higher than usual, strained. “Forgive the intrusion, but a courier has arrived from the Hall of Memories. He insists the message cannot wait.”
Her stomach twisted, though whether from nausea or dread, she couldn’t say. “Enter,” she called.
When they opened the door, Eliara stood beside a young elf in the silver and white livery of the Council. His face was neutral, but Aeryn caught the way his eyes widened when he registered Khaeric’s towering presence behind her.
“Princess Aeryn of the Silver Bough,” the courier began, producing a sealed parchment from his satchel.
“By order of Her Majesty High Queen Elindra, you are commanded to appear before the full Council of Memories the day after tomorrow at the ninth hour to answer questions regarding your petition to alter the sacred lineage records.”
“I was told we had three days to prepare,” Aeryn said.
The courier’s expression didn’t change. “Her Majesty has deemed the matter requires immediate attention. You are advised to bring all documentation supporting your claim.” He extended the parchment, which Aeryn accepted.
“I understand,” she said, refolding the parchment. Paper crinkled between her fingers. “We will appear as commanded.”
The courier bowed and departed without another word, footsteps echoing down the corridor. When Aeryn turned back to face Eliara, the older elf’s expression had shifted from composed neutrality to open concern.
“Princess?” Eliara’s voice cut through the rushing in her ears. “You’ve gone pale.”
Khaeric’s hand found her elbow. “Aeryn?”
The walls seemed to shift around Aeryn, light from crystal sconces blurring at the edge of her vision. Her stomach lurched, a familiar queasiness surging upward with renewed force. “I’m fine,” she managed, though her voice sounded distant. “Just—the message was unexpected.”
“You’re not fine.” Eliara stepped closer, her keen gaze sweeping over Aeryn’s face. “You need to sit down before you collapse.”
Aeryn allowed Khaeric to guide her toward the cushioned chair near the window. Queasiness churned in her stomach. She pressed one hand to her abdomen, the other gripping the chair’s arm as she lowered herself into it.
“I’ll send for the midwife,” Eliara said as she left the room.
“That’s not necessary—” Aeryn began, but Eliara was already gone, the door clicking shut with decisive finality.
Khaeric crouched beside her chair, his hand covering hers where it rested on her stomach. “Breathe,” he said, voice low and steady. “Slow and deep.”
She tried—drew in a breath that felt too shallow, too thin. The air caught in her throat, and she exhaled in a shaky rush. Another breath. The nausea swirled but didn’t crest.
“That’s it,” Khaeric murmured. His thumb traced slow circles over her knuckles. “Keep goin’.”
The warmth of his hand anchored her, giving her something to focus on besides the roiling in her stomach and the pounding in her skull. She counted the circles—one, two, three—matched her breathing to the rhythm. In. Out. The queasiness ebbed, pulling back like a reluctant tide.
When she finally trusted herself to speak, her voice came out hoarse. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. About you being obtuse.”
“We’re both tired.” His hand didn’t stop its slow circles. “Words come out sharper when ye’re worn thin.”
The generosity of his response only made the guilt settle heavier in her chest. She’d lashed out at him—deliberately chosen words meant to wound—and he was offering her absolution she didn’t deserve.
“Still.” She turned her hand over beneath his, lacing their fingers together. “I meant what I said about the Council, but not—not the way I said it.”
His amber eyes studied her face, and she wondered what he saw there.
Exhaustion, certainly. The pallor that Eliara had noticed.
But could he see the fear underneath? The growing certainty that no amount of preparation would be enough, that they were walking into a chamber where judgment had already been rendered?
“The Council willnae be kind,” he said. “Whether I bow properly or no’.”
She knew that. The Council would look at him and see only what they expected to see: a savage dressed in borrowed civility, an interloper in their sacred halls.
But, it was something she could control. Because drilling him on protocols kept her mind occupied, kept the fear from swallowing her whole. Because if she stopped moving, stopped planning, stopped preparing, she might have to face the truth that they were already defeated.
“They’ll be kinder if we give them no excuse to dismiss us outright.” Her fingers tightened around his. “That’s all I’m trying to do. Buy us enough time to make our case.”
He studied her face for a long moment, and she forced herself to hold his gaze despite the exhaustion pulling at her eyelids. The headache had dulled to a persistent throb, manageable now that the nausea had receded.
“Aye,” he said finally. “I ken that, lass. I do.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, because the words felt necessary even if they couldn’t undo the damage. “For all of this.”
His brow furrowed. “For what?”
“For—” She gestured vaguely at the room, at the estate beyond, at the entire impossible situation they’d been thrust into.
“For bringing you here. For the way the servants look at you. For having to teach you courtly protocols like you’re a child learning his letters.
” The admission tasted bitter on her tongue.
“You shouldn’t have to prove yourself worthy of basic respect. ”
“Aye, well.” He shifted his weight, still crouched beside her chair, one knee pressed against the floorboards. “Disnae change what it is. Ye didnae make yer people fear orcs. That’s older than both of us.”
Centuries of mistrust, generations raised on stories of the War of Division…
she couldn’t undo any of it with pretty words or careful planning.
Yet here she was, trying to reshape history through sheer force of will, as if teaching him to soften his consonants might somehow bridge the chasm between their peoples.