Chapter Eight
The next morning, after breakfast, I went to the king and told him it was time for him to take the love potion.
He shrugged.
“I don’t have it.”
“What do you mean?”
I cried and he had the grace to look sheepish.
“Now Pavel, don’t get excited.”
“What do you mean, don’t get excited? What happened to it?”
He sighed.
“I gave it to Lord Juul on our wedding night.”
I think I gasped—I may have even blacked out a little, because when I came back to myself, Juul was beside me, holding onto my arm.
“Sit down, Pavel.
Let us explain.”
I wrenched my arm away and turned on him.
“How could you? You took my potion!”
“Yes, but…”
“So everything you said to me has been a lie! Everything I thought we were to each other!”
“Pavel, be quiet.
You’ll attract attention,”
Tarrak whispered harshly, coming up beside me.
“Calm down.
I simply wanted to test your potion before I took it.
I knew you and Juul hated each other, so I thought that would be a perfect test. And Juul wanted to do it for me, so it worked out perfectly. And now I know for sure that your magic works. That’s valuable to me, Pavel.”
He tried to put an arm around me, but I flinched violently away.
“Why are you acting this way? I just didn’t see the need for any potions to prove some kind of devotion to my consort to the Dark Elf king.
I really don’t care what he thinks or if he wants to see me suffer.
Why should I? I’m following the letter of this thing with both you and him.
And I feel sure I can talk him out of his petty revenge. I’ll offer him gold, Pavel. It will work, you’ll see. And when we get back, I can give Lord Juul your antidote.”
I turned away from him, not trusting myself to speak, and walked toward my mount, my eyes blinded by tears.
Juul grabbed my arm and turned me back toward him, but I shook my head.
“Please, if you ever cared for me at all…even a little…don’t say anything else.”
“Pavel, please…let me explain.”
“Take the other potion.
It will turn the love you felt for me to the most bitter hatred and thus restore your old feelings.
You’ll be as good as new.”
I called back to the king.
“Your Majesty, can we please be on our way? I believe I’d like to just get this over with.”
I turned my back on them then and stalked over to my mount.
I was aware of the king and his two Lords talking urgently together, but I didn’t have the heart left to even try to eavesdrop.
There was no chance now to talk the king out of going to the Dokkalfar land.
I felt as if I were probably as good as dead.
We made a late start, because I liked to think the king was in no hurry to get there to the meeting place, but in the state of mind I was in, nothing really seemed to matter to me anymore and that was dangerous.
I had to think of something—some way to save myself, but my mind was blank. All that kept repeating in my mind was that Juul didn’t love me after all. It had all been nothing but lies and a trick I had fallen for.
Yes, I was planning to play the same trick on the king, but at least mine wasn’t cruel.
I had only been trying to save my life, while he was going to destroy me twice over.
At around midday the road began to ascend into the shadows of a great mountain.
I could see it far ahead, a huge ridge with dark mouths of tunnels leading inside it.
Even the sky here had taken on a different tone, a pale endless gray, unbroken by clouds.
We followed the well-worn, winding trail all the way to the top. There on a wide, clear plain, our backs to a cliff, the king pulled on his reins and we stopped. Ahead of us was a large thicket of white-coated trees.
The king sat rigid and unmoving, looking into the trees ahead of us.
I knew he was waiting, and we didn’t have long to wait.
Within only a few minutes, there was a stirring in the air and the Dark Elves suddenly appeared, riding through the trees single file, a tall, dark-clothed figure at their head.
He, like Tarrak, had a simple banded crown on his head. Like all the Elves, they were handsome people, though not nearly as beautiful as the Quendis. The king rode boldly up to Tarrak, stopping maybe six meters or so away, and they stared across the clearing at each other, so still they might have been carved from ice. Lord Juul sat on his stag behind the king, but now urged his mount forward, as did Lord Talbert.
The white trees around the clearing grew in a semi-circle and slowly, the Dark king’s men arranged themselves around it.
I was aware of the rest of King Tarrak’s men spreading themselves out behind us, turning their stags to face the other soldiers and looking uneasy.
Danger was flying in the air around us like sparks from a fire.
“King Orrin,”
Tarrak said softly.
“I have come to repay a debt of honor.”
“Bring forth your consort,”
the Dokkalfar king called out.
He turned in his saddle and beckoned for me to come forward.
I clicked my tongue to Violet to get him to draw alongside the king.
Juul moved over slightly to give us room so that I was between him and the king.
“This is my consort, Pavel,”
Tarrak said.
Orrin’s cold eyes swept over me and finally he spoke, in a voice that was unexpectedly high and thin.
“I accept your payment in satisfaction of our debt,”
he said, inclining his head.
“Give him to me.”
Tarrak’s stag shifted his feet uneasily.
“Wait a moment.
First, I’d like to strike a bargain with you.”
“Bargain?”
the Dokkalfar king asked suspiciously.
“What kind of bargain?”
“I acknowledge the debt I owe you, but I offer you compensation in gold and jewels instead of the ancient edict that calls for an eye for an eye.
If you agree, you can name your price in gold.”
I heard the Dark king’s men gasp at that last remark, but I was too intent on what was happening to pay them much mind.
The stag under Orrin shifted its feet restlessly, the little silver bells and jewels attached to its antlers tinkling in the wind.
Finally, Orrin spoke, his voice firm and implacable.
“You think that any amount of gold or jewels can replace my husband? You killed him and have incurred a great and terrible debt.
To prevent a war between our people, you already made your bargain, and it was freely given and freely accepted. You think to go back on it now?”
“You’re being unreasonable!”
Tarrak shouted, and the Dark Elf king lowered his brow.
Anger was rising in me, too, as I watched the argument between these powerful kings and their soldiers, including Lord Juul, sitting astride their stags with their pointy icicle beards and their cold, glaring eyes.
All of them wore daggers and swords at their sides and carried white bows slung over their shoulders—bows they used to hunt mortals for pleasure and to kill the white animals that lived in this forest for game.
This Dark King Orrin had once had a husband who hunted here too, ranging far and wide through the trees and even venturing over into Quendi land, even though he knew he was trespassing.
And when he did, he had to have sneaked in, ignoring all the warnings and the Ice Poles themselves, as he shape-shifted into a deer and wore the white fur on his body.
It seemed to me he had been recklessly tempting fate and had been caught out. And for that I had to lose my life?
A hot rage arose in me at the unfairness of it, and I slid down from Violet’s back to the ground beside him.
I heard Juul calling my name and felt the king reaching for me, but I ignored them both.
Leading my stag, I strode quickly out to the center of the space between the two kings.
The frozen snow crunched under our feet and the wind blew out of the north, sweeping all the way through me despite my furs and chilling me to my bones.
King Orrin and his soldiers brandished their weapons, but the anger that filled me made me righteous and strong, and I didn’t back down, ignoring Juul’s and Tarrak’s shouts as they called to me.
I stepped boldly closer to the Dokkalfar king.
“Since I am the mate in question,”
I said, raising my voice to be heard above the shouting.
“I should have a say in this bargaining.
Your husband took his chances, it seems to me, when he went onto Quendi lands in his shifted form despite the warnings on the Ice Poles.
He trespassed where he shouldn’t have been, and he paid a terrible price. That’s tragic, although had he shifted back to his Elven form as soon as he saw the king and his hunting party, they would not have killed him. He apparently chose flight, thinking he would be clever enough and fast enough to get away.”
The Dokkalfar king looked down at me, his voice savage and his face stiff with anger.
“Who are you to say these things about him to me?”
he thundered.
“You have no right to even address me, lowly mortal scum!”
“I have every right,”
I said, my voice loud with a boldness I didn’t really feel.
“Because I’m the Consort of the High King of the Quendi, and you have come here to take my life.
Should I not have the same choice as your husband did to choose my own path? I think I should be able to speak in my own defense.
That should be my right.”
“And what of my rights?”
Orrin shouted, but I stood my ground.
He was already going to kill me.
What more could he do to me than that?
“I’m here to address them.
I want to ask you some questions as if we were in a tribunal.
I think you owe me that at least.”
He gave a savage laugh.
“What could I possibly owe you? You must be insane.”
“Maybe I am,”
I said.
“Or maybe I’m smarter than you.”
He snarled loudly at me, and both sides bristled as their mounts shifted their feet and drew a little closer.
“Let him ask his questions, Orrin,”
King Tarrak said from behind me.
“Unless you fear for us to hear the answers.”
He scoffed down at me, his dark eyes full of derision.
“I fear nothing! This is a waste of my time, and I have nothing to prove.
Besides, this is a stupid mortal, and I am an Elven king.
There are no questions he could possibly pose that I couldn’t answer.”
“Then what do you have to lose? Try me,”
I said softly.
“Or are you afraid? Are you afraid of the truth coming out?”
His face flushed darkly, and he scowled at me.
“Think carefully before you dare too much, mortal.
Ask me your questions then!”
I stepped forward and held out my hand to him, but he sneered coldly down at it.
“Won’t you shake my hand to seal the deal?”
“No,”
he snapped at me.
“There.
That’s one question I’ve answered. Next?”
Around him, his men snickered with laughter, and they looked at me jeeringly.
I glanced back at Tarrak and Juul to see them both sitting with faces like stone.
Juul looked like he wanted to throttle me.
I guess he’d taken the antidote already. He looked like he had, as his eyes were darker than they had been since I’d known him. He looked furious and ill at ease.
“Very clever, Your Majesty.
But remember if your answers are useless and without honor, it doesn’t strengthen your case.”
He growled at me then as his soldiers gasped.
The sound was truly chilling.
I knew that if I’d harbored any ideas about this Dark Elf giving me an easy death, they were all over now.
If he were to win this challenge, I’d pray for death long before it came.
“What case? I’m not on trial here!”
he spat out.
“Ah, but perhaps your dead husband is.”
I thought I may have gone too far then.
He roared something at me that thankfully I didn’t understand and drew his sword.
I fell back and both Tarrak and Juul spurred their stags to come up on either side of me.
Juul jumped down in front of me, baring his teeth and drawing his own weapon.
“Stop!”
Tarrak shouted, his voice ringing out across the clearing.
A hush fell over the company and all eyes turned toward the Quendi king.
“Orrin, what my consort says is true.
I thought your husband must have strayed onto our land by accident, but perhaps he was deliberately trespassing on Quendi lands on the day of his death. He did refuse to shift back into his Elven form even though I and my hunters were after him.”
“Yes,”
I called out, peering around Juul’s shoulder.
“What were his reasons for being there?”
The king made a rude sound and glared down at me.
“That’s a stupid question.
How should I know his reasons?”
“So, is that your answer? You don’t know? Interesting.
You play a silly trick with my first question, and you claim not to know the answer to my second question.
Why are you being so evasive? I wonder what you’re trying to hide.
And you don’t have to answer that, by the way, because it wasn’t technically a question directed at you.”
“I never said it was! And I never said I didn’t know.
Not exactly.
Don’t put words in my mouth,”
Orrin snapped.
“All right then.
Give us an answer, since you want to exact such a terrible price.
What were your husband’s reasons for being on Quendi land?”
“He was hunting, damn you, and he made a mistake.
He thought he was still on Dokkalfar land.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.
I didn’t realize he was blind.”
“What are you babbling about, mortal? He wasn’t blind!”
“Quendi land is well-marked by the Ice Poles along every border.
Huge poles that tower up into the sky and spaced close together.
It would be impossible for him to miss them if his vision weren’t impaired.
Which means he knew exactly where he was.”
“It seems odd to me too,”
Tarrak said, jumping down to come and stand beside me.
He put his arm around me for support, and I felt like sagging into him with relief, but I didn’t want to appear weak in front of the Dark king.
I stiffened my knees and my resolve and faced King Orrin as he spluttered in rage.
“I felt terrible about killing the man before, because I didn’t know he was in a shifted form,”
Tarrak said.
“That’s a rare quality for an elf, in fact.
Was he a fairy? Or perhaps a wizard?”
“What if he was? Perhaps he had some other reason to be in Quendi land—he could have been chased there by an animal or got confused as to where he was.
What does it matter? The edict doesn’t require me to answer these ridiculous questions.
Your consort is stalling.”
I leaned out again and asked as loudly as I could, “Could it be that your husband was a spy?”
A silence fell in the little clearing and all the men turned to stare at me.
Finally, the Dokkalfar king exploded.
His face thunderous, he threw his sword at me end over end.
Juul knocked me to the ground and fell on top of me as the sword landed on the ground a few feet behind us. I could hear the angry shouts of Tarrak’s men, and the slithering sounds of their swords being drawn. The grunts of the stags as they were pulled sharply out of the way filled the air as well, and the other soldiers bristled with their own drawn weapons. We were seconds away from a murderous attack and the air hung thick and heavy with savage intent.
“My husband wasn’t spying for me!”
Orrin shouted.
I pushed Juul off me, first making sure he wasn’t injured.
He seemed fine, though spitting mad.
I scrambled back to my feet and yelled back at the Dokkalfar king.
“No one mentioned your name, Your Majesty.
My father has a saying though—he always said a dog who’s been struck always bays the loudest.”
Orrin threw himself off his stag and charged forward.
Two or three of his lieutenants came with him, and suddenly I was picked up and thrown to the rear.
Orrin was trying to get past Juul and Tarrak to get to me and not having much luck.
Some of the Quendi ice soldiers rushed past me with their weapons and there was a standoff a few meters in front of me.
“Answer the question!”
I could hear Tarrak yelling.
“Was your husband a spy? Did you send him?”
“No!”
Orrin shouted, practically foaming at the mouth.
“He was hunting, that’s all, and he must have become confused.
And you have no right to malign the name of a man who is no longer here to defend himself!”
“Not good enough,”
Tarrak said, his voice clear in the cold morning air.
“I’m thinking now it’s why he failed to identify himself.
You lied because you couldn’t admit he was on a spying mission, and then you had the gall to demand retribution.
That’s a crime punishable by death.”
“You have no proof of any such thing and without proof, I will have satisfaction!”
I turned to look around the clearing at the Quendi and at the Dokkalfar soldiers.
This exchange had put Orrin’s husband’s death in a new light and for the first time, some of the Dark Elves themselves looked unsure, their faces wary.
It was one thing to risk their lives in a bloody and costly war to defend their territory or their honor, but to risk them over a failed spy mission was quite another.
“No, I don’t believe you will.
We’ve wasted too much time on this matter already,”
Tarrak said.
“I’ve brought along a small cask of gold, richer than half your kingdom.
I’ll leave it as a gesture, and that’s a fair bargain.
More than fair. I would take your husband’s death back if it was within my power. But my consort is right. I didn’t realize it before, but I believe now his death was brought about by his own actions. And by yours. I should never have agreed to this bargain, because from the first it was dishonorable. I’ll leave now and take my consort back home.”
Orrin’s face was purple with rage.
“If you dare to throw this back in my face, it will mean war between us!”
“What do we care about your threats of war?”
Lord Juul called out to him.
“We’ll gladly fight you here and now!”
Orrin gave Juul a dark, murderous glare and then fixed his eyes on the king and me.
“You’ll regret this, Tarrak,”
he cried, jumping back onto his stag and wheeling it around to gallop out of the clearing, with his men following close behind him.
Tarrak turned toward his Lords Juul and Talbert.
“This isn’t the end of it.
They’re regrouping and calling up their reinforcements just beyond those trees.
He’ll attack us when he has them all together and try to push us backward off the cliffs. It’s why he chose this place.”
“We could retreat,”
Lord Talbert offered and Tarrak shook his head.
“They’ve no doubt blocked the trails with the king’s men.
There is no retreat.
The only way is through them.”
“We’ll be ready for them then,”
Juul replied, his face grim and set.
The Dokkalfar would attack and the Quendi would fight them, and many of them would die on both sides.
Then after a while, the Dark Elves would gain the upper hand because of their superior numbers and force us all backward to plunge off the cliffs to our deaths.
The king was right.
That was why King Orrin had chosen this meeting place, of course. In case anything went wrong, and King Tarrak didn’t meekly hand over his consort.
I couldn’t bear the idea, and I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
It wasn’t my fault that they had these mad ideas in the first place, but if I had simply accepted my fate and gone with the Dokkalfar king, I could have saved lives.
My own would have been forfeit, but at least I wouldn’t have to watch Juul die.
I didn’t think I could do that.
I pulled out my pipes, put them to my lips, and began playing a tune of war.
It was loud and fierce and the strident, clashing notes carried well on the cold, clear mountain air.
I closed my eyes and imagined the carnage of the coming battle—the men fighting and dying in front of me, arrows flying through the air like savage birds of prey, and swords clashing, the sound ringing out across the clifftop to the chasm below.
Life’s blood would stain the snow as men died all around me and for what? For a Dark king’s vanity?
And if Juul should fall to some Dark Elf’s sword, or if he were to be pushed off the cliffs, what then? The glory of battle would no doubt still be blazing in his beautiful eyes as he was pushed backward over the cliff, and would that help the unimaginable grief I’d feel? Potential carnage and bloodshed lay just beyond the trees King Tarrak had mentioned, and it was there I directed all the feelings I had about this Dokkalfar king.
He was plotting over there and waiting for his reinforcements, his wrongdoing hushed-up and ignored as he prepared to squander the lives of his soldiers for nothing more than his damnable pride and ambition.
It was insupportable.
I imagined him paying for his crimes instead.
Dancing to my tune, as I once told the king.
And as the sound of my pipes filled the air, we suddenly could hear the shouts of his soldiers.
They weren’t shouts of war, but of dismay. Juul jumped back on his stag, and he and Lord Talbert joined the king as they spurred their stags through the trees to see what was happening. I could hear the shouts and cries, but I ignored them. I plopped down on the cold ground and continued to play and play, the notes dancing on the wind as I knew the king was dancing, unable to stop on the other side of those trees.
I became aware, after a time, that Juul was beside me.
He gently pulled the pipes from my hands and away from my mouth.
“Enough, Pavel.
The king is dead.”
I already knew what had happened as I had played my pipes.
I didn’t have to see it for myself, and I didn’t want to.
Later, when we arrived back at the palace, Tarrak told me about the madness of the king and the way his men said he suddenly threw himself to the ground when the music started and then leaped to his feet and began writhing and twirling as his legs danced a wild jig, his arms outflung beside him.
He began to twirl, and it made the men dizzy to watch. A few of them tried to catch hold of him and force him to stop, but he broke away, his maniacal strength far beyond theirs as he twisted and contorted his body and whirled in the snow like a mad dervish, dancing and spinning and howling as he danced to his doom off the nearby cliffs. No one could stop him, and as he got closer and closer to the edge, no one even tried, for fear of being caught up in his madness and falling off the cliffs to their own deaths as well.
There was no battle that day after all.
His soldiers rode away and didn’t try to stop King Tarrak’s men from leaving the clifftop.
They all spurred their stags to get away as quickly as they could and leave that cold plateau of death.
All the worry and the fear and the adrenaline finally caught up to me, and I slipped unconscious from my saddle as we reached lower ground.
They told me later that I was insensible for a full day.
We headed back to Quendi land, not stopping until we passed the Ice Poles.
Juul held me in his arms all the way, leading Violet behind him, until they felt it was safe to stop and make camp.
I trembled to think how close we had come to not making the journey back at all, and I was more than a little shocked that we actually did.
I don’t remember much about the way back to the Ice Palace.
I remember being held in warm arms and being lulled to sleep by the stag’s hooves pounding on the snow, but not much else.
In fact, it was two days later that I awoke in my own bed, feeling more like myself.
The servants were there, watching over me, and they ran to bring food and wine to restore me.
It was as I was sitting by the fire later that day that the king rapped once on my door and came in.
He stood looking down at me for a while before he sat down across from me and smiled.
“Lord Juul chose well for me when he went to find my consort.
I wonder if…if you might choose someday to come back to visit us? Or will you be too busy with your gold and your brother and your new apprenticeship? I do have need for a wizard of your skill.
What you did on that clifftop was…incredible.”
“I don’t remember much about that, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to.”
I drank a little wine and sighed.
“I promised you my skills and like you, I will not be foresworn.
Yes, I’ll come back…if you can give me a little time.
I’ll come back for a visit anyway, when you need me. I could bring the gold and my brother along.”
“You will always be welcome in my kingdom,”
Tarrak said softly.
“Someone who is both beautiful and intelligent and who can drive a hard bargain too is rare indeed.
Not to mention the fact that the person in question is a wizard of immense power.
I have great need of such a one in my kingdom.”
“I would not like to be taken from my home in the middle of the night again.
And certain promises would have to be made.”
“I see.
Will you give us a chance to make them then?”
My breath caught in my throat, and I felt a blush start up from my neck and move to my face.
I knew he wasn’t talking about only himself.
I hadn’t seen Juul yet that I could recall, except for a vague memory of him holding my hand and calling my name as he sat by my bed that first day after we returned.
I’d had turned my face away from Juul then, unable to forgive him, even though he had tried his best to protect me on that plain.
I sighed and absently twirled a piece of my hair between my fingers.
“If by ‘we’ you mean certain councilors of the king, then yes, I will give him a chance to make his apology.
But…not now.
I-I can’t see him just yet. Will you convey that to him for me? I still feel too much for him and it would make things awkward.”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to go home soon and see my brother.
Tell him that after I do, I’ll come back and give him his chance to apologize, though it’s really not necessary,”
I lied, and leaned my head back against the chair, closing my eyes and feeling exhausted.
To tell the truth, I would have loved to have seen Juul, but I had become accustomed to seeing love shining in his eyes.
I didn’t want to see them without it.
I knew he didn’t feel that way anymore, and I wasn’t strong enough for that just yet. I was sure I would be, one day. But I needed some time.
“I’m sure he’ll look forward to it,”
he said, his voice soft and comforting.
I was listening to the fire crackling in the hearth, though, and I never even knew when he left my room.
****
On the day I left the Quendi lands, it was with a full escort of soldiers.
I rode my stag, Violet, right up to the borderline where the Ice Poles began, where I dismounted and said my goodbyes.
There was no sign of King Tarrak or Lord Juul, though I had secretly hoped Juul might come to see me as I left the Palace.
It was not to be.
I promised King Tarrak I would soon return.
But what with one thing and another, the weeks passed as I found new lodging for my father, gave him some gold, and persuaded him that it was in his best interests to leave us alone and never come near us again.
Once I told him of the Quendi king’s interest in me, he left right away.
I hoped he would find help for his drinking, and if it had only been me, I might even have been able to find some forgiveness in my heart and let him stay, for my mother’s sake if not for any other reason. But I had my little brother to think about, so it wasn’t possible.
As the weeks passed, I realized I had heard nothing from the Quendi, and I began to think the king hadn’t really meant it when he said he hoped I’d return.
I reminded myself too that both the king and some of his Lords—one in particular—didn’t really care much for mortals, and the king must have been caught up in that moment of victory over the Dark Elves when he’d offered me a job as his wizard.
Perhaps he’d made promises to me that he no longer wished to keep.
I should have known it was too good to be true.
I began to look around for an apprenticeship and found one, not with another blacksmith—that was hard and dirty work and I was unsuited for it—but with the Money Lender in the next village over.
I was good with numbers and making arrangements for repayments.
In fact, I’d had some recent experience with that. We agreed that I would begin in one week’s time.
It was late one afternoon only a few days later that I was chopping wood in the yard to prepare for the cold night ahead, and occasionally glancing over at the frozen woods and wondering what the Quendi were doing in that beautiful Ice Palace right at that moment, when I heard the sound of jingling coming from the trees.
I stopped and peered eagerly into the shadows of the ice-rimmed pines.
From out of the forest came a winter’s fairy tale.
I saw huge stags trotting toward me, snorting and tossing their antlers.
Seven of them had riders, Quendi Ice Soldiers, all dressed in white.
Only one stag was riderless, and when it got closer, I could see that it was Violet, his antlers strung with jewels, an empty white saddle on his back. At the front of the column was the largest stag of all, and on its back was my Winter Lord. The soldiers rode into the yard and as they dismounted, they brought me small chests of riches—two of silver, one of gold, one of diamonds, and two of pearls—and laid them on the ground at my feet.
Lord Juul himself dismounted then and walked right up to me, so close that I had to tilt my head back to look at him.
He was wearing snow white furs, his beautiful blond hair sweeping across his shoulders.
To my everlasting surprise, this glorious being knelt at my feet and held out his hand.
In his palm was a ring of gold with a diamond as big as a chip of ice.
“I come with gifts for you, Pavel, as proof of my worth and yours, and to ask you to return with me to the Ice Palace and become my honored husband.
The king has annulled his marriage to you, so you’re free to wed, only this time with a new ceremony more worthy of you.
I would marry you in front of my people and yours, too, if you wish it, and I make you this bargain—if you accept my hand, I will love you and cherish you for the rest of our days, and never hold anyone above you.
I will take both you and your kin if you accept me, and spend my life trying to make you both happy. In return, I ask only for the honor of being your husband. I will put this in writing, if you wish it, so you will have a contract to keep for yourself and never doubt me or my feelings for you.”
“But-but you don’t love me anymore.”
“Who said I don’t?”
“You hated me when we met.
You took the love potion—that’s what made you think you were in love for a while.
That’s all this is.”
“I told you Pavel, as I sat by your bed when you were so ill after our return from the Dark Elves, but you must have forgotten.
I wanted to take the potion because the idea of you with the king was bothering me so much.
I resented the idea of you with him.”
“Why was that, do you think?”
“I don’t know.
I think it must be because…because you belong to me, and you always have.
I found you; I made the bargain with your father for you, and that makes you mine.”
He raised his face at last—that beautiful face—and smiled.
“At least I want you to be mine.
The king insisted I take the antidote, but it didn’t help me.
I still yearned for you. I concluded that I love my king, but I must love you much more. Why is that, do you think?”
I smiled up at him.
“Perhaps it’s true love.
My grandmother said true love can’t be made to happen.
It can’t be created where it doesn’t already exist. And the antidote didn’t work on you, because true love can’t be stopped once it has already taken hold.”
“Yes.
And I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you through a window in this very house, singing to your brother.
Marry me, Pavel.
Say you’ll come home with me forever.”
What could I say to him but yes? It was the best bargain I would ever make for my entire life.
He bent over and kissed the palm of my hand as he slipped on the ring he’d brought me, and I smiled, my heart almost too full to speak.
He smiled down at me.
“We have a bargain, you and me.”
I smiled at him.
“What shall we do to seal it?”
His eyes lit up as he answered.
“Come with me, love, and I’ll show you.”
The End