Chapter 8
Halvard
Honey Sands greets us with pearly cobblestone streets, low-slung buildings topped in blue tile, and dune-hued dusk hollows at every door.
Aside from the occasional oak, the trees are shorter here by the coast. They’re mostly spindly things that don’t color like the deciduous ones at home.
The inhabitants have strung the trees’ limbs with linen strips like we do in Leafshire Cove, but their Nocturne colors are sage green and dark gray.
At a table near the kitchen’s open door, three goblins play dice.
Beside them, a kingsguard leans against a wall and laughs with an orc.
We trade a nod, the usual greeting from orc to orc.
It’s always a good feeling to know someone has your back, even though they’re a stranger. One of the perks of orc culture.
Two long tables fill the rest of the area. A family of pixies and humans eats from steaming bowls of stew. Smells like carrots, potatoes, and clove-spiced cream. My stomach growls.
“Sorry.” I grimace at Rychell, who smiles kindly and talks to the innkeeper. “Two rooms and two meals, please.”
The innkeeper is a tall fellow, a water sprite that has the same look as Plum, the blue-haired, purple-winged tailor from Leafshire Cove. “No problem.”
I fight a sigh. I was hoping they were too crowded to give us two rooms, and I’d be forced into sharing with Rychell. Alas.
“Anything to drink?” the innkeeper asks.
Rychell looks to me.
My throat is dry as dust. “I’ll take a cider if you have it. Ale is fine if you don’t.”
“I’d like the same,” Rychell says.
The innkeeper sends a wee human lass upstairs with an armful of linens, presumably to ready our rooms, and we take a seat at the end of the long table that sits by the door. I take a deck of cards from my pocket and begin to shuffle.
“Want to play a round of Gryphon’s Quest?”
Rychell cracks her knuckles. “All right.”
I deal four cards each, then set the rest of the deck between us. Lifting the two cards nearest me, I spy a queen and a one. I’ll need to get rid of that queen quickly if I’m going to have a chance here.
Rychell grins like a cat in the creamer.
“Good hand, eh?” I raise an eyebrow.
She forces her face into emotionless lines. “We’ll see.”
“I hate to tell you this, but you’re not the stoic you like to think you are.”
“You love telling me, you brat. Listen,” she says over my chuckling, “I haven’t played cards in ages. I forgot about the whole player face situation.”
A server brings our ciders. The cool liquid is like a dream going down my dry throat. The spices are warm and delicious. Rychell drinks from her pewter mug and makes a sound of pleasure that wakes my cock up.
I motion for her to start the play by drawing from the deck between us.
After she demolishes me with a hand of ones and a two, our stew arrives and we dig in.
I’m about to ask her about what new spices she plans to buy at the market here when the door swings open and a sallow-faced man strides in.
He’s wearing a sensible pair of trousers and a very tidy shirt, but the thing that catches my eye is the spice trader guild insignia on his cloak.
Rychell notices at the same time. She stands and lifts a hand in greeting. “Master Osric, perhaps?”
Did she send him word ahead of time to meet here, or is this my bad luck? I suppose the ad he ran, the one Rychell told me about, had meeting information. Ugh.
The man joins us, sitting beside me. “Hello, yes. Please call me Osric.”
“I’m Rychell of Leafshire Cove.”
Stones, how I loathe the smile she’s giving him. I grab the man’s hand and shake it a little too hard.
“And I’m Halvard, her bodyguard.”
He winces, but smoothes his features quickly and nods. “Very good to meet you. To meet you both. Now, Mistress Rychell…”
“Please just Rychell.”
“Very well. Rychell, please tell me why you are willing to enter into a marriage like I advertised. I know I’m unusual.”
“That’s one way to put it,” I mutter. When their gazes dart to my face, I give them both an innocent smile and gather the cards.
“As I was saying,” Osric continues, “I’m unusual, but I do have character references if you’d like to see them before we go much further.”
I finish my stew quickly and tap my spoon lightly on the table.
Pushing her stew aside, Rychell leans forward and holds up her fingers toward Osric.
“One, I have no interest in love. I like my life well-planned and steady.” She puts down a finger.
“Two, I have a son, and I want his life to be calm and predictable at home. Unlike my early life was.” Another finger bends down.
“Three, with a contract, I can be certain that I will get what I need from this relationship, and the law will protect me if you end up being less than advertised.”
“Oh, I think we are going to get along fine, Rychell.”
I’m going to boke right here in my empty stew bowl.
What a piece of work this fellow is. My hands ache to throttle some sense into him, so I squeeze the wooden spoon instead.
They chat on and on about the setup up and I’m getting more nauseated by the second.
My evil mind paints images of them in one another’s arms, of his thin lips on her full, dark, wine-hued ones.
The spoon in my hand snaps.
They’re both staring.
Forcing a smile, I hold up the pieces of my spoon, feeling foolish but still enraged, which is not a pleasant way to feel at all.
“They don’t make them like they used to,” I say weakly.
They frown at me and go back to their chat.
I push away from the table and take up watching them converse from the balcony above the common room.
I’m not leaving Rychell alone with this man unless she asks me to, but I can’t stomach another word about this loveless farce of a marriage they’re both seriously considering.
It would be completely fine if Rychell weren’t interested in passion, but I’m an orc, and I know when a female is aroused and longing for a coupling.
She is denying herself. Not falling for anyone or even having any lovers might keep her son away from some of life’s stresses, true, but forgoing the chance at love for both her and her son is a tragedy.
A tragedy I will do my best to avert.