Chapter Five
Xandril
“Your Highness, have you had a chance to taste the thunderroot soup? The kitchen is waiting for your approval,” Morwen asks with a quick look to the table of neglected samples.
She’s served the castle through a number of reigns, and her shrewd appraisal always makes me feel like the small one despite her barely reaching my waist.
“He is still deciding between floral options—” argues another staff member, stopping short when they, too, face the full brunt of Morwen’s stare.
There are half a dozen other people involved in arranging the ball that are waiting for similar choices from me, and I don’t have an answer for any of them.
I couldn’t give less of a damn about flowers, and my stomach is too unsettled to think about appetizers.
From the moment Anumar left my war room, I have done nothing but fret about this night.
When I should have been studying reports from the border, I wondered what reach my bride would be from.
When my mind should have been focused on strategy to keep the Wilds at bay, I dared to dream she might be from far enough away that she wouldn’t have heard the whispered rumors about my ascension to power.
At every turn, I’ve neglected my duties to daydream like a boy, but now that the night of The Presentation has arrived, all the hesitant hopes I let take root inside me are tangling into thorny doubts and worries.
Maybe if I—or even Val—had the chance to meet my bloodsworn bride before tonight I’d be more sure.
Of course, that’s not how the Dealmaker does things.
“The soup is phenomenal,” Val says after slurping on the spoon Morwen is too shocked to withdraw.
Her normally-scrunched expression falls into slack surprise; Val doesn’t acknowledge it, but I see the glint in his eyes when he turns to face the woman on my other side.
“Let’s go with the solaris blossoms—they’re imported, but we can’t get around that these days. They send a stronger message.”
One by one, Val satisfies the demands and requests of my palace staff, deftly handling the buzzards that have swarmed me for the better part of the past two days while all I do is wear a groove into the floor beneath my window.
My constant pacing hasn’t brought me any clarity or revelations, but sitting still has never been a luxury I’ve been afforded, and I don’t know what to do with it now that I have it.
“There,” Val says with a satisfied sigh after dispatching the last of my staff. “You really should try the soup. Thunderroot is a treat this far south. These tarts aren’t half bad either,” he adds, scavenging through the samples.
“I have no interest in eating,” I grumble. “And my interest in this ridiculous pageant is quickly fading.”
“Oh, come now,” Val says with a teasing lilt. “The announcement of your nuptials should be a joyous occasion!”
I grip the windowsill, claws digging deep gouges into the wood as I bite back a curse.
Brushing crumbs from his lips, Val sighs, stepping to my side. “I know it’s not the deal you’d expected,” he says, gentler. “But the Dealmaker isn’t wrong; a bride will endear you to your subjects. It could be exactly what your reign needs.”
“Why? Because it will show them that there is someone willing to keep my company?” I scoff.
Val hops up to sit on the windowsill, blocking my view of the frozen wastes beyond.
“That’s part of it,” he chuckles. “Having a softer touch attached to you will give them confidence that you’re more than just a conquering brute.
And The Unveiling will give the reach a chance to meet you, judge for themselves.
Once you’re seen in action, the rumors will be put to rest, and opinions will shift. ”
I wish I had even a fraction of the confidence Valenar possesses. He has a bottomless well of faith that I’m meant to be king, that the reach will accept me, that the cold will finally break and spring will return. I’m not sure where he sows those seeds of hope with all our fields gone fallow.
“And how do we know that she’ll be a softer touch? It could be a ploy, someone after the throne herself.”
Val barely contains his laughter. “And what would the Dealmaker have to gain from that? Don’t you think he’d like to collect on his debt with you sometime in the future?”
I grumble an unintelligible response. He’s making too many good points for my liking.
“That still doesn’t address what kind of demon she’ll be, what she’s traded for this arrangement,” I say. Or why she’s so desperate that she’s willing to marry me to solve her problems.
“You know that’s not for us to know,” Val says, examining the backs of his hands before shining one of his claws on his sleeve.
“The terms of a Dealmaker’s contract are only known to those involved in its creation.
I shouldn’t even know your deal…though I suppose I only know what you’ve gained, not what you’ve given up. ”
While my friend muses over the technical intricacies of the Dealmaker’s contractual contortions, I’m cursing our lack of foresight.
We had a week to prepare for this after signing the contract—why didn’t I send someone to spy on her?
The customs of the bloodsworn bride tradition dictate that we don’t meet before The Presentation, and it would be risking breach of contract to do extensive reconnaissance, but we could have learned enough to ensure I’m not going to make a fool of myself in front of my new subjects.
Maybe called off The Presentation entirely…
not that the Dealmaker would stand for that.
No, I foolishly stepped into this cage, and it’s a waste of my energy to search for an escape now.
By taking the throne, I hoped I’d be able to restore some of the lost stability of Emerald Reach, strengthen our borders where the Wilds encroach, and rebuild alliances that rotted under Farandir’s watch.
“There are dozens of ways I could better serve the reach than being paraded around like a prized hog marching off to the butcher. Is this really why I took the throne? To join the frivolous parties, languishing, feasting, preening at my own self-satisfied reflection while ignoring the world falling to waste beyond my walls? Surely, there’s a more worthwhile use of my time. ”
Val fights—and fails—to hold back a smirk, steering me away from the throne room toward the sounds of the party. “It may not be the form you’re used to duty taking, but this is yours now. You will excel here just as you have at every other post you’ve held.”
Of course Val sees through my annoyance, his keen eye able to spot my nerves through the gruff camouflage. “If my competence was all that’s required for success here, you wouldn’t have had to convince me so thoroughly to take the post. We both know I can lead soldiers, but nobles?”
His grin grows. “And that, my dear friend, is why our brilliant Dealmaker has delivered unto you a bride.”
“A bride I will surely disappoint,” I mutter, turning away from the party again.
“Has she any idea what’s in store for her?
What has the Dealmaker told her to expect?
Some well-bred prince prepared to give her a royal welcome?
She’ll see through me the moment we’re on the dance floor.
” The closest I’ve ever been to a ball like this one was as security.
I don’t think tripping over myself will make the strong show of power I’m after.
A laugh escapes Valenar, and I whip around to glare at him. He smothers his mirth, looking apologetic even as it fights to resurface. “Is that what this is all about?” he teases. “You’re worried about dancing with her?”
Mercifully, he doesn’t laugh again when I say nothing, but keeping his grin at bay seems to cause him physical pain.
“You can’t be serious?”
“If this is meant to be reassuring, it’s a pisspoor attempt.”
He chokes back a laugh, forcing his expression toward sobriety.
“What is dancing but fighting without weaponry? You never second-guess your feet on the battlefield. When you would move to strike your opponent, embrace her instead. Stay on your toes, as if you’re being tracked—don’t stop moving and keep hold of your bride, and you will do just fine. ”
Any one aspect of this evening on its own would be enough to make it a waking nightmare—being stuffed into finery and put on display, navigating the pitfalls of social graces, feeling naked without weapons and armor, and worst of all, meeting a bride—but all together, it feels like a night crafted to be my own personal hell.
And that’s before I realize the Dealmaker has one final trick up his sleeve.
When the ballroom falls silent, focus finally—mercifully—pulled from me, I know he must have arrived with her.
With my bride. The room is too vast, and the crowd too dense for me to see more than the tips of the Dealmaker’s wolfish ears moving toward me, and as he does, a murmur follows in his wake.
My heart stops for a beat—did he fail to find someone? Has he shown up empty-handed to humiliate me, destroying my only chance to make a first impression upon the reach’s aristocracy? In the next moment, a flash of sparkle shines behind the Dealmaker, and one of my fears is assuaged.
My relief lasts only until my next breath. Val stiffens at my side, the crowd beginning to part to make way. Heart racing, I crane my neck, able to see a figure of petite stature, narrow shoulders, hair the color of sun-drenched wheat, and…no horns.
All at once, the floor drops out from under me, my stomach left behind somewhere in the ballroom.
I’m not surprised the Dealmaker was less than forthcoming with me.
That’s in his nature. I was prepared for someone who hated me, someone who wanted to steal the throne for themselves, even someone who’d try to kill me, but in all my wildest paranoid predictions, I never could have conceived of this.
The murmurs grow from hushed whispers to unabashed gossip, and all I hear is the sort of ringing in my ears that happens after standing too close to cannons firing.
A human. What in the shattered realms am I meant to do with a human bride? She’s from another world, knowing nothing of our lands, customs, people—no more fit to be queen than I am king. If anything, this is a surefire way to accelerate the land’s rejection of me.
Anumar will regret this. I will destroy him the moment the opportunity presents itself, but for the time being, I have to maintain my composure. While everyone else in the room is shocked and scandalized, I keep a neutral face, acting as though this is all a part of my plan.
What an inconceivable plan that would be. If I’m looking to instill confidence that I’m capable of filling the throne, bringing a helpless human in this dying mess isn’t the way to do it. Letting the Dealmaker throw me off-balance won’t help matters either.
The closer I get, the more I’m able to see the scope of this disaster.
He’s put her in a dress that’s sure to have everyone gossiping about the queen-to-be and her expensive tastes.
While the rest of the reach is chipping ice out of their fields in hopes of finding a scrap of food forgotten underground, my bride is dripping in gems.
And despite the rage building toward the Dealmaker, even I can’t deny that she’s ravishing.
Her wide, bronze-gold eyes drinking in the scene, her hair drawn up in a style that leaves her pale neck and shoulders exposed, my gaze drawn to the fluttering pulse in her neck as a flush of pink rises from her chest all the way to the tips of her small, curved ears.
She’s not the first human I’ve seen—the Dealmaker’s mate holds that honor—but her kind are rare enough that I’m struck speechless by how small and soft she is up close.
Foreign and beautiful, like the golden solaris blossoms radiating their warmth around the ballroom.
Is she also as delicate as those imported blooms?
The Dealmaker clears his throat. “As agreed. May I introduce Ingrid Wakefield,” he says, retreating a step.
Slowly, as if reaching for a skittish ifrak, I extend my hand to the human. She looks to the Dealmaker, who offers a slight nod, and then after a moment of hesitation her hand slips into mine, small, soft, warm, and so impossibly fragile.
How can such a creature survive the unyielding brutality of Emerald Reach in decline?
And now that I have her, how will I protect what’s mine?