Chapter Twenty-Three
Xandril
Morwen delivers the news with a look like she’s braced for a blow. Yet another reason to despise my predecessor.
“What do you mean, ‘she refuses’?” I ask, pushing my seat back from the table. I spent the better part of the day arranging this dinner, worried about getting everything just right, and now she refuses?
What makes her think that’s an option? She’s my bride.
My queen-to-be. She can’t refuse to see me!
Well…she can, but why would she? The last we spoke was in her quarters, her soft lips pressed to my warm cheek after thanking me for sharing a part of myself with her—has she so quickly come to regret that?
“My apologies, Your Highness. She said, ‘no.’”
“No?!” I roar loud enough for the chandeliers to rattle above. “Why? What reason did she give?”
“I have no explanation to offer, Your Majesty,” Morwen says, infuriatingly tight-lipped.
But of course she’s grown more loyal to Ingrid than me. I have no one to blame for that other than myself. I haven’t been a good leader. I haven’t been present or decisive. That changes now.
Jumping to my feet, towering over Morwen at my full height, I fight to keep my heat from scorching the ground underfoot. “Where is she?” I demand.
Morwen shakes her head, and for the first time ever, I think I see a hint of true fear in her expression. “I don’t know.”
She flinches when another roar echoes through the room, steam following in my trail as I storm out in search of my bride.
Everyone’s so convinced that she’s the solution to the reach’s problems, that I have no hope of success without her at my side.
If that’s the case, then courting her properly must become a priority.
The idea is preposterous if I’m honest with myself. I’m a soldier. Nothing more than a weapon honed for war, trained to break, destroy, and kill. I’m hardly a step up from the Wilds-touched beasts that nip at our frozen borders, not a creature made for romance or tenderness.
I don’t know the first thing about how to treat a female, let alone a human female. What if I hurt her? Scare her? Maim or break her?
I’d never forgive myself.
Yet I cannot let fear stand in my way. I’ve never faced a battlefield I could not conquer, so why should this be any different? If fighting and dancing have so much in common, so too might war and romance.
It’s hours before I’m able to track Ingrid down, following the chain of staff and guards who saw her going one way or another.
I’ve been directed to the stables, but at first all I see is an ifrak being groomed—with the long winter, it’s too much of a risk to fully shear them, but left untended, the wool will grow into heavy mats that are hazardous for the animal’s health.
“Looking for Her Highness?” asks one of the grooms. It takes me a moment to place him, since the last time I saw him he was fraught with worry, but I’m fairly sure he’s the soulbond to the ifrak that gave birth. And upon closer inspection, the ifrak being groomed is one and the same.
“She’s in the stall, keeping baby happy,” he adds with a nod of his head.
“She’s been a big help with feeding when mom here needs a break.
” The ifrak munches a handful of grain from his outstretched palm, completely unbothered by the team working on her or that her calf rests out of sight just around the corner.
When I round the bend and come to the correct stall, I’m struck by the peaceful scene I find: both Ingrid and the calf fast asleep together in the hay, Ingrid clutching the calf’s fluffy wool with one hand.
She looks so…at ease. Even the duskthorn didn’t have such a profound effect.
It’s more serene and relaxed than I’ve ever seen her.
There’s one obvious reason for that—I’m the one preventing it.
That is why she didn’t want to have dinner with me.
Me.
I was fooling myself to come down here thinking otherwise. Thinking I had any hope at all. In all likelihood, the Dealmaker set me up for failure, his own motives as mysterious to me as the ways of courting a woman.
Knowledge that I realize now wouldn’t help me. If my ability to win Ingrid is the answer to the reach’s woes, we may already be out of hope.
“There you are,” Valenar says, sprinting across the stable, sliding to a stop at my side and panting to catch his breath. “You’re needed in—” He stops, looks into the stall, frowns at Ingrid’s sleeping form, then looks back to me. “Am I interrupting something?”
Forcing myself to turn away from the bride I’ll never be worthy of, I slip effortlessly back into the role of ruthless general.
“No. What is it?”
“There’s a problem at the border. We’re waiting to deliver a full report in the war room.”
I’ve lost count of how many hours we’ve spent circling the same problem.
I haven’t even a clue how many days those hours total.
And still we’ve come to no real answer. No amount of meeting with advisors, generals, landholders, and anyone else who might have any insight has helped me come to a decision.
So much for being the decisive leader the reach needs.
But how am I to know which choice is the right one when all points made are salient? When all factors considered cancel out? There is so much to lose, and the longer I postpone giving firm orders, the worse the problem grows.
I’ve dismissed everyone yet again, left alone with my thoughts in the war room—a place I keep finding myself, despite my best efforts.
And yet again, I’m left wondering how I let Valenar—how I let myself—convince me I am suited for this role.
Leadership experience means little when you’ve led only soldiers who obey your every command.
Being decisive has no roots if all your decisions came from higher orders.
I’m not sure I ever truly appreciated the constant conflict the Crown faces.
Navigating the needs of every faction in the reach while balancing our survival, our future, and our history is more than I can manage.
And no matter how long I stare at this map, I can’t bring myself any closer to giving the orders that will relinquish our lands.
There may be no other way to victory, but I cannot bear to surrender.
The door opens while I envision Emerald’s borders contracting, Iron claiming the terraced hillsides, razing the land in the name of protecting it. Heat scorches deep in my chest, and I growl a dismissal over my shoulder without looking up from the gouges my claws have left in the tabletop.
“Whatever it is, Val, it will have to wait.” My anger has nothing to do with him, and he’s suffered through more than his fair share of it without warrant. This is the best chance I can give him to back out before the rage overflows.
Losing land is a failure.
Surrendering it even moreso.
Handing it over to Iron is bordering on betrayal.
“Not Val, and it sounds like dinner shouldn’t wait.” Ingrid’s gentle teasing surprises me enough to cool my flames. So much of the tension instantly leaves my body as it recognizes her nearness.
Heart in my throat, I turn to find Ingrid accompanied by a cook who’s pushing an overburdened serving cart.
And Ingrid hasn’t just shown up with dinner, she’s also dressed for the occasion, wearing a long-sleeved gown of dark green velvet, the sleeves and bodice enhanced with sparkling gems, her golden hair arranged atop her head, glittering ornaments glinting within the plaits.
She would look at home among the frost-tipped evergreens in the mountains, a goddess for the forest to worship.
“What…” I begin to ask why she’s here, then stop myself.
“Do you no longer wish to dine with me?” Ingrid asks, one eyebrow arched in a way that says she knows the answer already.
Human or no, she looks every bit the queen she’s destined to be. Breathtaking. Beautiful in a way that I can’t put into words, but also in a way that robs me of words entirely.
“You…said no,” I mutter, half-convinced she’s an exhaustion-induced hallucination.
“I admit, your invitation found me on a bad day,” she says, looking a bit bashful as she takes a step closer, then another. “To be honest, I’m not sure the classroom agrees with me.”
And all at once, my irritation, my stress, the things I’ve been worried about—none of it seems quite so bad. Ingrid’s here, and truthfully, I can’t imagine she’s been having an easier time of things with her tutors. I would never want to trade my war room meetings for her classroom lessons.
“Have I caught you on a bad day as well?” she asks, gentle, not accusatory.
“I know no other kind,” I say, aiming for a bit of levity. I miss the mark by a mile. I know well enough to leave the joking to Val.
“I’m sorry,” I add before the awkward moment drags on too long. “I appreciate the gesture, and would be honored to dine with you.”
Ingrid’s face transforms with a smile, and the room feels brighter.
Once our meal has been laid out and we’re alone with only the food to distract us, I start to feel the need to do…
something. To say…something. Courtship involves those things, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.
My father never had a mate, and even when he did attend social functions, I was not welcome.
The only company I’ve ever had for mealtime has been fellow soldiers, and none of those conversation topics would be appropriate with my bride.
The safest bet is likely to make the topic something she cares about.
“I’m surprised you’re not spending your evening among the ifrak,” I say.
Ingrid’s cheeks turn a delightful shade of pink that feels like a victory on its own.
“You uh…heard about that, did you?” she asks, picking at her food.
“I’m the king. I hear about everything that happens in this castle.”
I’m not sure why that brings another flush of color to her cheeks, but I’m inspired to learn what other words or phrases might elicit such an effect.