Chapter 35 #2
“Mage Isca, I’m sor—” he began, voice ragged, but I lifted a hand to stop him.
“This meeting isn’t for more apologies,” I interrupted. “That was already accepted.” I gestured to the sprig in my hair.
Nisien’s gaze darted between us. It narrowed at Emrys then became worried when it reached me.
“I wasn’t sent to mediate tantrums,” I said, “but I will if I must. So decide: Will you act like princes? Or should I tell Chancellor Maeron that you are both lost causes?”
I was beginning to sound exactly like my mother… Yet it worked.
Nisien replied first. “Lady Isca, I am once again reminded of how grateful I am that they have sent you to us. I’ll try to behave.”
Emrys nodded once. I continued my slow offering of soothing magic to him. When he spoke, his voice was quiet but his. “Yes, I can.”
Nisien barked a laugh. “Isca will make this tolerable.” He raised his drink in a mock toast. “To not being entirely hopeless, together.”
“Good.” I inclined my head and folded my hands neatly atop the polished oak table. “What is the biggest problem facing Darreth right now?”
“Budgets,” Nisien said.
“Border conditions,” Emrys said at the same time.
It was a miracle: a straight answer that came instantly. “Well,” I said lightly, “unless Darreth has begun exporting borders and defending against ledger sheets, there has to be some overlap. Tell me about that.”
Nisien responded with the easy rhythm of someone who’d told the story often, perhaps too often.
“The border with Gelida has been a problem since the fall of the empire. They’ve called us witches, monsters, even blood-heirs of Avanfell, which is only partially true.
For generations, their kings have tried to take land on our borders to decrease the influence of magic on their people. ”
Though Nisien’s voice lacked malice, a jaded tone hinted at a well-worn weariness.
“They constantly threaten outlawing magecraft entirely. Our people have mixed for generations, so we share blood. It shouldn’t be this way.
I’ve heard word that their king is ailing, so they may have a new monarch soon.
That will probably mean war—civil or otherwise.
There’s an equal chance they’ll become more tolerant of magic, or potentially less so. ”
“Does this have to do with the princess Owain spoke of?” I asked.
Nisien answered. “Yes, the king had only a daughter, Princess Anwen. She is more tolerant of magic, or so I’ve been led to believe. Her cousin, Maelric, is next in line after her, and obviously male, so you can see where there is some contention about leadership of Gelida.”
Of course. Men, it seemed, would always believe that the world would collapse under female leadership.
I glanced at Emrys, whose gaze had fallen again, tracing something invisible across the floorboards. I asked him, “Is this the same raiding I’ve been hearing so much of? The same attack Nisien experienced?”
“Yes.” It was a cold, clipped word. I imagined smoldering fields, caravans overturned, villagers left with nothing but charred soil and grief.
Nisien’s tone turned fierce. “Which Emrys has recently paid back to them.”
That pulled Emrys’s head up. Had he not been closed off, tension surely would’ve rolled off him in thick, invisible waves. I almost felt it cresting, ready to break.
But before it could, I closed my eyes for a mere second and pushed harder. A hunch, a quiet voice in the stillness, told me to remind him in this way that he wasn’t facing his ghosts alone. So I added a silent promise of strength, a magical embrace of sorts that should bolster his control.
Emrys’s eyes, now fixed on me, widened slightly, revealing a tempest of conflicting emotions behind them. The same wild blue light flickered in them, fighting both our attempts to control and soothe it.
For a moment, he looked almost ashamed. Then he clenched his jaw, and determination took over. “We lost twenty-six civilians,” he said, voice somber.
“Don’t pretend your response was measured,” Nisien added dryly, needling him for some reason.
“I don’t see you out there defending our people,” Emrys snapped.
“No, because someone has to stay here and rule while you gallivant around the countryside giving our enemies even more reasons to hate us!” Nisien turned to me, his posture shifting in defense of himself.
“Did you know Emrys destroyed their garrison? Do you know how close we are to war at the moment?”
“Noted.” I raised a brow, fighting against showing how impressed I was at that magical feat.
But Nisien was right. If Emrys had razed an entire garrison, they had grounds for action against Darreth.
Still, squabbling like children instead of the thoughtful princes I knew them to be didn’t help matters.
I grumbled, “Now I truly understand why the Assembly needed to send a diplomat.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of Nisien’s mouth. “So you understand our dilemma. He wants to turn the north into a wasteland. I want to fund more than defense.”
“You’re arguing about the same wound. One’s looking at the blood; the other’s looking at the bandages,” I concluded, “but the coffers can’t support what’s needed.”
Emrys leaned forward slightly. “We can’t wait another season. If the raids continue, the border villages will abandon their homes or swear allegiance to Gelida.”
“Yes,” Nisien added, more quietly.
I sat back, folding my arms. “Then we need solutions that don’t involve murder or bankruptcy.”
Emrys stared at me then—truly stared like he was seeing something about me no one else could. His gaze moved from my eyes to linger on my mouth for a beat too long before it darted away.
I shivered at the heat in his eyes but didn’t let it show. He still wanted me.
Nisien saw Emrys’s attention too. I saw and felt the shift in him. His gaze narrowed like a hawk’s mid-dive, and Nisien’s emotional walls rose for the first time in my presence.
That hurt more than I’d expected it to.
Then, with studied casualness, Nisien leaned in and plucked a fallen bloom from my hair with a grin.
“Didn’t want it falling into your drink,” he said, voice honey-smooth.
The gesture landed somewhere between charming and deliberate provocation. Because I couldn’t read him, I couldn’t guess why he was pretending to be flirting with me.
I sent Nisien a soft, almost imperceptible smile. “I’ve seen you fling food at the back of your brother’s head with magic. You didn’t have to work so hard to save my hair, Prince Nisien.”
The sheepish grin he sent back proved that he’d heard the sarcasm and subtext in my words.
Emrys exhaled sharply through his nose and looked away.
I turned my focus back to the matter at hand. “You have that team of mages from the Assembly on the borders, yes?”
“Yes,” Emrys said slowly.
“Leave the mage scouts on the border with Larethia. Your alliance with them shouldn’t be compromised to fix this issue.
” I thought for a moment. “Make them pay for their raiding in another way. Increase taxes on all goods coming in from the north. Tell the merchants the funds go directly into securing the roads they rely on. Have your men track every raid, every pattern until a strategic response can be crafted or until the princess or her cousin takes the throne.”
“Your plan funds itself,” Nisien said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
Emrys’s clenched hand loosened on the table. He looked at me again, this time not with longing or pain, but with something I hoped was trust.
Nisien raised his goblet. “To surviving. And maybe, not being complete fools after all.”
I lifted mine. “To building something better.”
Emrys’s goblet joined ours, his touch quiet but deliberate. Something shifted between us. It felt like a fragile accord, but perhaps it was the start of something else entirely.
And I finally, finally had something new to show Chancellor Maeron.