Chapter Two
“You know, my daughter is lovely of face and rich in the arcane arts, Girion.”
Girion swallowed the reminder that he was to be addressed as king with an effort.
They were alone, walking the grounds as they waited for Lady Renata to arrive.
Were others listening, he would have had to issue a rebuke—and perhaps that would also have been unwise.
What if they ended up needing her to save Caledon?
“You would not know this, naturally, but it is not uncommon for the High Shifter King to lose his magic, especially in times of prosperity. One gives so much of oneself, the lifeblood of one’s kingdom.
Even I, as Archduke, contribute something to Wyndwood.
But of course, my wife... she is from a long, long line of mages, and so is our daughter, naturally.
But if I had not married her... Hm. In one or two more generations, the entire royal line could have toppled.
Wyndwood would have become barren. You’ve seen how it flourishes.
Far more trade flows from Wyndwood into Caledon than the other way around, would you not say? ”
“I would not say. Wyndwood relies on us for gold and silver ore. We trade fewer items, but those we trade are precious. But let us not quarrel. I take your meaning.” It is a threat.
It is hinting at a coup or worse. Perhaps even an eradication of the sovereign kingdom of Caledon.
Some suggest merging the kingdoms into one.
Wyndon. Calwood. Both are horrible. Unthinkable. Unfathomable. It must not be.
“Your wife. Is she well?”
“Hm? Oh, the Archduchess agitates. She would see our daughter married sooner rather than later. It is a custom in Wyndwood, you see, that the eldest marry first, and there are two daughters and two sons after her.”
“Then I wish her a speedy union with the most suitable man.”
Reynard just smiled, something silently crafty in his gaze. “She trusts her father implicitly in such a matter. I will make an admirable match for her—for both of you, should you wish it. After all, do I not spend more time in Caledon than I do in my own kingdom?”
“Strange to say you do,” Girion muttered, but he faced into the wind, and the words were covered by a rumbling growl.
Why is that, he longed to ask, but refrained.
It did not take a scholar to see that the young Prince of Wyndwood wouldn’t be ruled by his conniving uncle, and that bad blood made things uneasy for the Archduke in his own land.
Reynard hopes to curry favor from all sides with this match.
His nephew will thank him for adding Caledon’s wealth and strength to the family and furthering an alliance.
I will thank him for leading me to a wife with magic in her blood, and potentially, he will maneuver himself into greater power over Lady Renata—and thus greater power over me.
I will not marry a woman who is someone else’s pawn. A pawn is not a partner, and Caledon needs another protector in the palace, not some agent to do Reynard’s bidding.
“Ah! Here she is!”
Girion held still, squinting. A gilded coach with a team of hardy white draft horses sped over the tundra, ice and salt flying from under their wheels and hooves as they stopped in front of him.
Reynard hurried forward, blundering into footmen in his hurry to help Lady Renata from her coach, leading her out with many an exclamation of delight.
“Look at her, Your Majesty! Isn’t she just beautiful! And incredibly skilled. Incredibly powerful. You could not ask for better.”
Girion bowed stiffly as a dainty, sneering beauty was paraded before him, her red and white hair plaited in some complex tower under a small gold tiara.
She curtseyed with a slight dip in her knees as she swirled her white fur robes lined with pale purple velvet around her white dress.
The dress was a thin garment that looked like it was made of starlight and cobwebs—most unsuitable for a bear king’s bride.
Renata’s disdain stuck out like black-tipped ears in a snowbank.
Foxes—at least Foxes of royal blood—do not lower themselves to wed Bears—hulking, brutish bears, beings of size and strength.
Nonetheless... “You must be cold. Come inside, Lady Renata, and welcome,” Girion grunted, using what scant manners he happened to retain in the face of her scowl and Reynard’s fawning.
Renata gave him what could generously be called a cold smile. “Thank you, Your Majesty. How kind of you to receive your guests personally.”
“Girion doesn’t line his palace with servants, my dear. He prefers his lands and walls to be lined with guards instead.” Reynard beamed.
Yes. To keep out threats.
I very much fear I have let one inside...
“How different from our palace at Wyndwood. Still, if one does not have a Queen or ladies-in-waiting to attend to her, one needs fewer servants, I suppose. My. It’s very.
.. imposing.” Renata was ushered inside, her glinting golden eyes raking across the stone battlements and the gray and white turrets.
“The exterior is very much like a fortress. I had not recalled. I’ve been to Caledon, naturally—”
“You were a babe-in-arms, Renata, one or two, when you last visited Tundra Spring. That would have made Girion... My. About fifteen.”
Girion’s blood always ran hot, a natural shifter ability that helped him survive life in the harsh land that was his birthright. Now, it ran cold. “She is only—”
“Twenty-one. A lady of noble birth should be married young, of course. And so should young men of royal lineage, to ensure their line continues. Why your father did not insist—”
Girion halted, the clanking of the metal embedded in the leather and furs that made up his clothing suddenly silent. “My father died when I was twenty. He was busy making sure I could run Caledon. He knew I could handle marriage myself.”
Lady Renata laughed, a silvery sound, but not in the least pleasant.
There were no overtones of sleigh bells jingling or goblets clinking in her exclamation.
No, it was more like someone dropping a box of straight pins.
“Clearly, you have neglected it until it is nearly too late. Father told of your desperate plight.”
So, she thinks I am her pawn. She holds all the power.
“It would indeed be troubling if we had no other measures in place, but I do thank your father for his concern, and, of course, you, for rushing to our aid.” Girion kept his voice calm and even managed a steady smile.
Inside, he chuckled, catching Reynard’s sudden twitch and the widening of Renata’s eyes.
“We’ve had a supper prepared in your honor, Lady Renata, and my advisors and their wives are here to rejoice in a royal visit.
I don’t know if you’ll find it as dainty a table as you enjoy at the palaces of Wyndwood—are you a guest of the prince very often? ”
Renata coughed. “Well... My cousin is very busy—”
“Since the king’s death, the prince has had little time for socializing,” Reynard smoothed things over, but the panicky look in his eye remained.
“Of course, of course. I know that feeling well. Things are different in Caledon. Here, a prince becomes king upon his father’s death, without the need of a bride.
Is Wyndwood not considering the same changes, or will you cling to the archaic school of thought that a prince must take a bride before being crowned king with his queen? ”
“In Wyndwood, we believe that marriage is the true test of maturity. A bride makes the king—something I think Caledon should consider,” Lady Renata spoke up.
“My dear, you well know that Foxes mate for life. The same can not be said for Bears.”
Girion managed to swallow a snarl. “It will be said of this Bear. But, I really should pay Prince Fannar a visit to offer my aid, and to thank him for lending me his most trusted uncle and cousin.”
“Oh, pray do not waste your valuable time singing my praises, Your Majesty,” Renata muttered, casting a nervous look at her father.
She knows full well that Prince Fannar will not join me in singing her praises, nor her father’s.
It was a delight to see her flounder.
And that is not how one should feel about one’s wife.
Oh, Cole... you’d better come through.
“THAT IS QUITE THE brACE of salmon. Enough for a company of Bears.”
Jocasta turned, then stilled.
There was a Bear beside her family’s boat. Oh, he looked like an average man— a smiling mouthful of slightly uneven teeth, kindly brown eyes, skin instead of fur—but she knew he was a polar bear shifter from the size of him, from the sheer width and height of him.
That, and the glint of steel emblazoned with the crest of Caledon peeping from under his fur cloak when he pointed to the strings of fish hung to smoke. “Do you have any already smoked, miss?”
He doesn’t speak like an arrogant royal. But royals do not conduct their own business—at least, not out this way. “In the third shop along, with the red paint.” She waited for him to ask for a royal discount.
“Thank you. I also heard that the daughter of the man who owns this boat is a fine mage, who knows her healing potions?”
Her guarded expression softened a little. “Healing is my easiest task, the one that comes naturally to me. It is fire magic I struggle with. What do you need a potion for, stranger?”
“It’s Cole, and chilblains.”
“Ooh. Those are horrid. Come, pick your string of fish, and then meet me back at the shop. I will make the potion in a trice, and the rate is reasonable.”
“One must always pay well for spells and potions, miss. Who would be fool enough to enrage a mage?”
She laughed at the bit of rhyme he tossed out. “Foxes. Well, some Foxes. To be fair, they dare to trifle with my parents, not me. It’s their shop. Their boat. I just help them.”
“But is your mother or father not a mage? I thought that was usually how it goes.” The man called Cole followed her as she finished securing the boat for the day.
“A great-uncle on my mother’s side was thus blessed, but it has skipped most of my family. For all I know, the magic would have followed his sons and daughters, but the fool got himself killed in a drunken brawl in a tavern in Endymere, and he had no children.”
“Ah.”
With a grunt, Jocasta turned her attention from conversation to force.
She had to concentrate hard to master an element like wind, especially out here, this close to the Wylding Sea.
She could feel it fighting her, but she had things to do.
All of these fish needed to come in for the night, lest hungry animals, thieves, and treacherous waves take them.
Cole gasped behind her as she lifted the bulging net and strings of fish prepped for smoking high in the air, unhooking them from their places on the side and trawler arm of the fishing boat.
They floated before her now, hundreds of pounds, maybe thousands, and she pushed them towards her parents’ little shop.
“My God...”
“I’m the only surviving child. I have to do the work of three,” Jo said stiffly, lips set as she kept the nets and strings moving.
“And marvelous well you do it. That’s all one day’s haul?”
“Three days. We supply all the fish for the tavern and the fishmongers in Alban Leigh and Frost Hills,” Jocasta said proudly.
“You prosper, indeed!”
“Thank you.”
But we do not. How could we, with the way that Fox keeps raising the rates on the land?
Cole apparently thought the same thing, for he followed her in and looked around the shop at the shelves that needed repair and the paint that was peeling, at her mother’s threadbare robes and her father’s worn boots.
Bears. Foxes. They look with the eyes of predators, and humans are their prey—even though they do not bite and kill. They all think they are above the weak humans—even though humans far outnumber them. Even though there are human mages.
“Are you saving for an expansion, Miss Mage?”
“Jocasta. And no, we are only keeping our business as it is. Times are hard for the people in this little town. I daresay it is different for the rich royals and their servants at Tundra Spring.”
“I don’t know. I think times are hard everywhere, depending on who you ask. I’m sure there is at least one fat, buttered landowner or tax man about these parts.”
“A landlord, that is what. Here. Chilblains are all too common for the fishermen who have no magic in their blood.” She plunked a small brown glass bottle on the counter. “That’ll be two sovereigns. One and a half for the fish, one half for the potion.”
“Thank you, Miss Jocasta. I’m most grateful. Would you mind awfully if I sent another of my acquaintances here for your excellent catch—and your most assuredly useful potion?”
She shook her head with a smile at the big Bear’s manners. “It’s a free kingdom. Anyone may enter the shop—and as long as he behaves himself, I’ll not throw him out. Does he suffer from chilblains, too?”
“No. His problem is rather more personal.”
She tried not to look disgusted. “The creeping itch?”
“No! No, no, he is a fine man of morals. But I still think you might have something to aid him. He’ll definitely be glad of the fish. He has a fierce appetite.”
“I can well imagine, if he is a Bear of your size.”
Cole’s eyes locked with hers, and a slow smile that held a hint of a smirk crossed his lips. “Oh. He’s much bigger.”
Jocasta’s mouth dried out. Something in his tone made her think of suggestive things. Shame on him.
“Come back if you need more potion,” she said in a firm, clear voice, grateful that her dark brown skin wouldn’t reveal her blushes.
Bears. Really.