Chapter Three #2
She saw him, a Bear, had to be, by the size of him, in a hooded cloak, staring up at her handiwork with his mouth open. Jocasta swallowed a laugh and settled for a smile as a thought filtered through the daily tangle of tasks and worries that made up her mind.
He looks like an overgrown boy seeing a silk balloon for the first time. Maybe there are no mages in his part of the world.
And then he moved his head and looked right at her.
Her heart stilled. The fish swooped and half fell before she summoned her focus to keep them up.
Scarred eye. Silvery beard. One long plait over his shoulder, woven through with leather threads, ending in a metal disk. A metal disk that was too small to see the details on, but if she had to guess, she would bet the day’s takings that it bore the royal crest of Caledon.
Girion the Great, the fierce shifter king, was standing outside her parents’ shop.
She hurried past to the smokehouse, not sure if she had just committed an unthinkable crime by not bowing or acknowledging her king, not that she felt particularly connected to the king or anything but survival out here on the edge of the Wylding Sea.
Maybe he’ll be gone by the time I’m done in the smokehouse...
“Here, Papa. I’ll clean them.”
“No, no. You should go in and get warm. Your mother made roasted squash stew. It’s thick and hearty as woolen socks, and twice as warm. Go and get the bowl she left by the till, Jo.”
“All right.” Jocasta kissed her father’s temple and flexed her frozen fingers. “Papa... I think the King is outside. King Girion.”
Her father rose slowly from his place by the long metal table where they cleaned the fish. “Girion the Great? Here?”
“A massive Bear, with white and silver hair, and eyes that are bluer than the sky, and one with a long scar,” Jocasta hissed, dragging her finger over her eyelid and down to her cheek.
“Well, if it is him, I ought to come out and give him a piece of my mind. Every time that blasted Mr. Nemo raises the rates, he says it’s ‘with the King’s blessing.’ Ha! Fat, white bottom growing rich off our labor.”
“Father, don’t. Don’t do that. I’ll talk to him if he even bothers to come into the shop,” Jocasta soothed and guided her father to his seat, arms around his shoulders.
HE BOTHERED.
He was there when she unlocked the back door of the shop and entered from the smokehouse side, waiting outside the front door, his bulk completely blocking the small window.
Jocasta smoothed her cloak and sniffed the sleeve. Salty. Briny. Maybe faintly fishy. She patted her thick, naturally wiry, curly hair where it sat bound at the nape of her neck. She had no elegant clothes, no jewels to put in her hair.
Well. Let him see us how we are. How the rates are turning us from prosperous to poor. How my family has been the cautionary tale. Others will follow if they lose their sons or their workers leave for the warmer parts. We hardly ever have a day with a warm breeze now...
“Greetings.” Jocasta hastened to the door and bowed when she opened it.
She’d thought a king would travel with an army of servants and at least a small company of guards.
But if this man was Girion the Great, he simply grunted in response and strode in.
He filled half the shop, looking at everything as he turned in small circles.
“S-sire?” Jocasta risked calling him out by title, hoping that the stranger would laugh and tell a tale of how he was often mistaken for the sovereign.
The big Bear gasped, jerked his shoulders, and his thick hood fell to his shoulders. “I was hoping to avoid notice,” he growled.
“I’m sorry, but also, that’s hardly an easy task. You’re not exactly inconspicuous.” Jocasta said the words before she could stop herself and think better of it. Was that insulting? Did it come off as criticizing the King of Caledon?
To her relief, he just looked down at himself and sighed. “You’re right about that. I’m here to see the mage Jocasta. I take it that’s you?”
“You’re here to see me? I mean, yes, I’m Jocasta. And yes, I’m a mage.”
“A powerful one. Wind and water?”
“Wind and water. Why? I mean, why, if I may ask, Your Majesty?”
“Because I have need of a mage, and I would ask if you were open to hearing a business proposition that would bring your family and yourself great wealth and honor, and a chance to help all of Caledon.”
Wealth. Help. Her face spoke loudly, but her lips parted silently.
Girion pressed, stepping closer. “Please, at least listen? I know you are a healer. You could heal much at once if you would give aid to your king.”
Her brown eyes met his blue, and she spiraled into them, lost in a crystal blue intensity that captured her breath and made it hard to think. She felt her head bob without her thought directing it.
They say the shifter kings have magic in their veins, magic that keeps the Wylding Kingdoms together, alive. Did he enchant me?
Girion pulled his cloak back up over his head and pulled the shutters closed on the shop window. “Thank you. I don’t want everyone to know that I am here. Will your parents keep a secret if you ask?”
“My parents are loyal. We’ve lived in Caledon for five generations.”
“All right.” He coughed, turned to look at the shelves in the back of the shop, and then whirled to face her. “I need a bride.”
HIS WORDS WERE TUMBLING in his head, crowding his mouth, but in the silence of the small shop that smelled of smoked fish, herbs, and woodsmoke, he was pleased to hear each phrase coming out in an even and commanding tone.
“Caledon’s magical line is depleted. I have tried to heal it alone, but I cannot.
The hot springs are dying. Freezing over.
Warm breezes offer no relief. If I don’t do something, the humans and shifters from other kingdoms will be driven out, unable to survive.
I don’t want that. So, as our laws and customs dictate, I must take a bride.
A bride who is a powerful mage will heal Caledon and bring the heat and life back to it from the moment she takes the royal title.
There need be no consummation, nothing more than an alliance for the restoration to begin. ”
Jocasta sat down hard on a wooden stool behind the counter, then bounded up, looking terrified, as if he would care if his future queen sat in his presence.
“And since I offer you the title of queen as part of an alliance between our two families,” he rasped, then coughed, his voice returning to its customary gruff sternness, “you must have something in exchange for the help and aid you give to the throne. I will buy the land your family lives and works on, outright, and give the deeds to you or your parents, whichever you deem best. I will buy your boat, and hire a crew to run it, hire workers for the store and smokehouse, offer your family lodging within the palace at Tundra Springs, or buy them a second property in the city so they’ll be near you whenever you wish.
In addition, I will pay whatever bride price you ask. ”
There. He could breathe again.
For a second.
Jocasta didn’t reply. She stared, blank-faced. Alarmed, even.
Sometimes, when allies were hesitant, a show of force could be useful.
Not here. Not in this case.
She was everything Cole said: small, sturdy, and perfectly pretty. He had never seen such perfect, round cheeks, such full lips. An angel’s face, and powers of the divine to match.
“Please think about it,” he whispered.
PLEASE THINK ABOUT it? What did he think she was doing?
The most powerful ruler of the Winter Kingdoms—some said of all Wylding—was asking for her hand in marriage. He was not courting with love and sweet words. He was asking for help with practical terms. Generous terms.
He must be in desperate need.
I could ask for whatever I wanted—except his terms are so complete.
He’s already thought of everything I wanted.
Everything I need. Everything that would help my parents and make their lives easier.
The Fox will not be able to toy with us again, not if the shop is ours outright, and the boat, too.
And a second house, in Tundra Springs! Mother would love that.
I bet she could have carriage rides, grand cloaks with dyed furs, and father could have a gold pocket watch, like the one he sold to pay for Amos’ funeral.
“What must I do as queen?”
The question popped out, surprising her.
“You will oversee the ruling of the kingdom with me. You will have to learn a great deal, I’m sure, but you don’t seem afraid of hard work.”
“I’m not.”
He smiled, and her stomach tried to jump up and punch her throat. He had sharp, vicious fangs tucked in at the corners of his normal human teeth. She wondered if it was true that Bears could not only show themselves as Bear and human, but also as Bearfolk, those half-human, half-beast mysteries.
Do I want to be married to such a creature? Bedded by one?
“Traditionally, the queen has always dealt with social and domestic matters, and my mother—not my stepmother—” he snarled out the word, “divided tasks with my father. He oversaw the military and agriculture; she oversaw education and the Ministry of Health. He handled treaties and alliances, trade and commerce, and she was—they say she was a formidable diplomat, who solved endless stalling with dinner and dancing.”
“I don’t know how to dance.”
“Nor do I, not well. But there is a ball to come this Saturday, and if we are together, we can pretend to be so infatuated with one another’s company that we sit and whisper all night long. We will just need to take one turn around the floor to appease the masses.”
Jocasta found herself smiling, both at this hidden weakness and the fact that he shared a secret plan to avoid showing it.
“But I know nothing about diplomacy and education. Health, perhaps, and fishing—”
“We will learn together, divide together. Even your presence in the royal family will make life in Caledon better.”