Chapter Eight
“This is General Raghnall and his wife, Lady Somerlynn. My parents.” Cole guided Jocasta to a man of imperious stature and a gorgeous, glowing woman with flaxen hair, standing as tall as her huge husband.
Jocasta felt like a piece of bait, even though she was dressed in something that would have emptied the bank vaults at Frost Hills and Alban Leigh combined.
“I am so pleased to meet you,” she said in a low, carefully controlled voice.
“What a lovely tone. Very melodious,” Lady Somerlynn said.
Cole winked and whispered. “They’re going to look after you until Girion’s done greeting everyone. When you’re announced, go straight in, up the path,” Cole pointed to a long silvery runner that went from the doors of the ballroom to a single throne at the other side.
“I know, then I curtsey and go stand to the side.” She had read and re-read the guides that had been thrust at her.
“You will be saved until last, so it’ll be a long wait, but then you will be close to Girion, and he will take your arm straight away. That’ll start tongues moving the right way.”
General Raghnall snorted.
“His dancing shoes pinch. He wants his boots,” Lady Somerlynn said, patting Jocasta’s arm. “Pay no attention to him.”
“If his shoes pinch, perhaps he has a blister?” Jocasta thought, too late, that discussing foot ailments might be rude.
“Just painful from years of leading missions on foot in this cold,” Raghnall grunted.
Jocasta smiled, nodded, and thought about blood and air, water, and earth.
Support. Strength. Water rushing, blood flowing better, the blood in a body forming a bridge and repairing the broken things she could suddenly see in her mind.
Torn bits of sinew and flesh that needed to be bound back together.
Raghnall gasped and clutched at his son’s shoulder suddenly, rocking from foot to foot.
“Better, General?” Jocasta whispered.
The General simply stared. He took a tentative, rocking step forward and back, a look of relief and awe on his face. “Why... Why, how?” He appeared to be at a loss for words.
Lady Somerlynn looked delighted. “How wonderful! It is always so useful to have a mage in one’s circle, isn’t it, dear?”
“My feet! My feet!” The General hissed, doing a little jig in place.
“Settled down, Raghnall, you’ll rumple your good cloak.”
“We can dance, Somer, we can dance like we did when we were just young things,” the general crowed, and put his arm around his wife’s waist.
“Take good care of her,” Cole said, kissing his mother’s cheek and saluting his father.
“I can take care of myself,” Jocasta insisted, but nonetheless, she was glad when Lady Somerlynn whisked her around to meet the other general’s wives and introduced her as “Miss Jocasta Waterman, Mage.”
GIRION PACED. TUGGED. His robes were new and stiff.
The leather overlays were stiffer still and smelled faintly of leather polish and burning from the branded markings on his chestplate, the seal of Caledon and fancy scrollwork.
He looked handsome and regal, according to the Master of the Wardrobe, but he creaked and clinked when he greeted his generals with a handshake and their wives with a bow.
When nobles arrived, the bowing increased, with his guests bowing from the waist and him nodding his head in acceptance of their gestures.
He was going to have a stiff neck by the end of the night.
“Archduke and Archduchess Reynard, and their daughter, Lady Renata.”
Curses filled his thoughts, and his mouth refused to smile.
The Archduke walked in with his arms out, as if embracing a dear son, neglecting to escort his wife the entire way to the throne. His daughter trailed behind, purposefully creating an island of space around her so everyone could observe her.
Objectively, he had to admit that she was something to look at, dazzling in dark violet and black, hair in some outlandish festoon of jewels and pins.
“A great night, Girion, my boy!” Reynard whispered, patting his hand with too much familiarity.
“It is, indeed. A wonderful night,” Girion said, looking past the cunning man and into the hall beyond the ballroom. There was only one guest left— Jocasta, stunning in silver and blue.
“It will be better still, Your Majesty, when I give my gift. A little token of magic,” Lady Renata announced in a voice that was high and reedy, yet carried through the entire room. “Warmth, for our icy host,” she caroled, clapping her hands.
Girion smothered a gasp as flames burst through the air, circling and vanishing without a trace of smoke, making the air temporarily warmer.
“Thank you,” he managed to grunt out as the room burst into noisy applause.
“There is so much more where that came from.” Renata smiled in a way that made him think of bones stripped of flesh, something too skeletal and unsettling in the look she gave him.
He far preferred Jocasta’s round cheeks, her wide smile, and the open, friendly sparkle in her eyes.
“It’s nice to see a mage in the palace, isn’t it?” Reynard murmured.
“You have no idea,” Girion agreed as Jocasta stepped forward. She waited, a silvery silhouette now outlined in the ballroom doorway.
“It’s very obvious that such a person would be the best choice for a Queen—if you want this kingdom to flourish, not wither,” Lady Renata said loudly enough that several nobles turned their heads.
“Miss Jocasta Waterman, Mage!”
Girion could not help the broad smile that spread across his face as Jocasta entered, and the Archduke’s entire family gasped and whirled like three wooden puppets on strings.
Jocasta moved through the crowd of surprised faces, smiling at the guests she’d already met.
Wherever her gaze landed, spring flowers grew, pushing up through the cracks in the smooth stone floor, until there was a natural feeling of warmth and the scent of growing things in the ballroom, and people were gasping and pointing.
Girion met her several feet before his throne, something he had not done for any other guest, something he never did. People came to him. On the battlefield, in an emergency, he would lead his men and come to his people. In his palace, at his throne? He was the destination.
Jocasta is my kingdom’s destination. Caledon’s safe harbor. He bowed first, low, until his braid nearly touched the floor when it dangled over his shoulder. He could hear startled gasps and whispers, and an angry mew from Lady Renata.
Jocasta curtseyed lower still, either to show her greater respect or because she refused to be outdone.
Either way made Girion smile, especially when he caught the faint wobble as her balance tried to desert her.
He quickly took her hand as she began to rise, ensuring she seemed steady and graceful to their assembled audience.
Vines shot up his arm, from hers, and the brief flash of anger he felt that she had used her magic on him quickly vanished when he saw her startled expression and the beads of sweat trailing down the sides of her face.
This kind of magic... He didn’t even know how she was doing it, but a silvery evergreen twig appeared on his shoulder, mirroring the crest of Caledon on his other shoulder and across his chest.
Girion tossed a look over his shoulder, and the conductor, now of a much larger orchestra, immediately began to play a rollicking tune.
He slid his arm around her.
“We can’t dance to this, it’s too fast. We’re hopeless,” Jocasta whispered faintly.
“I’m going to keep your feet off the floor and just... circle around,” he whispered back, pulling her closer. “Everyone, welcome! Everyone dance!” It was hardly an orthodox way to begin a ball, but that was not unexpected of him. He had always run a little roughshod over protocol.
Jocasta sank against him, heavily. “Your foxy friends look stunned.”
“So does everyone else. Whispers are starting. People are dancing.”
“I’m going to get seasick if you keep bouncing us around like this,” Jocasta hissed.
“You call yourself a fisherwoman.”
“Just let me down. I shouldn’t have tried so hard to upstage Lady Renata.”
“You made it look easy.”
“It wasn’t, it was exhausting, but I feel better when I’m touching you.”
He swallowed hard and whirled them, as smoothly as possible, whirling them until they were against a wall, and then behind a huge tapestry that covered it.
“What’s this?” Jocasta whispered as they stood in a stone alcove with a door behind their backs.
“Every room in the palace has visible doors, but also some hidden ones. This one is hidden. We don’t need to escape; I just wanted you to catch your breath.” Girion hesitated, then used the edge of his cloak to pat her brow and cheeks. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her. “You would say that even if you were not.”
Jocasta’s little smirk and silence told him he was right, and that brought out greater worries. What if she were in pain and she wouldn’t say? How could he protect her?
What about their wedding night—not that they would have one in the traditional sense, but if they ever did, how would he know he wasn’t hurting her? What about birthing an heir? That was natural pain, expected pain, but he was so much bigger than her, and their child—
“Now you look sick. Is it that Fox?” Jocasta put a hand on his cheek, directing his eyes to hers.
“No. I want you to promise to tell me if you are not well, or if you are ever overexerting yourself, or exhausting yourself.”
Jocasta looked surprised. “When your parents have enough to worry about, and you spend most of the day alone, most of the worst moments of the day alone, you get used to keeping your troubles to yourself.”
Girion nodded. “Well, that is true enough. But you are not alone now.”
“No, and I am better. If we stay hidden back here much longer, we’ll have more company than we could wish.”
“Come, into this passage. It circles back behind where the orchestra is located. People will think we circled the room.”