Chapter Eight #2
“With every eye looking at you? Not to mention you are nearly a head over almost everyone else—I don’t think they’ll believe that.”
“They’re not looking at me. They’re looking at you. They’ve seen me before.”
Girion took her hand and led her through the door, passing several other doors in the narrow stone hall. The last door opened back into the rush of noise and color of the crowded ballroom.
When the song ended, they were by the wall, clapping for the orchestra and the bowing conductor.
Girion realized that every eye did immediately attach to them, but they were neither locked on him nor on Jocasta. They moved between them.
They know.
Good.
Girion put his arm through Jocasta’s, and they walked the edge of the room, keeping out of the way of the dancing guests. “We’re going to sit until the music slows.”
“Thank goodness.”
“They seem not to be looking at either of us as much as the two of us together,” he murmured, and stopped near the stairs, beckoning to the steward.
The steward, who looked more like a hardened warrior who had been crammed into formal attire, had a surprisingly mellifluous voice. “Yes, sire?”
“Where is the Queen’s throne?”
If the steward was surprised, he didn’t show it. “In the treasure room, sire.”
Jocasta’s eyebrows arched. “A room full of treasure?”
“Not like you’d think,” he sighed. “Have it put next to mine.”
“Now, sire? In the ballroom?”
“Yes, and when the ball is done, put it in the throneroom. Next to mine.”
“Of course, sire.”
“What are you doing?” Jocasta hissed. “You don’t expect me to—”
“I expect you to sit beside me and pretend I’m being very clever, and I will pretend you are unspeakably enchanting,” he whispered. “Just as we discussed.”
“But you can’t ignore all these people. And isn’t that some terrible breach of manners to sit on someone else’s throne?”
“When you are my wife, I’ll have a new one made for you if you like.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
Girion pulled her away from where a little knot of eavesdroppers was beginning to congregate. “If the king requests you to sit somewhere, it would be poor manners to decline.”
“I think it depends on where he asks you to sit!” Jocasta bickered back in an undertone.
Girion knew she was saying she didn’t think she should sit on the throne, not until she was officially the Queen of Caledon, but he was surprised at what other images tumbled into his mind.
Sit on my lap, little wife.
At first, the images were clothed, her arms around his neck, their lips meeting.
And then his voice was deeper, huskier, and his hands were on her hips, her bare hips, guiding her down to his length. “Sit on me, little wife. Let me inside. Let me fill you. I want to make you feel so good, so wonderful—the way I feel around you.”
“Ah! Girion!”
Curses. He’d stopped in his tracks, frozen by thoughts and a sudden worry about walking.
Just long enough for Archduke Reynard and his wife and spawn to confront him.
“Enjoying the festivities, Reynard? Ah, may I present Miss Jocasta Waterman?”
Reynard’s eyes blinked too rapidly for Girion’s liking. “Waterman? I don’t know the family.”
“You’ll meet them in a week or so,” Girion said, his smile wide, his eyes cold and suddenly hungry.
“A mage. A human mage. How unusual,” the Archduchess murmured, her eyes brushing past Jocasta as if trying to look away from an unpleasant side.
“Which part?” Jocasta asked, tone even. “Being human, or being a mage?”
“Either,” said Lady Renata in a cold, clipped voice, her eyes sparking in fury.
“It’s true that there are fewer humans beyond Tundra Springs.
Most live closer to the borders of Wyndwood.
You—I mean your Prince, must have thousands of human subjects.
” Girion kept the same measured tone as Jocasta, and he felt a tingle of warmth where her arm met his.
We are a united front. The unbreakable bulkhead of this kingdom.
Not even the Foxes with their pricking tongues will undo a single weld in our armor.
“I am certainly delighted to be in such excellent company where there are so many humans in positions of power. The fact that the entirety of Wylding is ruled by Shifter Kings causes uneasiness in some quarters—but not Caledon,” Jocasta said loyally, seeming to cling closer.
She even tossed him what was supposed to be an adoring look.
It was very convincing. Too convincing. Girion had to swallow, and that gave Lady Renata time to loose another verbal barb.
“I suppose it is a rather quaint method of appeasing people, to put a commoner in among the nobles and betters.”
“Hm. Do you think that it’s a noble manner of thinking to place people’s worth based on the family they are born into?” Jocasta countered.
Renata nicks.
Jocasta maims.
“I am sure that is not at all what my daughter meant! We are most progressive in Wyndwood. Why, we are one of the few Kingdoms that insist that a ruler be wed before he can have the full rights as king. The value of a woman is unparalleled in our kingdom,” Reynard scrambled to repair the matter, but Girion was satisfied that enough of those hovering about him had overheard Renata’s insult and Jocasta’s volley.
“May I have the honor, Miss Jocasta, if it is permissible to you, sire? I wish to thank the mage and show off her handiwork.” General Raghnall appeared at his side and bowed.
“Of course,” Girion said, reluctantly letting Jocasta go into the arms of his most trusted general and the father of his dearest friend. “Perhaps I can tear myself away from our guests from Wyndwood long enough to dance with dear Lady Somerlynn?”
“If you can pry her away from Bishop Stoddard.”
“Oh, well, Lady Renata has been hoping for a dance with you, Girion!” Reynard said, maneuvering his daughter into Girion’s arms.
Girion grit his teeth. He could not dance to this fast waltz. He did not truly want to dance with anyone but Jocasta.
He hated balls. Too many people watching, expecting him to have manners.
“A pleasure,” he muttered, and was thankful the next song had slowed. A pleasure for some, but not for others. I am indeed one of the others!
“Where did you find her?” Lady Renata asked without any concealment of her dislike. “My father said you were in desperate need of a bride with magic in her blood. That’s what you unearth from this icy wasteland?”
Wasteland?
His Bear reared inside of him, fighting to the front.
Which is what she wants. To make you look savage. To make Jocasta look like a poor choice.
Something about Jocasta’s mere presence made it easier to think at his best, to act with the heightened senses he used when training and leading his men.
She is the prize. Can’t be taken. The hill that must be defended.
“Wasteland, yes. On the surface, it’s funny how much of Caledon looks so stark, and yet we have more gold and precious metals than any other of the Winter Kingdoms. We conceal some of our most beautiful, powerful assets under a layer of common snow, don’t we?
” he said in a voice that he barely recognized, oozing with charm.
Renata was silent for an entire turn about the floor, but the song was not over yet.
Girion thought there should be some universal signal that one could tip a conductor to make him hurry up.
“It’s obvious she is from Caledon—her magic smells of Air and Water. What this place truly needs to save the hot springs is a Fire mage.”
“Ah, but that would be too easy. Too soft.” Girion’s grip on her hand tightened, just enough to make her wince.
He loosened it with another smile, fangs prominent in his grin.
“Air has its own heat, you know. We catch it from the sun as it warms the world. Earth has its own heat. We pull it up from the ground, from the core, the heart of fire that spins our great sphere. It’s a heat you have to work for. ”
His eyes sought Jocasta, a small burst of blue against the taller, grizzled form of General Raghnall, both chatting away like old comrades.
By God, I will work for her to warm to me. Not to love me, necessarily. But to warm. To heat.
“Won’t that take too long? I hear ports are icing over. Hot springs are drying up, driving people from the settlements into the cities. Trade will dry up while you wait for her to learn enough manners to sit on the throne,” Renata pointed out in a falsely pleasant voice.
“Sit on a throne? Is that what you expect to do as a queen? The Queen of Caledon works, as do I, the king. When I marry, I will marry someone who knows the meaning of that word.”
“And someone who stinks of fish guts.”
Girion was too angry to wonder how she knew Jocasta came from a fishing village, that she had run a fishing boat and a fishmonger’s.
“Better she smell of something delicious than like old ashes,” Girion said, snapping his teeth shut too close to her face, loving how she recoiled.
“Don’t forget, polar bears adore fish, guts and all. We eat every scrap.”
Another unbidden thought sprang to his mind. He’d heard tales—what soldier hadn’t—of the ways that couples enjoyed each other. Tongues and hands, mouths and bodies locked and fused.
Jocasta didn’t smell of anything but warm rain and flowers, despite what Renata said, but now his mouth was watering as he wondered what a mouthful of his future bride would taste like. Like warmth. Like that sweet, slightly salty, aroused smell he had caught the faintest whiffs of in passing.
If she is warm rain, then I would drink her down, chase every drop, and pray to be caught in a cloudburst.
“I can smell your desire.” Lady Renata gripped his hand, and her callous words made Girion hiss in surprise.
“How dare—”
“How dare you act in such a way while dancing with a maiden, a maiden of royal blood?” she challenged, a dark smile on her face. “Should I announce that I can feel you pressing into me—”
“Then I will call you a harlot and shame you as a grasping whore who speaks of illicit things to the King’s face.
” He ripped his hands away from her and bowed as he backed away from her, his face white with anger as hers turned beet red.
“And if you persisted, I would be quick to declare that my love and my desire are only for Jocasta, the future Queen of Caledon.”
The music had stopped. Finally.
Loudly.
The silence was deafening—and the timing could not be worse.
Girion’s voice, even though it had been toned to a low, threatening rumble, had reached a dozen people, people who gasped, and who started to whisper to their neighbors who hadn’t heard.
He wasn’t sure how much of the exchange had happened once the music stopped, but he suspected it was only his ending—and not the insulting words he’d said, since the Archduke wasn’t shouting and storming up to him.
Naturally, that was when the steward and four of his guards came in with the throne on a wooden platform with wheels, working as discreetly as they could.
Which was not discreet at all, bringing in a large silver throne piled and draped with furs and padded with velvet through a crowded ballroom.
Jocasta gave him a panicked, puzzled look, fleeting and fast when she caught his eye, and then she composed her features.
“Well, I suppose this is as good a time to tell them as any, Your Majesty,” General Raghnall announced, squiring Jocasta back to the shifter king. “I have suspected for quite some time.”
Girion blessed every star that had ever aligned to put Raghnall in his inner circle and in his army. The man could pivot on the battlefield or a council, or, as it turned on, on the ballroom floor.
“Yes, General. Nothing escapes your keen eye. My friends and dearest subjects. I did not announce in my invitation why I was hosting this ball, but now you must know. It is in celebration of my upcoming marriage, and I ask you all to join us here again in three days’ time, to witness my wedding to the mage, Jocasta, and to see her crowned as Queen of Caledon.
Come, my darling, we’ll sit and discuss things with the bishop while the others carry on the merrymaking,” Girion exclaimed and held out his hands for Jocasta’s.
She took it, and he moved with her as if they had coordinated every step, walking to the thrones now sitting side by side—him gallantly helping her take her seat, her squeezing his hand, her eyes only on him.
“Wonderful news, sire!” Lord Arendale, Master of the Treasury, clapped his hands and beamed.
Soon, everyone else was doing the same.
Well, almost everyone. Archduke Reynard and his family seemed stunned, frozen in place. Flames flickered from Lady Renata’s fingertips.
JOCASTA WAS RELIEVED for it to be known, for people to come and greet her, and to be off her feet and spared from dancing.
She was relieved to hold Girion’s hand and to feel some measure of tension leaving her.
No one had rioted. Called her a fraud or unworthy.
There was one final dance at the end of the evening, slow at last, and she could feel waves of exhaustion seeping from both her and Girion.
It was nice to simply lean on his chest, failing at all formality, but then again, so was he.
“Three days?”
“I know, I’m sorry. I had thought a week, or even a month. But the ports are freezing. People are leaving the settlements. It’s all my fault. I waited too long—”
“If you hadn’t waited, you’d be with Renata instead of me.”
Jocasta grinned when she felt him embrace her, a real, genuine embrace, one of pure friendship, she was certain, accompanied by a low, thankful chuckle. “I am thankful, but I don’t want people to wait too long to feel relief. If your parents could be here tonight, I would ask—”
“I would say yes. But I am glad it gives my parents time to arrive.”
“And for us to meet with the bishop, for the stewards to send the invitations, for the cooks to make another banquet.”
“Still. At least now they know I am a mage, and I am going to be queen. That will be a comfort to know aid is on the way. Several people said that it already seems warmer.”
“Perhaps our bargain is enough to start the magic’s rejuvenation.”
“Perhaps. The main thing is—it’s done.” She let out a sigh against his chest.
“No. It’s about to start,” he whispered.