Chapter 4
Four
Sorcha
“Ibloody work here!” I heard someone shouting from the porch.
I grabbed two of my cats from their boxes—the lone remnant of Neal’s organizational scheme—and slipped out into the hallway.
One of our guards, a new one, human and barely sixteen, was standing at the front door, arms crossed over his chest, scowling.
“Hiram,” I said, nudging past the young man. “Who’s this?”
“It’s after eight, Lady Sorcha,” was all Hiram said in reply. “Mr. MacCairn said nobody comes in after eight.”
I looked over the man standing on the porch.
He was tall and thin, his features gaunt.
Well dressed, but dirty from the road. He looked about fifty, but the complete lack of beard, exceptionally blue, upturned eyes, and subtle points at the tips of his ears meant he could be anywhere from just over three hundred to nearly a thousand—as he was undoubtedly an Elf.
“I’m Ansel O’Faelan,” the man said. “I worked for your father. Now I work for you. I’ve spent the last nine days riding like a maniac to get here. I’ve got papers in my bags, I just don’t want to go dig them out and get everything dirtier than it already is.”
There was no reason this couldn’t be Ansel. But I also had no proof that it was.
“Papers,” I said. “Then we’ll talk.”
He wandered off the porch and back toward the stables in a huff.
If Neal had drilled one thing into me over the past few weeks, it was not to take anyone at their word.
“If you insist,” the man grumbled, heading back toward his horse.
“Hiram, go fetch Mr. MacCairn,” I instructed. “He’ll be in his office or up in his room.”
The young man paused, frozen.
“I’m not supposed to go upstairs in my boots . . .” he trailed off.
“And who made that rule?” I asked.
“Um . . .” Hiram paused. “You did?”
“Right, so if I’m telling you to break it . . .” I hoped he would fill in the blank.
“Then I can go upstairs in my boots?” Hiram supplied.
“You can indeed. Now don’t dawdle.”
Ansel and Neal arrived on the porch near simultaneously. Ansel held out his papers, but before I had even a moment to look them over, Neal strode past and pulled the other man into an embrace.
“Ansel! Glad you got here in one piece.” Neal took the papers and glanced down at them casually, already herding Ansel past me and into the house. “Who’s asking for these?”
“Our new boss,” Ansel said.
“Office is back here,” Neal said, leading Ansel down the hallway.
“My office,” I tried to cut in, but they were still talking.
There were two more cats on my desk and a wood pigeon cooing demandingly at the window by the time I reached the door.
“So are you running a menagerie or a command post, lass?” Ansel asked, looking over the space. One of the cats in my arms hissed at him as I shouldered past and went to sit behind my desk.
“I’m running a working ranch,” I said. “Eighteen thousand head of cattle, last I checked. And that means barns and barns have mice, which means we need cats. Elven command post or not.”
“Speaking of, when are we moving the Court back somewhere civilized?” Ansel asked, sitting down across from me and putting his feet up on my desk. I nodded and one of the cats swiped at Ansel’s ankles hard enough to draw blood. He yelped and immediately put his feet back on the floor.
“We have more pressing issues,” I said, opening my top drawer and handing him the letter from Iksura indicating my claim on the Outer Court throne was illegitimate, another from her we’d received just this morning, and a sketch of the faceless creature that’d killed my father.
“So this is what killed your dad?” Ansel asked.
I nodded.
“We had two portals open in the span of an hour,” Neal said. “One released a smaller beast. No injuries. But the larger portal . . . and this . . . thing . . .”
He trailed off, gesturing vaguely.
“And now Iksura’s saying your claim on the title is illegitimate,” Ansel said, raising an eyebrow as he read through the letters. “And she’s sending you suitors?”
“She’s doing what?” Neal asked. “You didn’t tell me she was—”
“It came in this morning,” I cut him off. “I’ve barely had time to read it. Besides, you were out on the town perimeter with the new guards all day.”
“So she wants control of the Outer Court,” Ansel said. “And while I’m almost positive this legal claim is bullshit, we can’t be sure without running it past our archivists.”
“I’d surmised as much,” I replied coolly.
“So,” Ansel said, leaning back in his chair, “High Lady. What’s our next move? I have thoughts of course, but I want to hear yours.”
“Neal and I are getting married in”—I checked my watch—“forty-two hours. Which should at least delay her plans for taking over the Court at least temporarily.”
“I like that,” Ansel said. “You two tie the knot. Make a baby. And then we’ll work on moving the Court back somewhere with resources and a bloody rail connection. You don’t even have telegraph out here.”
“Excuse me, could you back up for a moment?” I said. “You want us to do what?”
“Get married, have a baby,” Ansel repeated blithely. “Secure the line.”
I balked. Elven pregnancies were brutally dangerous, and the younger the mother the worse the outcomes tended to be.
“Neal?” I snapped. “Do you have thoughts on this?”
He startled, looking back and forth between me and Ansel, then finally stammered, “W-we shouldn’t r-rush and make e-errors. There’s logistics to be considered. And we’d of course need to weigh risks and benefits.”
“Operative word being risk,” I said, glaring at Ansel. Who the hell did he think he was? Showing up, refusing to present his credentials, and now suggesting I not only move across the continent, but that I do it pregnant.
“It’s not that bad,” Ansel drawled. “You look sturdy enough.”
“Reconsider your word choice,” I snapped.
Neal rubbed his temples, closed his eyes, and sighed.
“Maternal mortality for Elven pregnancies sits at one in six from the last figures Iksura’s healers circulated two years back, stillbirth and infant loss hovers around one in three,” I said.
“I don’t like those odds. Especially not when a power-hungry psychopath is trying to take over my ancestral seat so she can make seeing a cryptid a capital offense. ”
“You’ve plenty of resources,” Ansel insisted. “We’ll beat the odds. I’m sure of it.”
“My mother had every resource in the damn world and she bled out upstairs,” I retorted. Neal winced.
“We’ll table it for now,” Ansel conceded, raising his hands in surrender. “In the meantime—we’ve got a wedding to plan, now don’t we?”
The wedding went fine. That was the strongest word I could convince myself to use.
Nokona had sourced a fantastic dress—especially with so little notice—blue silk woven with pink, lavender, and ivory florals.
The neckline was fashionably low and might well prompt a lecture from the priest once he’d had a few drinks.
There were rows of tiered ruffles on the skirt and careful beadwork highlighting the flowers on the bodice.
The ceremony was stiff and formal and biblical, exactly like I’d expected.
But at the end, when Father Julio had smilingly instructed Neal to “kiss his new bride,” he’d kissed my forehead.
Like a child.
I was still fuming.
Now at the reception, Neal was reviewing protocol with our new guards, again.
And I was seated, alone, watching the townsfolk drink and eat and dance and enjoy themselves.
I felt absolutely no desire to join in. Just a strange hollowness under my sternum that seemed far too liable to turn into seething rage.
This was not how I’d imagined my wedding. No father to give me away. A groom who wouldn’t so much as hold my hand. The stifling aura of political tension from Iksura’s incessant meddling.
I braved the crowd to grab a whiskey—half hoping Neal would come scold me about it so we could at least be in proximity. Barring that, I could search him out and attempt to drag him back to our table.
He didn’t have to be in love with me.
Fine.
But we’d thrown this idiotic party to put on a show for the townsfolk. The least he could do was make an effort. But as soon as I got my whiskey, I found myself face to face with a tall, immaculately dressed Elven man I’d never seen before.
Who I could only assume was someone sent from the Inner Court.
“You, I would have to assume, are the new High Lady Sorcha?” the man asked, taking my hand and kissing it. My skin crawled, and I wrenched my hand back like I’d been burned.
The man’s expression was disinterested, eyes nearly vacant. He froze in place as I pulled away from him, his hand still hovering in the air from where he’d kissed mine.
“Who’s asking?” I snapped, shouldering past him and scanning the crowd for Nokona, Ansel, Neal, somebody.
“My name is Alexi Donavan,” the young Elf said, following closely behind. “I came under High Lady Iksura’s instructions. Instructions that say you and I are to wed.”
“Little late for that,” I said sharply, turning around and gesturing first at my dress and my veil, then my ring, and then the party.
“I’d assumed this was . . . some quaint Mexican folk festival?” Alexi asked, glancing around the plaza with an air of utter derision.
“My wedding?” I asked dryly. “You think my wedding is some ‘quaint Mexican festival’?”
“There are a lot of people in the town square,” Alexi offered by way of explanation.
I cut him off with a glare.
“Why wasn’t word sent to the Inner Court?” He pivoted. “I hardly think Lady Iksura would approve of a match that produced such an unconventionally common celebration.”