“Of course, Your Highness. Is it an instrument you’d like to practice? Or, I have heard humans are fond of libraries, we do have a number of—”
“No, no, nothing as involved as all that. I’d just like a spinning wheel, roving, and maybe a pair of knitting needles? Nothing too excessive, of course,” I add as her nose scrunches up.
“It is not typical for nobility—royalty—to partake in such lowly labor,” she argues, but she knows as well as I do that it’s futile.
“I don’t think I’m technically either one of those until the king and I are wed. Besides, the alternative is I keep following him around until I get what I want, and I don’t know if you’ve heard about what happened earlier, but he doesn’t appreciate my presence lingering. I believe it is in all of our interests to help the king avoid sour moods when possible—times are trying enough, don’t you agree?”
“I—yes?” Morwen stammers, but I don’t give her a moment to reconsider.
“Wonderful! I’d like it to be set up in the next day or two, thank you,” I say, taking special care to leave no room for her to interpret it as anything other than what it is: a decree from her future queen.
It’s not a role I ever expected to find myself in, and I certainly never thought I could be anything more than the meek and mild version of myself I’ve always known. But being in this strange land, knowing everything that is at stake, that version of Ingrid isn’t going to cut it.
There’s no telling what this demon realm will challenge me with next, but at least with a spinning wheel I’ll be able to keep my mind—and hands—busy. And away from wandering to thoughts of the scarred, emotionally unavailable demon who’ll be sleeping just across the hall.
Chapter Thirteen
Xandril
Of all the battlefields I’ve walked across, all the hopeless fights I’ve conquered, none have prepared me for this. Any of this. A crumbling kingdom, an untethered throne, a bride who wants nothing to do with me, and—maybe worst of all—yet another diplomatic meeting waiting for me in the war room.
While meeting with the nobility of my own reach has been challenging enough over these past months, things have now become so dire that our only hope is to ask for outside assistance.
I have to force myself to take long, slow breaths before joining the visiting delegations—high generals from Iron and an archdruid from Thorn. I can’t enter into this meeting with anything other than utter calm. Which is harder to attain than it should be; every time I come close to clearing my mind, I’m hit with a fresh wave of anger and disappointment. Not because Emerald is in need of allies, some wars can’t be won alone, but because our situation has only grown worse since I removed Farandir from the throne. And now, facing this meeting, there’s only one thought repeating again and again in my mind: was it a mistake to take his place?
The guards standing outside of the war room say nothing, but their eyes flick my way, a silent question hanging in the air while I delay the inevitable.
“Now.”
One guard jumps with a start at the sound of my voice, then hurries to open the door, announcing me to the room of collected representatives.
“High Generals, Archdruid,” I say, addressing both sides of the table in turn. “Thank you for agreeing to join me today.”
High General Cragborne makes a sound likehedidn’t agree to be here while H.G. Sundercrest leans toward the table, the eyebrow above his blind eye arched.
“Let’s skip the drinks and niceties,” he says. “We’ve got a long trip back home and we’d like to get going before the next blizzard hits.”
General Cragborne makes another displeased sound. “Place makes the Iron Fortress feel toasty.”
“You brought us here to talk about stopping the Wilds, right?” asks the third and final high general, Crushward. He’s the only one I’ve met before, and even then it was in passing at an exhibition tournament. “What’s your plan?”
Some of the tension I’ve been holding in my shoulders melts away. I should have expected this would go better than meeting with counts and duchesses—we generals may be from different lands, but we understand each other. The mission comes first, politeness can follow if there’s time after victory.
“Emerald is our last line of defense before they’re at our borders, and who knows what would… I mean, Ivory was small,isolated, Emerald is…” Sundercrest trails off, everyone at the table able to finish the thought for him.
It’s been centuries since Ivory Reach was claimed by the Wilds—long enough that no one really knows what happened or if it could have been prevented. Ivory, though, was home to arcane scholars and had very little to do with the other twelve reaches. Emerald is directly connected to half of them by geography, the other half still connected by our vast offering of exports. Food, wine, animal products, even timber are all largely produced here.
Our direct neighbors aren’t the only ones who are in danger. If Emerald falls to the Wilds, it’s the whole demon realm in jeopardy.
All the eyes in the room rest on me, waiting to hear my plan. The one I’d hoped they could help me devise because all my best efforts have been fruitless.
“So far we’ve been focusing our resources on the borders and trying to stop any further encroachment. Unfortunately, that alone is taking everything we’ve got, and our troops are at their limit. I don’t know how long we have before we start ceding territory.”
“When defense isn’t enough, you have to go on the offensive. You can’t outlast the Wilds. You have to beat them back,” says Cragborne.
“If you have no better plan, we have a suggestion,” Crushward adds, standing to loom over the map that covers the large table.
I nod for him to go on.
