“Leola. I love you. Do you not understand anything? I love you… I must take care of you. If I cannot… think! If I cannot find a solution, I cannot… take your maidenhood.” He dropped to his knees and gripped her fiercely, suddenly. “I cannot leave you to that fate. You could… marry in your own land, could you not?”
Tears welled up in Leola’s eyes. The cold feeling in her chest that had now become familiar—the ache of love—built up until she believed she could not stand it.
“It is a maze, my love,” Sedrak growled. “And I cannot find the exit.”
Leola sobbed, and he pulled her close to him.
“I have given my word to my uncle, to the people. I can defy him, and dishonor myself, and I do it gladly… but should I do so, where will that leave you? I have thought of it all night, my love. You must return home—”
“No!” Leola cried, balling her fists and struggling to beat them upon his chest. “I will not! I cannot—”
“Listen to me!” Sedrak barked, holding her so tightly that her flailing fists fell against his back uselessly, like rain on solid rock. “You know I am right. You will do as I say.”
“I will not,” Leola sobbed. “I love you, I will not go home—”
“If you love me, you will go home as I command,” Sedrak said with finality. “You will return a maid, and you shall marry, and I shall honor my oath. It is the only way.”
Leola tried to speak, but her chest was too tight to allow the words to escape. She knew he was right, she knew in her heart that he was thinking only of her. “There must be a way,” she complained uselessly.
But suddenly, she went stiff, and her crying ceased. “Sedrak,” she whispered. She pushed against him, so that she could look up at his face. “Why must you form an alliance with the Eastern lands?”
Sedrak looked back at her, and she saw a great tiredness in his eyes. “My love,” he said patiently, as though speaking to a child. “This is a matter of politics, matters for men—”
“But why? Tell me why you must form this alliance. With the Eastern lands, what of the Eastern lands?”
Sedrak searched her eyes questioningly. “They are… rich with wealth and resources. Their armies rival our own. We wish to bring a permanent peace between our lands.” He rolled back onto his heels. “It is a marriage of convenience, crucial to the fate of our people. The Easterners do not wage war against us but only because they fear loss. Should word arrive to them that we are weakened… by our enemies to the South, by the true barbarians to the West, from the raiders to our North, all of whom threaten our land, at this crossroad… they shall seize upon the weakness and exploit it. Unless.” He stopped there, shaking his head, for they both knew what ‘unless’ meant.
Leola blinked, tears falling from her eyes, her mouth open as she thought. She knew nothing of politics, she had never wanted to know. Her place in her kingdom had been to… to what?
“Ryken has no heir,” she said aloud. She looked at Sedrak. “My uncle has no heir. Our land is bordered by great mountains, that no army can cross.”
Sedrak looked at her blankly for only a moment.
“Master,” she began.
“Sedrak,” he said in a low voice.
“Sedrak,” she said, the word making her heart flutter. “Why did my uncle go to your lands to steal?”
Sedrak’s face turned dark. “He is a cruel barbarian, and a thief—”
She held up a hand, placing it on his chest, rising to her knees. She spoke quickly, the ideas bursting in her mind, her mouth unable to keep up with them. “What if he is not? What if he invades because we have no resources? What if he would… welcome an alliance? What if his heir was also heir to your lands? What if then, the Eastern kingdom knew that its neighbor to the West was a vast land, that your lands would not be raided by the South? Because you are one with them? Would that not keep the Eastern kingdom… at bay?”
She used this final phrase with some insecurity, for she had never spoken of politics or war, and the language of such talk was unfamiliar to her.
Sedrak looked, at first, skeptical. He began to shake his head, and her heart plunged. But then he stopped, and stared through her, thinking.
“Leola Grace,” he said, shifting his focus to her. He pressed his lips together. “You are quick of wit.”
“Then it will work?” she cried excitedly. “You can marry me, and then all will be well!”
Sedrak pulled her to him and stroked her hair. “Itmaywork,” he said. “It may. But we must speak to my uncle. And then there is the matter of your uncle—will he pass the throne to you? Will your people follow?”
Leola didn’t know. She only knew that, for the first time, she felt hope.
Chapter 16
Grudin glowered from his throne, a fearsome look upon his face. Leola steeled herself by looking over his head, above him, and by thinking of Sedrak’s warmth, his love, and how she might have it forever, if only this moment went as they hoped.
