“It has whatever bearing I say it does.” Atrialan arched one arrogant white brow. “As I said, if you want to see Princess Summer, you will answer my questions. I did not put any restrictions on what those questions would be about.”
Dilys’s back teeth ground together. “There is a particular pirate making a nuisance of himself in the Olemas. It’s nothing we can’t handle.”
“That’s not the impression I got. The ambassadors from Verma and Cho were here not long before your arrival. He told me a large band of pirates have allied together and all but brought Calbernan trade to a halt in that part of the world. He said the Calbernans had—let me see, what were his exact words?—ah, yes, ‘gotten their stones handed to them.’”
“The ambassador from Verma and Cho was here to make another offer from Maak Korin beda Kahn forMyerialannaAutumn, was he not?” Dilys didn’t wait for a confirmation. Everyone knew about the Maak’s obsession with making Autumn his. “No doubt he knew of my trip here and the reasons for it and was doing his best to undermine me in your eyes.”
“He’s not the only source. Word from Seahaven is that anyone who wants their goods to pass safely through the Olemas these days has to pay a toll to the pirates and can’t use either Calbernan ships or Calbernan escorts—or even have a single Calbernan on board, lest they find themselves targeted and sunk. They also say the pirates have sunk more than one Calbernan ship.”
Dilys swore silently. He’d hoped the true depth of the problem hadn’t become common knowledge.
“All right, yes,” he acknowledged. “We have a problem there. We are addressing it.”
“Hmm.” Wynter leaned back against the wall. “How does one sink a Calbernan vessel anyway? I thought you folk controlled every wave on the ocean.”
“We do. Sinking one of our ships is next to impossible, which means these pirates are no ordinary renegades. They have powerful magic on their side.”
“And they seem to have it in for Calberna. Sinking the ships of the undisputed masters of the seas.” Wynter arched a white brow and drawled, “It’s got to be a huge embarrassment.”
“Embarrassment isn’t the word I would choose, Your Grace,” Dilys informed him coldly. “My cousin Fyerin—beloved by my mother and me—was murdered by these pirates, his ship and all hands aboard, lost to the sea.”
Every bit of smug amusement wiped from Wynter Atrialan’s face, leaving sober sincerity behind. “I didn’t know. Forgive me. Losing someone you love is no laughing matter.”
“Ono,it isn’t. As you may know, Calbernans breathe underwater. Drowning us is no easier a task than sinking our ships. Yet these pirates managed it.” He felt the scrape of his claws digging into the top of the dressing table and forced his hands to relax. The rest of him, however, remained stiff as a board.
“It has been suggested that perhaps one reason for your interest in wedding a Season has to do with using her weathergifts to aid your navy. Possibly even to help battle the pirates.”
“I fight my own wars, Your Grace. And I’m hired by others to fight their wars as well, because I’m damned good at it.” Dilys gave a grim smile. He wasn’t just a mercenary. He was leader of one of the world’s most feared fighting forces.
“So if you marry a Season—and I’m not saying you will—there’s no way you’ll use her magic to take on pirates? Because, if you were hoping to use Gabriella that way, you can get back aboard your ship and sail home to Calberna right now. There’s no way in Hel I’d let you marry her so you use her or put her life at risk fighting pirates.”
It was Dilys’s turn to narrow his eyes. “You insult me most gravely to suggest I would ever put myliana’s life at risk. And like so many of Mystral’s male population, you seem to suffer from the misconception that women are somehow in need of a man’s governance. They aren’t. Myliana’s choices once we wed will be her own—not mine, and not yours either.”
“I think women are in need of—” Wynter broke off to give a bark of incredulous laughter. “Have youmetmy wife? Oh, wait. You have. On thefarkingbattlefield!”
“Point taken, Your Grace. Wintermen do tend to value the contributions and capabilities of women more so than most others.”
As quickly as it had come, Wynter Atrialan’s laughter ended, and Dilys found himself staring once more into the frosty, ice-blue eyes of the Winter King. “My answer to your using any of my sisters—but especially Summer—to fight pirates is no. I haven’t said anything before now because your courtship of Autumn and Spring hadn’t progressed to a point where I considered it necessary. But since you seem to have settled on Summer, that has changed. All the Seasons were gently raised, but Summer especially is too innocent and too gentle to be put in such a position. So, I’m telling you right now, I will not allow you to put her or any of the Seasons in harm’s way. And that decision has nothing to do with valuing their abilities or believing they need governance, and everything to do with protecting my own. Which I assure you, Sealord, I fully intend to do.”
“Yet I stood beside your pregnant wife on a battlefield as we faced down the Ice King together,” Dilys reminded him gently. Wynter’s eyes started to swirl with white flurries. Dilys pushed away from the dresser and folded his arms. “I understand your concerns, Your Grace, and I appreciate your determination to protect the women in your family. But per my contract with your wife, I have the right to court the Seasons of Summerlea—allof the Seasons of Summerlea, which includes Gabriella. A contract, may I remind you, that I paid for with many Calbernan lives. Now I have patiently submitted to your inquisition, and I have answered all your questions. If you have any others, they can wait until later. Right now, I am going to see Gabriella. Then, I am going to court Gabriella. And when she consents to become myliana—which I assure you, Your Grace, she will—I’m going to marry Gabriella. As for what happens after that, she will choose her own battles and follow her own conscience. Whatever she chooses, I will give my life and the lives of every man under my command—every man in Calberna, if necessary—to keep her safe.”
“Well?” Scarcely two seconds after Wynter returned to his office on the other side of the palace, the door near his desk opened, and Khamsin swept in. “What do you think?”
He eyed his wife, noting the cobwebs clinging to her white-streaked black curls. “I think you’re in no condition to go snooping through dusty secret passages to spy on palace guests.”
“Oh, pooh. What’s the point of having secret passages if you can’t use them to snoop? I was very careful and perfectly safe. Don’t try to change the subject. What do you think of Dilys?”
“I think I still don’t like him.” He turned his chair and opened his arms to gather his wife on his lap.
She laughed and kissed him and ran her hands down his cheeks. “You will, once you get to know him better.”
“I doubt it. I think he’s planning to use Summer’s magic to fight his enemies, and I don’t like it.”
“I fought your enemies.”
“Not because I planned it that way. I would have stopped you if I could.”
“It’s a good thing for all of us that you didn’t. And Dilys Merimydion did everything he could to keep me safe. Including sacrificing far too many of his best men. He did what was right and he helped save all our lives. Which is a damn sight more than my brother or father or many of my own countrymen did.”
