“I am madly in love with my wife.” Ari clapped me on the shoulder. “Your father knows this,youknow this.”
“I’ve grown up retching at the sight of you being odiously in love, Ari. This will not be the same.”
The king hesitated. “But it wasn’t always that way. We were tossed into a circumstance that forced us to be near each other. To learn of each other. To feel something more. You made this choice, and your intentions are good, but is that where it ends?”
“This isn’t about love, this is about peace. Don’t mistake me, I told the elven king I would see to it the princess is content, but this is larger than any one person. I don’t want another war, Ari.”
“I understand all that, I do. But the question remains: will you not try to make this something greater? Why can love not be part of it?”
To keep the princess content enough she did not wish to entertain the notion of Arion, was all I had planned beyond this day. I did not need to love her to do it.
In my silence, Ari gripped my shoulder. Like the other kings of the earth fae realms, Ari had been a second father to me and Sander. A man of jests and taunts, but in this moment he was wholly sincere.
“Happiness is all your mother and father want for you.” He gave my arm a slight shake. “That is all any of us want. If there is no hope that it may come from this decision, don’t tell him, but I am keen to share your father’s worries.”
I’d always been the feckless prince, the rake who bedded women well, but never asked for more.
Skadinia did not care for me, and I had no desire to care for her. We could find a bit of comfort around each other, perhaps, but to want more would be reckless.
I’d tried to demand it of myself over and over the whole of the morning.
But . . . I was the fool who’d stepped close to her on that damn shore last night. My hands touched her warm skin. Then I saw the hidden fire in those crystalline eyes, and the craving to have another dose would not leave.
It damn near tortured me.
“Happiness or not, I am seeing this through, Ari.”
“Then I suppose it is time for you to absorb my stunning advice on how to make the most of it.”
“There isn’t much time?—”
“Hush and listen. You’ll be inspired soon enough.” The king held up three fingers. “You do not know each other well, but find something that brightens her days. No matter what it is, seek to grant her that, simply to watch the joy fill her eyes.” He waggled his second finger. “Give her your trust in her strengths, her ideas, and learn to trust her with yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
Ari smiled. “Those secrets you think we don’t know are in there—they should belong to her now.”
The king would be disappointed, but I would never let her in on the weakest part of me. I hardly accepted the notion of Sander and my mother and father knowing.
“And finally, work at the first two every day until she is the one you want at your side on a battlefield.”
Unexpected. “How is that important?”
Ari leaned a bit closer. “In that moment, when she is the only one you want standing with you against a foe, that is when you will know you’ve fallen in love with your wife.”
My family was waiting in the corridor.
Ari followed me and glared at my father. “You seem to have forgotten the last twenty turns of my adoration toward my wife. She’ll be horridly offended you think I’d carry any regrets. I plan to tell her, you shadowy sod.”
My father merely grunted and turned away from his fellow king.
This was one final, desperate attempt to put a halt to this alliance.
Ari let out a long breath and took my mother’s hand, pressing a kiss to the top. “Have it be known, I imparted my majestic words of advice, and I believe we still have vows to attend. Don’t look at me like that.” He glanced at my father again. “He is a grown man, what would you have me do? Chain him to the floor?”
Daj folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not above it.”
My mother stood at my father’s shoulder. A beautiful queen, but vicious in her own right. Her hair was braided around a jagged black circlet, and her bright eyes looked wet with worry.
