He hummed to himself. Just how thin was the line between brute and barbarian anyway? He had spilled enough blood, cut down enough enemies, to be considered both. But it was not the brutality of his methods that bothered his mother – she was a queen of Gevra after all – rather it was his willingness to get his hands dirty, to scuff his own knuckles, instead of drawing his sword and issuing a deeper, cleaner punishment. But Alarik liked his way better. It was more personal, more rewarding. He revelled in the crunch of his enemy’s nose under his fist,blood foaming in their teeth. In this eerie calm before the gathering war, every strike made him feel useful. It made him feel like his father.
‘What is it that you need, Mother?’ he said, when she continued to linger.
‘I’m here about Elva. The princess is bored stiff, Alarik. Most days, I see her drifting through the palace like an unmoored vessel.’
He leaned back, propping his leg across his knee. ‘What a luxury,’ he remarked. ‘What I wouldn’t give to bebored.’
His mother loomed over him, firelight gilding the silky veil of her hair. ‘Elva has been here for two weeks, and you’ve only taken tea with her twice.’ She wrinkled her nose, and for a moment she looked so like Anika that Alarik’s heart panged for his younger sister. ‘Once, if you don’t count the day that snow leopard turned.’
Alarik bristled at the memory. But when he cast his mind back to that dread-filled morning, it was not Princess Elva he thought of. Not her grand arrival to a chorus of drumbeats, nor their meeting in the entrance hall or even the conversation they had enjoyed over tea shortly thereafter.
No, that was the day that Alarik had seen the Iversen girl for the treasure she truly was. A wrangler who not only fought for his beasts but cared for them. Trained them and tended to them, sang to soothe them, and even went out of her way to bury their dead …
She was willing to go to war for them. And they would go to war for her, too. Which meant they would go to war for him. As long as his wrangler was kept safe. And crucially – alive.
‘Alarik?’ His mother gently flicked his nose, and he looked up, blinking away the fleeting memory of those snowy cubs, and the woman who guarded them with the ferocity of a leopard. ‘Are you listening to me? Go and entertain your bride before she changes her mind about you and goes home.’ She left a meaningful pause. ‘Taking the promise of her army with her.’
He scrubbed his hands across his face, wishing he could wipe away the entirety of his mother’s plan, which seemed to be spiralling further from his control with each passing day. She spoke again, quietening the storm of defiance inside him. ‘This might not be what you want right now, but this alliance is what your kingdom needs. It’s what your father would want.’
Alarik slumped in his chair. ‘Fine,’ he said, with a scowl.
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that to your face. You’re so handsome when you smile.’
‘I’m surprised you remember,’ he muttered.
She leaned forward, covering his hand with her own. ‘You will find cause to smile again, son. We both will.’
I’ll smile when I mount Queen Regna’s head on a pike, he thought, viciously.
His mother rose and swept from the library, her pale blue gown trailing along the marble floor behind her. Alarik watched her go. Then, with great reluctance, he dragged himself from his hard-fought solitude and went in search of his future bride.
By the time he found Princess Elva tinkling on the pianoforte in the music room, a blizzard had kicked up. The snow was coming down with a vengeance, frosting the spires of Grinstad Palace and blanketing the lawns again. It was too cold for a walk.
Alarik paused in the doorway,half thinking about slinking away when Elva stopped playing. ‘Do you know how many people would kill to have an audience with me back in Halgard?’ Her words floated over her shoulder. ‘And yet the surly king of Gevra takes breakfast in his bedchamber, dinner in his war room and disappears into his own dungeons every other day to avoid me.’
Alarik stepped into the room. ‘I’m not avoiding you.’Any more.
‘Liar.’ She spun on the stool, casting her eyes on him. She was dressed in a velvet dress of pine green, her pale hair spun into a long, thick braid that traced the length of her spine. No jewels, no diadem, just that menacing pout. ‘What are you so afraid of, now that all our cards are on the table? That we might actually end up becoming friends?’
Alarik frowned. ‘I’m afraid that you’ll seek things from me that I cannot give you,’ he said, with stark honesty. ‘And the truth is, Elva, I have nothing to offer.’
There was nothing left inside him. Only war and regret, and grief for the people who had left him over the years – his brother, his father, his sister, his best friend. His heart was a hole through which the people he loved fell, down into death and oblivion. He could not afford to tuck anyone else inside it.
‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ said Elva, coming to her feet. ‘There must be a personality buried somewhere underneath all that angst.’
He shot her a scathing look.
She returned it. ‘You are a terrible host.’
‘Agreed,’ he said, slumping against the door frame.‘Now what?’
‘Try to be a marginally better one, and I won’t write to my father and declare this beautiful country of yours an utter lost cause.’
‘Are you blackmailing me?’ he said, with a snort.
She shrugged. ‘Call it what you want. Just get me out of this room. I’ve played this damned pianoforte so much my wrists are cramping.’
‘I was coming down here to invite you on a walk, but it seems the weather has other ideas.’
