‘You forgot me,Your Majesty!’ he said, scrabbling to his knees.
Alarik rolled his eyes. ‘I didn’t forget you, Lief. I wasescapingyou.’
Lief gathered up his sticks and flowers and shoved them back into his satchel. ‘I heard you’re going to the grazing fields,’ he said, lunging to sit beside Alarik. The king shot out his arm, shooing him to the other bench. ‘That’s an hour’s ride from here. Perfect time to go over more wedding details!’ He smiled far too widely, glancing between the princess and the king, both of whom looked distinctly uninterested in his proposition. ‘Is it not?’
‘No,’ said Alarik flatly, before turning his entire body towards Greta, and looking at her like she was suddenly the most fascinating creature he had ever seen. The sudden intensity in his gaze made her squirm a little in her seat. ‘I will be speaking to my wrangler.’
‘For how long?’ said Lief, crestfallen.
‘Eons,’ said Alarik, without tearing his gaze from Greta. He idly toyed with the edge of her hood, the move so casually intimate, her throat dried out. ‘My wrangler and I havelotsto catch up on. Don’t we, Iversen?’
She summoned a smile, playing along. ‘Enough to fill at least two sled rides.’
To her surprise, the king smiled back and for a fleeting moment, the warmth in his gaze didn’t feel like a ruse at all.
CHAPTER 15
Alarik
The wrangler was expertly playing along with his diversion, reeling off all the training exercises she had been working on with his beasts. Alarik found himself leaning closer, drawn to the spark in her blue-grey eyes and the way her full mouth moved, fast and smiling, as she spoke.
Tor had been an exemplary wrangler – and a formidable soldier – but in all the time he had spent at Grinstad, he had never spoken about the beasts with such fondness. It was infectious – her unbridled enthusiasm – and what had begun as a ploy to ignore Lief soon became a conversation that Alarik wanted to pour himself into, just to hear her speak.
Across from him, Captain Vine and Princess Elva were engrossed in their own conversation about Halgard, leaving Lief to harrumph loudly as he shuffled through his satchel.
‘It’s elk, isn’t it?’ said the wrangler, in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Weaver elk from Halgard. That’s what’s in the grazing fields.’
‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ mused the king, but now that he could see the way her face lit up, he was glad she had figured it out.
She bounced in her seat,straining to see beyond the cresting mountains. ‘I’ve always wanted to see a weaver in the flesh. My father says they can run faster than a leopard on the hunt.’
‘And can skewer an armoured soldier with the point of their antler,’ said Alarik, with the same gleaming enthusiasm. ‘The mere tips of their horns are so poisonous a single prick can prove deadly.’
Her face fell, and he regretted his casual bloodlust, a thing that came naturally to him, but that he could see made her uncomfortable. These past few weeks, he had come to realize that while his wrangler loved his beasts, she did not care for his wars.
‘Ahem.’ Lief pitched forward in his seat, waving a limp bouquet of flowers back and forth. ‘I don’t mean to interrupt—’
‘Yes, you do,’ said Alarik, flatly.
‘But now seems like an ideal time to discuss centrepieces,’ he went on, valiantly undeterred.
Alarik frowned. ‘I don’t even know what a centrepiece is.’
Lief made a cry of alarm, startling Captain Vine and Princess Elva from their conversation.
‘A centrepiece is astatement, Your Majesty. A specially curated decoration around which your wedding guests congregate, a thing that echoes the beauty and grand majesty of your wedding. Your very union!’ He shoved the flowers forward. A petal tickled the underside of Alarik’s chin. ‘I was thinking orchids. Classic, timeless.Or, if you want to add a little flair, I suggest midnight lilies would work rather nicely.’
Alarik batted the flowers away,decapitating half of them. ‘How about we use the skulls of our enemies instead?’
Beside him, the wrangler stifled a horrified gasp.
Captain Vine sighed. ‘Why are you like this?’
‘What, Gevran?’ Alarik retorted.
‘Just say candles.’
‘Or antlers?’ suggested Princess Elva. ‘Our weavers shed theirs twice a year.’
