Chapter Five: On Meeting Your Heroes
It must have startedraining outside because his clothes were dripping. He appeared nearly out of breath, his pecs heaving, but that didn’t stop him from pausing with his hands on both doors to whip his long wet hair out of his face. Claw, the great sword of his family, was at his back and daggers sat on his hips, sheathed. He stepped forward, a clear head above the men who entered behind him.
“My queen!” he bellowed. “The Western Riverlands are secure!”
A cheer went up around the room, but I couldn’t look away from his face. I’d spent much of my adult life wishing to be in the same room as this man and now...I was. I expected him to look my way, single out the new face in the crowd, but he had eyes only for the queen. He knelt, steps away from her table. I wished I had sat closer and rose in my own seat, craning my neck, the better to see.
“But I have grave news.” His deep voice carried around the hall effortlessly. He had the voice of a war commander. “The traveling caravans of the east are congregating to the Dark Mage Amédée.”
Someone hissed.
The queen, however, was undisturbed. She might have shrugged. “A band of old and orphans. What do we care?”
Ironclaw rose to his feet. “Others may follow, Your Grace. We have early news that their allies in the valley are discussing joining as well.”
Her blue eyes flashed. “Why?” the queen demanded. “They seek to turn my wrath upon them?”
If I recalled correctly, the valley tribes guarded great deposits of ore and, I don’t know, other kinds of things needed to make weapons.
“Should we send an envoy to the valley?” Lord Parable put forth.
“I would be happy to go, Your Grace,” Ironclaw said, as if he was eager to rush into the dark night again, rabble through the woods until dawn. My insides twisted. I didn’t want him out there—I needed him in the castle with me.
Queen Elthra’s face was carefully blank when she rose from the head table. It was as if her thoughts mirrored my own. The difference was, she had a right to think that way.
Ironclaw and the queen have been betrothed since book four. It was a political alliance as much as love but the fact that the ghostwriter broke them up in book five was the single issue that most enraged the fandom.
For my part, I understood logically that a romance story should end in the hero and heroine getting together. Yet, here I was, and there he was, with his dark wet hair pushed back from his intense face, his pants tight across his backside.
It was an ethical question—if I slept with a fictional character in a committed relationship, AITA?
I knew neither of them stayed true to the other. They spent more time apart than together, and I’d gotten pages full of what Ironclaw did on his adventures. Their relationship was rocky right now.
So, couldn’t I be one of his side quests? When I had my fill, I could trigger a few couples-therapy discussions, set up the plot to move forward as it should have in the first place, and be on my way home like Sorrel said.No angry queen to deal with.
Ironclaw was speaking again, but his less notorious cousin chose that moment to talk. “The most extraordinary expressions flickered across your face just now, Lady Mayfair.”
I tried to ignore Lord Draw and strained to hear what Ironclaw and the queen were saying.
“It’s not unlike the look most women give him, truth be told.”
I was immediately offended. I didn’t need to be sized down by a medieval lawyer. “My good fellow, I’m trying to hear what’s happening.”
“Good fellow...” Lord Draw mused, but I couldn’t be bothered with him.
“Let us finish our meal,” the queen declared. “Then we’ll convene.”
Ironclaw circled the table and bent to her ear as the hall erupted in conversation, digesting the news about the valley land’s fickleness. I was uninterested, suddenly determined to make good on my bookish fantasy within Castle Creneda. I was sure there was a private room somewhere.
“Do you know my cousin?” Lord Draw asked me.
I flicked my eyes to him before returning to the cousin in question who seemed perilously close to Elthra’s low neckline for a public gathering. To me, the problem was not whether they’d bunked together—Sherry Whitehorse’s too-cute phrase to replace that of a more graphic nature—but if they were in love.
“Mmm. Only by reputation,” I answered as I wiped my plate clean with the last of my bread. I wanted to be ready to leave the hall when Ironclaw did.
“Here, try some of this.” Lord Draw summoned a serving boy with a tray of honeycomb. He cut a slice from the platter and laid it on my plate. It immediately oozed.
“Ohhh, I love honey.”
