Jocasta shook her head again. “You don’t have to flatter me. I’ll get a big head.”
“No, ma’am, you have a perfectly shaped head.”
She sighed. She missed fishing. Silence.
Most of all, she missed her husband.
“THE HOT SPRINGS AREflowing, gaining every day since your union. Your wife has set many wheels in motion, and seems to be carrying herself beautifully—even though she is more direct and outspoken than other queens in the past.” Cole walked beside Girion and gave an update.
“She is surely busier than my late, unlamented stepmother. She has come to bed three nights in a row, kissed me, and fallen asleep at once.”
Cole quirked an eyebrow. “Sharing the beds, are you?”
“Hush.”
“Kisses?”
Girion’s ears turned pink. “I love being with her, and she with me. I trust her. It is strange, and wonderful, and freeing. But I don’t want people to think I’m going soft because of my bride.”
“No one but a blind fool would think such a thing.”
“Still, I know several ports are still frozen in.”
“Ah, but the ice breaker crews are able to get them out now. The flow of humans from the settlements into the cities has slowed to a trickle.”
“Jocasta wants to build more roads across the tundra to connect the settlements, and put in education and health centers, one for every so many miles. Not schools, but places where people can come and read the laws of our kingdom so they’ll know if someone is playing them false.”
“I think they call those libraries, sire.” Cole rolled his eyes.
“I think they don’t. I mean, yes, libraries, but these centers would also host meetings where people could ask questions of experts from the various departments and ministries.”
“Talk to our ministers and junior ministers? That sounds terrible.”
“I know, but people have questions, and some of them don’t read well. The law volumes are so heavy and cumbersome—printing presses! I think we need more printing presses. And someone to sum up the key points. Pamphlets—”
“Girion! You attack and defend. You patrol. You don’t think about pamphlets.”
“Well, maybe I should! Our kingdom has been, and ever shall be, I hope, safe from most physical threats. But the threats of ignorance are just as dire for people like the Watermans.” He touched the talisman that Jocasta had given him. He wore it every day, braided into his hair. Every time she saw it, the smile she gave him...
He knew what it was like to feel the full summer sun shining on you when she looked at him like that.
“You wear that every day now. What is it?”
“The talisman Jo made for one of her late brothers. Their family fell to the mercy of some Fox called Nemo when they were about to miss their mortgage payment after paying for his funeral. I don’t think—had I known that—that I should be calledGirion the Great. I failed to defend families when they needed it most.”
“Oh, Gir. If it hadn’t happened, Jocasta wouldn’t have been so willing to listen to your plea for a marriage of alliance. And look how well it turned out.”
Girion gave a stubborn huff. “Perhaps, but there is only one queen needed in my kingdom, and no other bargains should have to be made.”
“Girion the Great and Noble. Jocasta the Just and Wise.”
Girion’s eyes lit up. “Come with me!”
“Where are we going?” Cole yelped as his leader yanked his arm and turned him in a full circle.
“To the armory!”
“What, why?”
