“Cousin?” She finally questions. “Should you not be in Pradacia? In a temple?”
Edmund quirks his head over his shoulder. “Shit, am I not?”
He snuffs out his pipe and then assesses Calder, clutching a nightgown-wearing, beaten Aura. “Do I even want to ask?”
“We don’t have the time for this,” Calder growls.
Edmund manages to keep in step with the Iss Drengr. “Does the Princess’s state have anything to do with the teams of Drengr scouring the city?”
“Yes, it does, Edmund.”
“Wait,” Aura looks between them, picking up on the familiarity in their banter. “Do you two know one another?” Her left eye begins to twitch. “Never mind,” she interrupts Calder as he opens his mouth to respond, “I do not wish to know.”
Rising out of the Blackwood Forest is a sizeable A-frame structure of front and back windows. Stretching out are the wings of the old Blackwood Inn. Her father acquired the building and changed it into the Blackwood Estate after he found Mum and adopted her older sister, Thora.
“Fuck,” Edmund mutters as his father, Uncle Slode, who is both her father’s Second and a well-respected Duke of the Ridge Province alongside his husband, Bertie.
His head-to-toe ink may look intimidating, but he let her and Edmund dress him in her mother’s jewels when she was a little girl. Except, standing on the wrap-around porch of Blackwood, cracking his knuckles as he assesses them, he looks every bit the terrifying warrior.
“I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, Jarl Calder.” Edmund turns about and strides back toward Toftlund.
“Coward!” Calder shouts over his shoulder, only to earn a middle finger from her cousin as he jogs back to the city, leaving them alone to face her father.
5
AURA
July 21st, Year 21, 10th Era
Blackwood Estate, Treland
As they approach Blackwood Estate, Uncle Slode seems to relax at the sight of Calder and slips back through the front door just before it bursts open again. Sigvid Thordsson jumps down the steps and meets them in two strides, his arms reaching for Aura.
She senses the Jarl flinch beneath her. His muscles tense as if he hesitates to surrender the Princess to her father.
“Where were you?” Sigvid’s piercing blue eyes narrow at Aura before flicking to his trusted Drengr, clutching her to his chest as if she were in danger. Even in the presence of the King, he is reluctant to release her.
“Avardsson, how did you two meet?” Sigvid points between them momentarily before shaking his head, waving it off. “You must have just arrived in port. Take her inside.” He gestures to the large A-frame.
Calder nods and crosses the threshold of her home and into the central hearth, where large triangular window panes frame the front and back.
Treating her as if she were made of glass, he gently places her in Sigvid’s oversized chair.
She feels his gaze lingering on her even after his warm touch departs from her body. “Thank you,” she mutters.
He leans down, his hot breath brushing against the shell of her ear. “Use your words, Princess.”
She feels her eyelids flutter and her core tighten. “Thank you, Jarl Calder.”
“You are welcome.” He stands swiftly as her father joins them.
“Aura!” Queen Avina rushes over and throws her arms around her daughter, leaving the youngest princess with a heavy sense of guilt settling in her gut for worrying them.
“Thank you, Calder. You continue to act as the sentinel shadow for our family.” Avina presses a kiss to Aura’s forehead.
The Iss Drengr slips away toward the staircase leading to Blackwood’s second floor.
Is he staying here?
