“Just idiotic. Although…”
Idris pulled her legs into his lap. “Although?”
Rinka whispered in his ear, “Alright, clever clogs. Tell me the most idiotic and sexy thing you can think of.”
Idris responded immediately. “I’m so hot for you, I’d burn your mouth like a bowl of soup.”
“Extremely idiotic. Mildly sexy. Two points out of five, good effort, but you’ll have to do better than that.”
The carriage stopped not too long after, which surprised Rinka. “Are we there already? I thought it was fifteen miles to Fossholm.”
“There’s something I wanted to show you first. Come on.”
Idris led Rinka from the carriage into a green field in the shadow of a mountain. The last of the sun’s rays were shining on it, melting off a thin layer of snow. “It’s a nice enough field, I guess, but I was actually looking forward to that soup. It’s been a while since lunch…”
Idris sighed. He led her by the hand to a pile of rocks on the ground. A shovel had been wedged between them. He pulled the shovel from the pile and handed it to her. “Go on,” he said.
“Go on and what?”
“Break ground,” said Idris. He smiled slyly.
“These are the ruins of the king’s estate?” The “ruins” weren’t much to look at. Now that Idris had shown her the corner, she could sort of see how the rock wall must extend in either direction, although the stones themselves were so covered in grass or moss that it was difficult to tell where the walls ended. “I thought they’d be a bit more…substantial.”
“To tell the truth, I did too, but it’s for the better, really. We’ll build it all from scratch.”
“Right here?”
“Right here. Come on. This was more or less your idea. Break the ground.”
Rinka hesitated. To open a university in Wilderise had been something they’d come up with together. Idris wasn’t in a hurryto go back to his post at the King’s College once his year at Winwold was over, and Rinka wasn’t in a hurry to go back to the city at all. But Rinka wanted to make an impact on the world—her time amongst the royals and at Winwold had led her to believe that the common folk deserved more than they had, and that education was the key to making that happen.
And what better place to do it than Wilderise? It would be the first university here since the burning of the colleges in the Great Wars. It was the target of the king’s modernization plans.
And it happened to be near where their friends lived.
“The king approved?” asked Rinka, her hand gripping the shovel.
“Well,” said Idris. He ran his hand through his dark hair. “There was a compromise. A manufactory will be built as well.”
It was inevitable, Rinka supposed. The king had set his sights on a manufactory in Wilderise long ago. “But Idris, the dangers—”
“I know what they’re like. It doesn’t have to be that way. Father has given me wide latitude to set the standards for workers. I’ll be limiting working days, preventing children from working, and hiring people in charge of safety.”
“The king agreed to all of that?”
Idris smirked. “He thinks I’ll fail. He’s wrong, of course. Oh, and over there—” Idris pointed in the direction of Fossholm. “That will be the hospital. I’m going to ask Keir to help manage it.”
Rinka looked at Idris, awed. “Is it really going to happen? A college, a manufactory, a hospital? All right here?”
“All right here. All thanks to you,” said Idris.
Rinka looked down at the ground. “I didn’t do anything—”
Idris placed his arm on hers. “I wouldn’t have done it without you. I couldn’t have. You were right about me. You told me when we met that I had the power to change things, and you wereright. It’s going to take a long time, and I’m sure we won’t get it all right the first time, but maybe we can do things better here.”
“Why, Idris. That sounded almost optimistic.” Rinka pushed him playfully on the shoulder and then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said in a rare moment of sincerity.
“Of course. Now, are you going to break the bloody ground before I freeze to death?”
