by Kage, Linda
“Remarkable,” I murmured, shaking my head. “And let me guess, one of the two first settlers was named Donnelly.”
“That’s right. Terran Donnelly. My grandfather. And the friend sent into exile from Lowden with him was named Wren Mandalay.”
“Strange,” I murmured, taking in the prosperous-looking valley. “One man got the village named after him, but the other got the crown and the entire kingdom named after him.”
“Ah, well…” Brentley chuckled a bit uncomfortably. “Grandfather Donnelly was always a bit of a showboat. Liked all the attention on himself. Besides, he dealt better with the people. Mandalay was much quieter, liked to keep to himself and was more the brains behind the operation. He watched and plotted, thinking everything through, while Grandfather made the grand, impulsive gestures that more people noticed. But aside from all that, they decided to marry off their children to each other, anyway, so they could share the power of the kingdom equally in the next generation.”
“Well, that makes sense, I guess.”
“Yes,” Brentley agreed. “Except they both ended up having only sons. Two sons for the Donnellys; that would be my father and his younger twin brother, Soren’s father. And one son to Mandalay.”
My eyebrows lifted, wondering how this Mandalay fellow had taken that defeat.
“So, they wrote a new edict,” Brentley went on, answering my silent query. “Arranging the wedding of their grandchildren, so the two families could unite there.”
A prickling awareness dotted my skin. “You mean…” I swerved my gaze to the city of Mandalay. “Vie—That is… I meant to say, the queen and her sister come from House Mandalay?”
“Exactly, so.” Brentley smiled and nodded as if congratulating me on my keen conclusion.
My mind raced, pieces of the puzzle coming together. I’d heard my one true love tell Allera her marriage had been arranged, but it hadn’t occurred to me until now to question why she’d been given to Soren. It all suddenly made sense, though. The two settlers of this realm finally had equal power with the Donnelly king and Mandalay queen. And any Donnelly-Mandalay heir would be considered quite honored.
Brentley’s description of Wren Mandalay made me understand Vienne more as well. Like grandfather, like granddaughter, I decided; they shared similar characteristics. Instead of the meek, shy woman I first thought her to be, I suddenly saw her as the stealthy, introverted brains behind the operation who watched and learned before acting. I had noticed she was reserved when I listened in on her talk with Allera, but now I remembered how she’d instantly mentioned that detail about how the magic faction had worked for rights to rejoin the kingdom when Allera learned they’d been banished. It was as if she had her ear to the ground and was personally keeping track of the situation.
I wondered what else she was monitoring around the kingdom. In fact, I wondered if she’d had a direct hand that no one knew about in starting those peace-communications herself between the king and magical kind. The idea seemed to fit her. I could already tell that many of the people closest to her seriously underestimated her. She could easily slip under their radar to mold and direct politics as she saw fit.
In that case, her union to Sir Soren would be extremely advantageous to her. It got her an in to the castle that being a mere sister to the queen wouldn’t. She now had a seat at the royal table and an ear to every discussion the king had with his top advisor. She’d be crazy to give that up.
A sour taste filled my mouth. Learning this was most distressing. It told me she would likely remain loyal to her husband no matter what she thought of the dick. Their marriage wasn’t about satisfaction for her; it was about the health of a kingdom. She needed to remain exactly where she was to keep the realm running smoothly.
Dammit.
Any stirrings of a plan I’d had to seduce her away from him so she could be with me seemed to crumble.
Still. Why did it have to be that pretentious asshat she’d been tied to? The man grated on every nerve in my body, and that had been before I knew he was wedded to my one true love. Now, I straight-up hated him. I think I would’ve been much more comfortable if she’d ended up with someone like—
Wait. Hold up.
As a new thought struck, I swerved my attention to Brentley.
“I find it curious,” I said. “That the two Mandalay granddaughters went to your brother and cousin, not to your brother and…you.”
“Oh. That.” Brentley laughed and shook his head. “Actually, yes, originally, Yasmin and Vienne were meant to marry Caulder and me, since we’re from the ruling line, but the evening before we were to visit and meet them, I fell quite ill. I puked my accounts up all night. They even sent for a healer to look me over. But she only claimed I must’ve ingested some rotten food, except…” He shook his head and let out a breath. “I don’t recall eating anything so foul as to cause that kind of reaction.”
I watched him, tempted to say, maybe someone put something in your food to sicken you on purpose… Someone who wanted to steal your spot in the royal lineage.
“Anyhow,” Brentley went on, shaking his head. “Soren was kind enough to go in my place.”
Oh, I’ll just bet he was.
I nodded, convinced even more than ever that Soren had been behind Brentley’s stomach ailment so he could secure himself a valuable Mandalay bride. The suspicion made me despise the dick even more for thinking of my one true love as if she were nothing but a prized possession, instead of a real human.
Glancing toward Brentley, I murmured, “So, you’re saying that if you’d only watched what you’d eaten, Sir Soren—not you—could be engaged to my sister at this very moment?” Because if Brentley had wed Vienne instead, then Soren would no doubt be the most available bachelor left in the family for Caulder to marry off to Allera.
Brentley laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, I believe you’re right.” He gave a smiling nod. “Isn’t it funny how things work out? I must say, though, I’m happier with this outcome.”
I scored him with a hard glance for implying that anyone—even my own sister—was preferable to wed than my one true love. “You find fault with Lady Vienne?”
My hand fisted. I’d probably break his nose if he said yes.
But no. He flushed and immediately fumbled to say, “What? N-no! Not at all. There’s nothing at all wrong with Vienne. She’s quite one of my favorite people, I swear. Kind, compassionate, calm, steady. Incredibly easy to talk to. But… I just… That is to say, she’s like a sister to me, while Princess Allera is so full of…life. You know? She stirs a passion in me.”
I stared at him a moment. I was supposed to be happy he preferred someone else to my one true love. I was supposed to be delighted he found my sister enchanting. But I could only feel insulted for Vienne’s sake. It seemed impossible that any man would not prefer her above any other.
Sniffing out my mood, I trotted ahead of Brentley, entering the outskirts of the town and taking in the ambiance of Village Mandalay. It was friendly. About as friendly and clean and new as the Iron Castle. The chatter was loud, boisterous, and upbeat as merchants tried to sell their wares to the villagers. All the people seemed buoyant and in good spirits, not dragged down with any kind of oppression or poverty.
The air was temperate and quite comfortable, too. It didn’t possess the unbearable heat we’d experienced on the journey through the Vast Desert to reach the Iron Castle. This small place was like a whole other world locked away inside the Outer Realms. The kingdom within the sand, indeed. I decided that if Lady Vienne really was working in underhanded measures to keep this place running smoothly, then she was doing a damn fine job. She needed to stay exactly where she was to help preserve something so pure and healthy.
And though the very idea filled me with a sense of desolation because it told me I would therefore never have her for myself, it also made me proud of her accomplishments and more determined than ever to please her. She had a hard job ahead of her; the least I
could do was ease her load with a reason for her to smile here and there.
It didn’t take me long to find the vendor for grumpackers. Louder than most of the other merchants, a barrel-chested man with thick butchers’ arms stood at the back of a wagon that overflowed with the strange blue fruit and hollered on about how fresh his stock was. I approached him, ready to get my purchase over with so I could return to the castle and be near my one true love again.
“How much?” I asked, prepared to pay anything.
Chapter 8
Urban
I had two bushels of grumpackers bought before Brentley found me again.
As I handed over my coin to pay for them, he shook his head. “Grumpackers? That’s what you came here after? You should’ve told me that was your goal before we left on our jaunt. There are plenty of them at the castle if you wanted some, you know. All you needed to do was ask; we would’ve supplied them for you. There was no need to travel all the way down here to procure them.”
I shrugged and refrained from explaining that they were supposed to be a gift, a gift I’d felt the pressing need to purchase with my own gain. I mean, if a man couldn’t claim his one true love and be with her in every way he dreamed possible, then the least he could do was buy all the presents he gave to her in secret from his personal funds instead of having them given to him first. Right?
Curious, I took one of the grumpackers from its basket and studied the odd thing. “I wanted to explore the area, anyway,” I said aloud to Brentley, setting the grumpacker back on the pile. “Get a feel for the area.” And now that I knew how important this place was to my one true love, the explanation was actually becoming true. This was her land, her people, her passion. Thus, I wanted to know as much about it as I wanted to know about her.
My explanation seemed to appease Brentley. He nodded and made a sound of understanding from the back of this throat.
After tying the baskets to either side of my horse’s saddle, I climbed on and started out of the village, Brentley tagging along like an eager kind of shadow.
“So, selling clear rock is how Donnelly built its wealth, huh?” I asked as we meandered back toward the castle.
“It is.” The portly prince’s chest puffed with pride. “We’ve been very fortunate with it.”
I nodded. “I must admit, it’s pretty impressive stuff. I’ve always wondered how it was made.”
“Oh.” Brentley’s grin fell before he scratched his temple. “You know, I’m not rightly sure. They use the sand somehow.”
“Ah.” I arched an eyebrow. “So all that desert’s useful after all. Interesting. But how do they make it so solid? And transparent? And smooth?”
“Melt it, if I’m not mistaken,” was Brentley’s answer, as if he didn’t really care how clear rock was constructed, just as long as it kept him comfortable in his iron-plated castle.
But that answer had me titling my head curiously. “Melt it? Melt sand?” I gave a low whistle. “That would take more than your average campfire. How do you get an inferno going hot enough to melt sand?”
I’m not sure why I asked since I already knew he wouldn’t have an answer. Which he didn’t. “Well. The same way they get a fire hot enough to melt metal into swords and the like, I would expect.”
Right. But it just seemed as if it would take a lot of hot fire to make enough clear rock to swell a kingdom’s coffers as heavily as it had Donnelly’s. Glancing around, I didn’t see any raging infernos anywhere in Mandalay. So where exactly did they make clear rock?
This time, I was wise enough not to bother inquiring.
Besides, Brentley asked me a question about Allera, wondering what her favorite flower was, and the rest of the trip back to the castle was spent discussing her. That was fine with me. I wanted my sister to have a pleasant marriage, and if Brentley was going to ask, then I was going to give him pointers. Which I did aplenty.
When we reached the drawbridge, an eagerness filled me, a part of me realizing I was going to be able to feel my mate’s nearness again. I couldn’t wait to get her back into my bloodstream and be reassured she was close and okay.
And there, when I finally felt her, I breathed out a relieved sigh, pleased by the tug at my mark, directing me to where she was.
Brentley seemed eager to part ways, as well, saying he had some plan devised to woo my sister into his good graces. I watched him hurry off after we left our horses at the stables and had to shake my head sadly.
The poor sap had it bad. For Allera, of all people.
God help him.
And God help me; I obviously didn’t have it any better. I glanced at my two baskets, heaping with blue fruit.
How the fuck was I going to sneak these to Lady Vienne without anyone knowing about it, especially her?
Well, it wasn’t an easy task. I’ll tell you that. The first person I spotted when I stepped foot inside the keep was her husband, Sir Dickhead, chastising some guard at the other end of the corridor.
Not wanting him to spot me with so much of his wife’s favorite fruit in tow, I turned down a smaller passageway to avoid him and ended up getting myself lost for a quarter of an hour.
After a while, I grew so fed up with trying to find my way back to familiar ground that I gave up on trusting my eyes and simply followed my draw to her, and that led me straight to where she was. When she felt particularly close, I paused at a closed door. After I glanced across the hall, where one door was cracked slightly open, I saw there was a bedroom inside. So maybe this was the wing where the royal family resided. And maybe this closed door led into Vienne’s personal bedchamber.
I drew in a sharp breath, exhilarated by the prospect that this was her space. But I didn’t have time to loiter like an idiot, drooling over a closed door. I heard footsteps approaching.
Not wanting anyone—not even a gossiping servant—to catch me here with two bushels of grumpackers, I set them down outside her door and took off in the opposite direction as I heard the footsteps. But before I went, I snagged a single grumpacker for myself.
I waited until I returned to my own chambers in another wing of the keep entirely before I bit into it.
The bitter flavor made me wince until I remembered, shit, Allera had mentioned it was supposed to be peeled like an orange first, hadn’t she?
Feeling like a moron, I spit out the peeling and then tore the rest of the outer shell away from the fruit until I had a sliver of pale blue in my hand. Slowly, I lifted it to my lips, feeling as if I were sharing the moment with Vienne, experiencing my first taste of her favorite food.
My teeth sank into the tender core and the first bit of juice hit my taste buds.
“Mmm,” I murmured, nodding my understanding. It was sweet without the tang of citrus tart, but not so sweet as to be overbearing. I popped more into my mouth and chewed heartily. Its flavor was actually more subtle than I thought it would be, but then, if it were too rich and overpowering, a person could only handle small portions at a time, while this… This was easily gorged upon without consequence.
It reminded me of Vienne herself, what little I’d observed about her, anyway. She definitely wasn’t the overpowering type, but sneakily unassuming, so much so that I had a strong suspicion I could soak up more of her than I’d originally thought possible and still want more.
A tap on my door made me jump and nearly drop the uneaten half of my grumpacker.
Without waiting for my reply, the door opened and Allera hurried in. “Oh, there you are. Good. I thought I was going to have to go searching, and to be honest, I haven’t a clue where to look for anything in this place yet.”
I snorted, not believing her, because Allera had a freaky-sharp sense of direction. In fact, I bet she had the entire castle already mapped out in her head. Flopping down into a chair, I took another bite and declined to tell her how long I’d been lost inside the castle myself.
“What do you want?” I asked unceremoniously, my mouth full.
With a small fr
own, she sniffed. “How many times have I told you not to talk with your mouth full, Urban? Dear God, it’s like you’re a—Oh!” Her eyes lit up when she saw what I was eating. “You’ve discovered grumpackers as well! Aren’t they just delicious?”
Perching herself on the armrest of my chair, she snagged a slice from me and plunked it into her mouth. “Mmm. I just love them.”
I scowled, dryly muttering, “Help yourself.”
“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” With a jaunty grin, she grabbed the rest of my grumpacker from my hand and hopped off the chair so she could eat and pace the floor.
I would’ve taken my snack back because I knew I could wrestle it from her with ease, but I had more important things on my mind than taking up chase and possibly running her off.
“Well?” I demanded. “Have you talked to her yet?”
It was best that she not know I’d eavesdropped on her conversation with Lady Vienne. She’d no doubt warn me away from such a risky move, which would be useless advice. I’d keep doing it no matter how much she lectured, so I decided to save her the speech and keep that part to myself. I was too eager to hear her opinion to wait through an entire lecture, anyway.
“Yes, I did, actually,” she reported, finishing the last slice of grumpacker. “And I must say, Brother. She honestly doesn’t seem like your type.”
I frowned, not expecting to hear this. But seriously, how the hell could she say such a thing to me?