“I have,” she replied. “Just not walls made of such thick stone, nor so high up.”
“You’ll be okay. Look, it’s widening already.”
She lifted her head. “So it is.”
“Remind me never to take you to the underground arenas in the Outer Rings,” he joked, then frowned. When would he ever take her there?
Monikah glanced back. “The fighting pits? That’s where Crystal works.”
Crystal was married to Alzona, head of the barracks Olina had fought for.
“Yes, those pits.” He watched her release another shaking breath, her green eyes wide with fright. “I used to fight in them.”
She blinked. “Really?” The woman shook her head. “No, don’t answer that—I’ve seen you fight. You learned it all there, huh?”
“I did. When my grandmother died, I lived on the streets for a few years, and when I was big enough I was recruited.”
Monikah stiffened. “You lived on the street? How old were you?”
“Seven. I grew to this height by fifteen and was in the pits for four years. The castle for over two revolutions.”
“Wow, that’s quite a life, and a lot of change. . . . Finding your place in all that must’ve been hard.”
Rhone exhaled slowly, feeling her words like a punch to the stomach. “You’re right,” he said after a moment. “It probably was.” Maybe she and Yarik were right and he was lost. Hell, scratch that, Rhone knew he was lost. Maybe he’d known that for a while now, but now he cared. Maybe, maybe if he took control for a change, he could figure a few things out; waiting around for the answers to appear certainly wasn’t working.
He led them down a wider hallway—not the most direct route to the food hall, but more comfortable for the Ire woman.
Monikah touched his hand and Rhone peered down.
“Thank you for sharing that with me.”
He sniffed, withholding his smile. “Don’t mention it.”
“You know,” she mused as they reached the next stairwell and started down, “when other people say that, the words seem like a pleasantry. When you say it, I really think you’re asking me not to mention it.”
Rhone took her Soar and tucked it under his arm, seeing she was going to accidentally dig the end into the stair below and vault herself down the stone steps. “That’s because I am.”
She chuckled. “You need to spend more time in the Ire. That’ll loosen you up.”
He grimaced. “It already has.”
Monikah peered down the entrance hall. Torches lined the passage and cast long shadows. A plate shattered up ahead in the food hall, followed by booming laughter, confirming dinner was in full swing.
Monikah darted a look at him.
“The castle may be nosier than you’re used to,” he warned, setting their Soars outside the entrance.
They walked through the archway and the Ire woman stopped, brows nearly in her hairline.
“You don’t say,” she said faintly.
Rhone followed her gaze to where at least three fights were in progress in the food hall, two between men. Some children in the middle were having a food fight, and at the back, some watchmen were dancing on tables with the kitchen staff. “They’re not usually this bad.” That was a lie.
Monikah tore her eyes from the scene to look at his face. “Why do I sense that’s a lie?”
He grinned at her.
The shouting dwindled as they wandered in, bypassing two of the fights. Rhone stopped by his usual table, but changed his mind as Sanjay spotted them. The orange-bearded man immediately looked at Monikah and his eyes gleamed.
“This way.” Rhone took hold of her arm.
“Rhoney!” Sanjay called.
He groaned.
“Who’s that you got there?”
Monikah glanced back. “Is that a friend of yours?”
Rhone considered that for a moment. “Barely.”
She rolled her eyes. “So that’s a yes.” She extracted herself from his grip and left him to return to the table.
“I’m Monikah from the Ire,” she announced to the table.
Sanjay took her hand, shaking enthusiastically. Fiona followed suit in a gentler manner.
“Nice to meet cha, Monikah from the Ire,” Sanjay said. He turned to the others and shouted. “Oi! Monikah from the Ire is here.” He paused, frowning when no one paid attention. “She came with Rhone,” he added.
Adnan, Sole, Ronan, Jacquiline, and the other occupants of the table turned to stare.
His face wasn’t turning red. Rhone didn’t do that . . . did he?
“I need to go speak with the king,” he mumbled and bolted across the hall.
Chapter Fifteen
Rhone slowed as he neared the royal table, noticing the whispering aimed his way.
“Rhone, you return from your walk?” Jovan observed him with ice-blue eyes over steepled hands.
“What?” Rhone asked. “Oh, yeah.”
Olina was balancing her plate atop her round stomach. “You should have said you were coming back. You and Monikah could have traveled with us.”
Jovan took her hand, kissing the back of it. “Perhaps Rhone wished to be alone with Monikah, my queen.”
Her blue eyes widened, and she flushed. “Oh. Yes. Of course.”
What? No. There was no ‘of course’ about that.
“How goes Monikah’s Time Teller?” Jovan asked.
Rhone fixed his gaze on the king, sensing the amusement underneath the question. “Well enough that you’ll be using it one day.”
The king’s eyes narrowed.
“Is there a room available for Monikah’s use for the next couple of weeks, Queen Lina?” Rhone asked.
“Rhone, please call me Lina.”
The ‘queen’ label was a barrier between them he planned to keep. He couldn’t remember when he’d started calling her Queen Lina, but he liked that change, too. It made him feel like he was talking to a completely different person than the Olina he’d loved.
He waited, and she sighed.
“I’m sure there is one available.” She cast her eyes over the front tables and groaned under her breath.
Jovan leaped into action. “What is it? The baby?”
“For the last time, it’s not the baby,” she scolded him, pushing away his grabbing hands. Jovan won and pulled her onto his lap. Olina raised her voice. “Arla.”
Rhone grimaced. So did Jovan.
The beautiful blonde approached the royal table and curtsied. “My Queen.”
“Could you arrange a room for Rhone’s. . . .”
“Friend?” supplied Arla with a smirk.
Olina smiled. “Friend, yes. Could you locate a room for her in the castle? Hold on.” She leaned over to whisper in Jovan’s ear.
The king laughed, slapping the table. He glanced at Rhone. “Will you want to visit Monikah’s chamber?”
“Jovan, you’re not supposed to ask him. I just wanted a yes or no,” the queen hissed.
. . . Rhone hadn’t thought he did red faces, but either his neck was red or on fire. That made twice in the last ten minutes. He wasn’t used to speculation from the assembly about women. Clearly, everyone assumed Monikah was more than a guest. He should’ve guessed that was how it would appear. He hoped the urchin didn’t feel uncomfortable, not that he was averse to taking her to bed whatsoever, but he didn’t want Monikah to feel he’d only brought her to Glacium for that reason. “No, my King.”
Olina avoided his eyes.
“It will be done presently, my Queen.” Arla swept into a curtsey and Olina’s eyes followed the woman.
“Thanks.” Rhone turned away. Why had he come back again?
“One moment,” the king called imperiously. “The sled race, you are competing?”
“That’s why I’m back.”
Olina straightened. “What do you mean, that’s why you’re back? You weren’t planning to return?”
That’s not what he’d meant. “Yes,”
Rhone said, unhelpfully.
“Back to your usual verbose self.” She smiled and then gasped. “You’re back to race! That means I can be your second like we talked about.”
What? Rhone struggled to maintain his calm. She remembered that? He could barely remember that conversation. He’d certainly never expected her to actually hold him to it. Even if he’d hoped she would at the time, the thought of being alone with Olina for several days was the last thing he wanted now. Jovan’s nostrils flared, and Rhone blurted, “I’m sorry, Queen Lina, I have promised Monikah the position.” He’d done nothing of the sort, but hopefully Monikah would be okay with helping out. And he’d be lying to say the flicker of hurt in Olina’s eyes as she heard of her replacement didn’t satisfy some evil part of him.
“My love, the baby,” Jovan said.
Olina stared down at her stomach. “You think my stomach would get in the way?” she asked the king.
Rhone imagined the logistics of his queen fitting in the sled were the last thing on the king’s mind as he contemplated her racing dogsleds while heavily pregnant.
“Yes,” Jovan said, blank-faced. “The sled is small.”
Olina scowled at her stomach. “Is that true?” she demanded, glancing up at Rhone.
“Yes,” Rhone answered. For once his interest and Jovan’s were the same.
He dipped his head and walked back to the table where he’d left Monikah. She now sat wedged between Sanjay and Fiona. Jacky was aiming glares down the table at the Ire woman and Rhone recalled she despised Ire folk. The woman was far too high maintenance, in his opinion, and if she kept up that glaring, Rhone would take it out on her husband. Judging by the look on her husband’s face, Roman was well aware of that possibility already.
“And then Rhone slipped off the Oscala and nearly died,” Monikah was saying.
He froze. How much had she told them?
Everyone gasped.
Fiona grew pale. “Oh no, but he didn’t die, right?”
Monikah took the woman’s hand. “No, he’s standing behind you. See?”
Fiona jumped and turned. She flushed. “I got swept away in your story. Please continue.”
“I took him back to the Ire, he killed thirty people—”
Rhone snorted. “I didn’t kill anyone. I just knocked a few heads around.” No one paid him any mind.
“—and then our leader was forced to lift my exile, or risk Rhone killing the whole Ire.”
“Wow,” Adnan said. “You’ve been busy, Rhone.” Roscoe’s son seemed to be the only one who realized the tale was embellished.
Rhone sat opposite the man who was close to his age, though as different from him as could be. “Apparently so.”
“What do you do in the Ire, Monikah?” Adnan asked softly.
She smiled at the quiet man. “I feed the sheep.”
“Monikah is an inventor,” Rhone interrupted.
Adnan’s interest sharpened. “Are you really? So am I. That’s what I do here in the castle.”
The urchin gasped and leaned closer. “You must be the queen’s half-brother. I’ve never met another one of me. What are you working on?”
The grin on Adnan’s face was the widest Rhone had ever seen. A tightness coiled in Rhone’s stomach as Adnan leaned forward, too, and the pair began exchanging stories of their inventions. The table listened in confused silence as the talk grew more complicated. The feeling in Rhone’s stomach heightened, and he found himself very eager to end their conversation.
“Adnan, you’ve finally found someone as boring as you,” Sanjay said. He threw a hasty glance at Monikah. “I mean. . . .”
She waved away his embarrassment. “I’ll take boring over crazy any day.”
“They call you crazy?” Adnan asked.
“All the time.”
The unassuming young man shook his head. “Monikah, come to the castle and work with me. No one will call you crazy here.”
“Do you think he knows what we say behind his back?” Sanjay asked in a stage whisper.
The occupants of the table laughed, but Rhone had never felt less like laughing in his life. He set his eyes on Adnan and waited until the man felt his perusal.
When he did look, Adnan blanched.
“You all right, Rhone?” Fiona asked. “You don’t have indigestion, do you?”
Rhone exhaled slowly, spitting out, “No.” Unless he was mistaken, and he doubted he was after the last year of pining after another’s woman, Rhone was intensely jealous. That he was attracted to Monikah wasn’t in doubt. That his feelings might go deeper was only now occurring to him.
“There’s a room for your guest,” Arla said, coming to stand beside to him.
He surged to his feet. “Monikah, I’ll show you to your room.”
“Uh. . . .” She glanced around the crowd of his friends. “Okay. Sure.”
Adnan was looking between Rhone and Monikah. Had it all figured out, did he? He probably thought Rhone had brought the urchin here for other reasons, and that wasn’t true at all.
Was it?
Rhone hadn’t thought so, but he also hadn’t expected to be consumed with jealousy when Monikah met someone who could understand the complexities of her work.
“I’ll get some food,” he muttered to Monikah, avoiding her gaze as Arla led them toward the archway. “What room?” he asked the blonde woman.
She tossed her hair. “Second floor, next to yours.”
Rhone threw her a furious look and the woman smirked, waiting for him to make an issue of it.
“Rhone?” Monikah said uncertainly, peering between them.
“I’ll get food,” he repeated, and walked away. He just needed one minute to assemble his thoughts. One minute to admit that hearing Monikah’s room was next to his had thrown all other thought from his mind. He absently loaded up a plate with succulent roasted meats and golden potatoes.
When had this happened? Did Monikah return the sentiment? He shook his head; he wasn’t even sure what his sentiment was. It was safe to say his reaction to Adnan at the table had completely blindsided him.
Gyn approached. “Rhone, you return.”
Rhone turned to the man in relief. Dogs. He could think about dogs. “How are the team?”
“They’re looking strong. Good endurance. I’ve been running them each day, with two longer trips each week.”
Rhone looked at the kennel master. “Thank you, Gyn. I appreciate you caring for them.”
The man shrugged, darting looks around the food hall. “You know I prefer animals to people. I love those dogs nearly as much as you.”
If anyone else had said those words, Rhone would’ve been offended. “I believe you. I’ll be taking them out for the next couple of weeks until race day. I’ll resume taking any messages for the king.”
Gyn lowered his head. “As you say.”
Why did Rhone feel bad? They were his dogs. He made for the archway, eager to join Monikah and Arla. The woman could be nasty and he didn’t trust her to be alone with his . . . guest for long.
“And after the race?” Gyn called after him.
Rhone glanced back, wondering why the kennel master had even asked. “Things will go back to normal. What else?”
Chapter Sixteen
“This is crazy!” Monikah shouted over the wind.
He smiled over her head. She was standing between his legs against the bar of the racing sled, the cargo bed empty in the front of them. Rhone balanced on the footboards projecting out the back of the sled. “Keep your body relaxed, knees bent,” he reminded her.
She did just that, swaying against him. Rhone tensed. Ever since the awkward moment with Adnan he’d been hyper aware of the Ire woman; her eyes were greener, her hair full of a hundred blonde and brown hues, her body lithe and soft in all the right places.
And was it his imagination or was she pressing against his chest?
“It’s cold here,” she yelled.
Right. She was just cold.
They reached the top of the rolling hill and Rhone spotted a log across the track ahead. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he called out in a deep voice.
The dogs slowed to a halt and Rhone leaped off, digging in the snow anchor.
“Don’t let them run off,” Rhone said, face serious.
“What?” she said, green eyes rounding. “How do I do that?”
Rhone smiled to himself and strode to the log, shoving it off the track with his gloved hands.
“You know, goggles would come in really handy with all this wind in your eyes.” She brushed a few strands of golden brown hair out of her face.
They would; he’d had the same thought himself. Except, he’d never be caught dead wearing them.
“I’ll make you some.”
Rhone winced.
“I still need to finish your new Soar,” she mused as he strode back.
He leaned on the side of the sled. “I won’t need a new Soar,” he reminded her.
Her green eyes flicked up to his. “That’s right,” she said softly. Her eyes were like new pine needles, the same pine needles surrounding them.
His gaze fell to her lips and he swallowed as her pink tongue darted out to wet them. “You’ll make a good race partner,” Rhone declared, aware he’d been caught staring.
She averted her gaze to the dogs, a slight pink across the tops of her cheeks. “Your race partner? Like in the actual race? Really?”
“If you want to.”
She beamed up at him. “I’d love to.”
“Good, because Olina wanted to come and I really didn’t want to race with her.”
Monikah’s smile slipped. “Oh,” she said in a small voice.
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