Page 117 of A War of Crowns

All he knew was that he felt ridiculous and wished everyone would stop staring at him. Beneath the press of so many eyes, he felt naked without the protective layer ofhis brigandine.

Calix looked a good deal more natural in their current surroundings. Nursing a goblet of wine, his second-in-command commented sidelong, “It is never a mistake to observe the enemy in their natural habitat, Your Highness, but we can leave whenever you like, of course.”

Aldric grunted at that.

“Or,” Calix suggested with a mischievous glint in his eyes, “we could stay long into the evening and see Kyn made all the more jealous he wasn’t allowed to come.”

Something dark and strange snarled to life deep within him at the mention of his most well-mannered Son, though Aldric was quick to snuff it out. He had no need for such feelings. Feelings complicated things.

And he had no desire for further complications.

He had forbidden Kyn’s attendance that night from a place of logic alone. His Son and the queen were always making eyes at one another when they were in the same room. He didn’t want Kyn to become attached.

There was no point when she would be dead shortly after the wedding.

And Kyn most certainly would have become more attached that night, what with his bride dressed likethat—wearing dark purple and glittering like the night sky.

He had always been fond of stars.

“Wintertide,” Aldric announced as he watched the queen share a circle dance with her godmother and her Spymaster. When her eyes abruptly flashed his way and pierced him through even fromthat great distance, he sucked in a breath and looked away. “I want to push for a wedding before Wintertide.”

Calix pursed his lips and slanted him a look. “Do you think she’ll agree?”

Aldric shrugged. “I simply won’t give her an opportunity to refuse.”

That seemed to amuse his Son, given the way Calix’s mouth twitched up into another smile. After a few moments of pause, Aldric realized the source of that amusement when his second announced, “Well, now’s your chance to tell her just that, Your Highness. She’s heading this way.”

“What?” Aldric’s head jolted sharply to the right so he could view the entirety of the room. The queen was, indeed, coming at him from his blind side. And she was coming in fast.

She looked displeased.

Aldric balled his hands into fists and braced for the impact of her latest foul mood.

The moment she loomed over him, the queen greeted him with not so much as a smile nor a hello, but a hissed question of, “What areyoudoing here?” that ruffled the top of his head, given her sudden nearness.

She smelled like vanilla.

Aldric took a full step back and tilted a look up at her. Arching an eyebrow, he rumbled, “Well, Iwassimply standing here. Breathing. Living—”

“You told me you weren’t coming tonight,” the woman was swift to remind him, always so keen to be right abouteverything.

That time in particular, shewasright, of course. He had said that.

But he reserved the right to change his mind.

When he provided no verbal retort to her observation, though, the queen’s frown for him deepened all the more.

Calix swiftly interjected into that awkward pause a smooth congratulation of, “Happy birthday, Your Majesty.”

She flicked Calix a glance and offered a tight little smile. “Thank you, Master Fitzjesmaine. That is very kind of you.” But her attention did not linger upon his second-in-command for long.

When next she sliced a look his way, she observed, “I see the rest of your men are not with you tonight.”

“No, they are not,” Aldric confirmed. “Disappointed?”

That time, it was the queen’s turn to hold her tongue. In response to his words, she but furrowed her brow.

And then there was naught but silence.

---