Page 119 of A War of Crowns

The queen twisted her lips and whispered, “In the civilized places of the world, even a queen is still bound to its laws and traditions.”

Suddenly aware of just how close Calix had grown to them both while the other man blatantly eavesdropped, Aldric shot a look to his second-in-command and barked out an order of, “Calix. Go to the refreshment table.”

The man’s shoulders visibly slumped when he asked, “Were you, ah…wanting something, Your Highness?”

An arrow through the skull. This woman gave him a headache, and he wanted to be put out of his misery.

“No,” Aldric answered aloud. “But go anyway.” His one good eye narrowed as he watched his Son finally slink off.

When he next turned back around, hoping for a moment of peace at last, he took a full step backward when he found the queen still standing there, watching him like some silk-clad falcon.

“Do you not have anything better to do?” he asked her at once.

There was an entire room in which she might exist. There was no reason for her to linger next to him. On his blind side. Being irritating.

“I am simply ensuring you are not about to start another brawl, Your Highness,” the queen primly clipped. “Or start…rippingyour clothes off again.”

He frowned up at her. His thoughts whirred, struggling to think of just what he was supposed to say in response tothat.

But clearly, she didn’t expect any sort of retort from him, given that she soon muttered, “I simply can’t understand you, Aldric. You make…solittle sense to me.”

He slowly arched an eyebrow yet again in reply.

She kept going, her tongue exceptionally loose for once. “Clearly, you do not wish to be here. By your own lips, you do not wish to marry me. And then I gave you the perfect opportunity to refuse my proposal there on Nerina Reef and you did not take it.”

Her eyes searched his face while she frowned at him, clearly hunting for something. Perhaps she did not find it, though, given the sigh soon followed. “And now you are demanding a wedding before Wintertide. Why? Why that specific date?” Her tone sharpened with that final question as she took a single step in closer to him. “For what purpose?”

The scent of her perfume choked his senses. She stood so near, he could have reached out and traced a finger across the beadwork swirling across her hip. Her gown was pretty. But excessive.

As all things Elmorianwere.

As she was.

When still he did not answer her, her frown for him deepened yet again. “What in theworldare you thinking right now?” she asked.

He answered without pause, “How at first glance, a man might struggle to understand how you can possibly be thirty and unwed, but after a few moments conversing, it becomes all too plain.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted.

He took some small pleasure in knowing he had rendered her speechless for once.

In her lingering silence, Aldric continued, “You claim you do not understand me, but I would counter that you can never understand a man until you have fought him.” Tilting his head to the side, he concluded, “So, I suppose you never will truly know me, given you do not strike me as a martial sort of woman.”

The queen made a face, her ability for speech restored. “What nonsense,” she quietly insisted. “There are plenty of ways you might grow to know a person. Time. Persistence. Keen observation.” After a beat of pause, she added with a faint lift of her chin, “I would understand you a good deal better were I to play you in a single game of Sovereign, for example.”

“Sovereign?” Aldric echoed, his eyebrows knitting together. Sovereign was a child’s game. His mother had tried to teach him when he was younger, but he’d never cared for games of luck.

But from what he had observed, the queen seemed rather obsessed with it.

Never had he spent so much time in hiskirei’s company. Never had they exchanged so many words. His instincts thrummed a warning as he remained at her side.

He should have left many minutes ago. The wolf did not grow close to the lamb before he devoured her, after all.

So then, why should he?

But Aldric’s curiosity got the better of him in the end. He asked, “What is your fascination with that children’s card game, at any rate?”

The queen’s response was immediate and vicious when she snapped in return, “Why do you care?”

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