Page 37 of MidKnight
I was offering something we technically didn’t have to offer. I was potentially offering more than Declan could take on. I was pretty sure he’d tell me I was ‘giving away the castle.’ But there were people going hungry. Not my people. But people. We couldn’t try nothing.
“How would that work?” Isla’s scribe asked.
“We’d have to discuss details, but perhaps my knight, Declan, could visit to assist over the next few years—”
“Years!” Isla shook her head, the pearls in her crown rattling slightly in their settings.
“We can’t wait years. We need his help now!”
I bit my tongue from telling her that her people could always add more fishing to their repertoire if they needed more food. Her part-mer communities would never hear of it. They’d rather starve or steal than possibly kill kin.
I took a deep breath through my nose. “Isla, I just began my reign. I want to work with you, but you have to understand that Declan is—
“What if you sent him for a month? Just a month? Surely, you could spare him now that harvest is over.”
I sighed, “I’m trying to compromise.”
“Two days. What if you send him back with me for two days to simply work out a preliminary plan?” Isla countered. “I need to be able to tell my people something.”
Connor intervened. “Perhaps we should break for the day. Give everyone time to mull over the options as they’ve been presented. Maybe tomorrow, we’ll have time to develop more potential solutions.”
I stood, not waiting for anyone to respond. I grabbed Blue’s cage and put him onto my shoulder as I strode out of the room. I was halfway back to the royal wing when Connor caught up with me and my guards.
I cringed, not wanting to hear his critique, but needing to know at the same time. “How bad was it?”
“Well, you basically offered everything she wanted on a platter,” Connor shook his head at me, and I shrugged.
There was nothing for me to say. He was right. I had just wanted to yell at Isla and tell her what she was doing wrong. Suppressing that impulse had made me blurt out something else.
Connor rubbed my shoulder, “At least you didn’t agree to ship Declan off yet. We still have time to backpedal.”
I put a hand to my forehead, forgetting about Blue. He fluttered off my shoulder and flitted down the hall. “So … poorly is the answer. I did poorly.”
Sarding idiot, Bloss, I told myself.
Connor sighed, “Try not to kill Dec by giving everyone exactly what they want, okay? She’ll see you as a pushover. Word will spread. And Declan will constantly be gone, pleasing these other assholes’ every whim. They have a lotta’ whims.”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead as I said, “Alright. Sorry.”
He put an arm over my shoulders. “It’s fine. And if it makes you feel any better, when your mother was younger, she nearly gave away the rights to all our minerals to a fairy from Gitmore. Part of why she hated them so much.”
I gave a little grin at that, “At least I’m not the only fool, I guess.”
Connor smiled and kissed the tip of my nose. “I need to go mingle and get a read on Isla’s people. But you’re not a fool, Bloss. You have a heart. The problem is, Isla and most of these other royal assholes don’t.”
That was a problem.
A big one.
And I had a feeling that it was one of those other royal assholes who was controlling Abbas.
I just didn’t know who.
Chapter Nine
The parade was as awful as I expected.
A jester, wearing a long-nosed mask that constantly poked me in the back, rode on a wagon with Isla and me. He tossed coins at the children and then shot little colorful sparks of magic into the sky. The crowd was enamored. I was annoyed. I had to stand wedged between him and Isla and wave, a fake smile plastered on my face as I tried not to fall while we bounced over ruts in the road. My knees hurt like hell.
