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“There’s no need for this. Enough with the shouting and threats.” I pushed up and stepped out from behind Alisdair. “I swear, I’ve been in rowdy taverns filled with pissing, puking drunks that behave with more decorum.
“What is your favor, Meallan? Ask it already.”
He bowed low. “Of course, Lady Ana. It is a simple request. One that in time we’ll find is best for our people. Will you—?”
“No,” Alisdair sliced in. “Now get out.”
I shoved around him. “Will I what?”
“Will you dissolve the invisible border and allow the wolf faeriken to rejoin Lumenfell, its people, and your rule?”
Foalan dropped his swords. I thought I knew what shock looked like on his face. That expression blew it out of the water. “Dissolve the— You jest,” he cried. “This is a trick!”
“It is no trick, it’s sire’s wish,” Meallan replied to him, but looked at me. “Too long we’ve been separated, and we’re both suffering for it. The successful union of your king and one of the stunted’s princesses showed us we were wrong.”
Stunted? They call normal faeriken stunted!?
“We can exist as one people,” Meallan continued. “No matter which animal calls to us. So, what say you, my queen?”
My queen. Not Lady Ana.
“Will you end the conflict and unite our people?”
“No!”
I blinked and Alisdair was in front of me. Towering over me. Growling at me. Beseeching me.Beggingme.
Imperceptibly, he shook his head. “Princess,” he whispered. “Don’t.”
War raged in my head. Something was going on here that I didn’t know or understand. Why was it a bad thing to end the conflict between them, and bring all the faeriken together? It was only the day before that Alisdair ripped the throats of two crocodile faeriken for committing the very sin of not working together. It wasn’t a bad thing, except—
Alisdair’s eyes said in every way that it was. At least with this fae-wolf and this conflict, the answer had to be no.
“Yes,” I said, confident and clear. “I end the conflict, dissolve the borders, and unite our people.” I smiled into his darkening eyes. “Meallan, your favor is granted.”
Meallan said something. Foalan said something. Everyone in the room sounded, yelling and shouting on top of each other. All of it faded around us.
Alisdair closed the distance, bumping my chin against his chest. He spoke one word.
“Why?”
I balled my fists. Rising on tiptoe, I brought the venom etched in my face as close to him as it would go without seeping into his body. “I wanted you to free that boy and save him. Seems that neither one of us is granting each other favor today,husband.
“Huzzah, huzzah, my people, shout huzzah,” I rang out, my voice echoing through the cavernous room. “For Princess Emiana has achieved the purpose for which she was solely born. To be the bargaining token for the end of war.”
Alisdair’s anger was a palpable, oppressive atmosphere—more oppressive than the marking pheromones that choked half the guards. Slowly, he turned his back on me and reclaimed his throne.
“My queen has spoken,” he announced in the throne room, surprising me. “The wolf territory is dissolved and reclaimed for the wealth and prosper of Lumenfell. We are one people once more.”
If I expected cheers and huzzahs, I did not get it.
No one moved. No one spoke. After a beat, Meallan dipped his head in a semblance of a bow. Turning away, he left without another word.
Alisdair was similarly silent watching him go. When the door slammed shut, he flicked to Foalan.
“You know what to do.”
Foalan deferred him a proper bow, and strode out of the throne room.
