Chapter 7

Seven

I spenta good portion of the afternoon scheming. It likely wasn’t fair of me to rope Jake into all my problems, but I wasn’t feeling fair right then. My own life and the lives of my people hung in the balance.

I wouldn’t ask him to work for free. I’d give him anything I could, I just didn’t have much to offer. Relieved as I was to finally have a cure on hand, it did me no good if I couldn’t convince Jake to work for me. From what he’d said, he’d led a relatively sheltered life on his world. Would he even be willing to march into the miasma, which scared even us?

Room and board was a given—of course I’d care for him while he worked for me—but what else? Money? I could empty what was left in my coffers and it wouldn’t be enough.

A knock sounded at the door. I absently called, “Enter!”

Truly, I must think of something—oh. Jake. It was rather late for him to come looking for me. We’d finished dinner not an hour ago.

Without a word of explanation, he handed me something with an expectant smile. I looked down at the paper he’d handed me.

“What is this?” I asked in bewilderment.

“A work contract.” Jake said this like duh, how obvious.

I was still lost. My face must have said as much because he sighed and explained.

“I’m not working for you without a work contract in place. I don’t work for anyone without some kind of written agreement. Now, I took a stab at the salary I should earn, based on my very limited grasp of how the economy in this world works?—”

When the hell had he learned that? Was that what he’d been doing most of the day?

“—but I could be off in my calculations. Also, I included room and board with the price, to offset the expense some, as I know you’re hurting for money right now. Contract goes for a year because hopefully I’ll have helped you solve the problem by that point, and then we can decide what to do.”

He paused and looked at me expectantly. He’d shed coat and vest at some point, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, looking very comfortable and casual. I could smell beeswax and hearth smoke from him, so he must have been holed up in his room for some length of time. Working on this?

I looked back, utterly at a loss. He’d gone from upset and disbelieving of his own abilities to writing a work contract for me to sign. The mental fortitude he had was breathtaking to behold. Jake was not the type of man to fail, only because he knew how to get back up. I’d thought before that he had a spine of steel, but I’d failed to realize just how strong he was.

Like an afterthought, Jake threw in, “Oh, and training fees are on you. Mostly because I don’t have the money or connections to hire someone to train me.”

He really did think of everything, didn’t he? “You’re truly willing to work with me, for me, to help this land?”

“I am,” Jake said with absolute confidence, lifting his chin in an almost cocky way. “That bastard coin might have dragged me here without even a heads-up, but at least it gave me a marketable skill. I’d be a fool not to use it to survive.”

Ohhhh. Of course, put into those terms, it made perfect sense. Jake had admitted he wasn’t a religious man. He looked at his powers like a skill set, a way to survive, and he wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t fault his logic for it. I had no intention of arguing with him, either. If I was extremely lucky, perhaps we could grow better acquainted in the next year. It was rare I found someone so attractive and intelligent, and part of me wanted to capitalize on the possibility.

I promptly picked up my pen and signed it.

“Hey!” Jake protested, almost yanking the contract away. “You idiot, at least read it first!”

I shook my head. “Whatever terms you set down, whatever money you asked for, is worth it. I’ll find a way to pay you.”

Jake sprawled out over the edge of my desk like a dramatic flower denied sunlight. “What the hell is wrong with you? I could have put something ludicrous down. And I told you outright I’m just guessing on the salary. You’re supposed to negotiate with me!”

“As I said, it’s worth it. Besides, I can’t imagine you putting down anything unreasonable—” From the corner of my eye, I spotted the word marriage on the page and stopped dead. I reoriented the paper so I could read it better. “Jake. Why did you put ‘no arranged marriage’ as part of the clause for you helping me?”

“Well, Theon,” he said in an oh-so-reasonable tone, “it’s because I don’t yet know what genre I’m in.”

Sometimes—often, in fact—he made no sense to me. “Genre?”

“In other words, I don’t know what the future has in store for me. I’m hedging my bets.” Jake made a face, expression sour in the extreme. “I’ve already been strong-armed into one marriage I didn’t want. I’m not leaving myself open to another.”

Ah, he had mentioned he’d divorced his husband before coming here. He’d been in an arranged marriage? Poor man, those normally didn’t pan out well. “I understand. I certainly won’t force you.”

“I appreciate it.” Jake gave me a stern look. “Now. Read the contract. It is invalid until you do so.”

Humoring him, I read the contract in front of me. Kind of skimmed it, to be honest. As I’d said to him, so long as he helped my land and people, I didn’t care what terms he’d put down. He would be worth whatever expense or aggravation.

Really, his terms were reasonable. Unless in an emergency, he wouldn’t work more than forty hours a week. Any work he did outside of my territory would be considered freelance, and I’d neither pay him for it nor be due any part of what he earned. No arranged marriage, of course. The salary was rather low in my opinion—he could demand more—but it was also high enough that I would be stretched to afford it. I had a feeling he’d calculated the amount very carefully, ensuring I could indeed afford it.

Smart man, this one. He’d grasped things very quickly when my head was turned.

“I still don’t see anything objectionable,” I stated while handing it back to him. “There’s only one clause I want to add to this. You will have protection no matter where you go. I’ll assign a bodyguard to you.”

“That works for me. I’m not a fighter, and I have no clue how this world really operates.” Jake took the contract and pen from me and signed his own name at the bottom. “There. Now we’re good. I have to ask, though. How did you become lord of a territory without learning to read a contract before signing it?”

He was likely the only person in this country who didn’t know the story. For that matter, I’d never had to tell it before. I didn’t mind, I just couldn’t figure out how to start mentally.

“Uhhh, well, truth tell, I wasn’t born into this duchy. I earned it.”

Jake blinked at me, those big green eyes wide with surprise. “Oh, this is going to be good, I can tell. Hit me. How did you get this place?”

“Looking back on it…grit and sheer dumb luck?” I grinned when he chuckled. “I wish I could give you a better sounding answer, but that’s what it boiled down to. Let me back up. Roughly fifty years ago, this duchy was abandoned. The previous lords went bankrupt because of gambling debts, and rather than face the music, they chose suicide instead. It left the place without any rulers, or anyone to help the people, and that’s when things took a very bad turn.”

Jake’s expression tightened, mouth drawing into an unhappy flat line. “Is that when the miasma started acting up?”

“It was doing so long before then, but it didn’t help the situation any. Without any guards or knights, the various predators that call the north home started preying on the villages in this area. It got…well, even the word dangerous is an understatement. The king sent the army up here to at least push back the predators, but their efforts didn’t last more than a season. Fed up with it, and not willing to send the army back up here to be stationed permanently, he instead reached out to my people. He wanted the Fae to step in. Our magic was better suited to defeating miasma-tainted monsters, and he had hopes we could keep the miasma behind the Wall. He sent word that anyone who was a strong enough mage and fighter was eligible to become duke.”

“Huh. You jumped in, I take it?”

“At the time, I was younger and stupider. More of a hothead.” I shrugged since it was the truth. “I’m the only child of my family but our island has very limited resources. Frankly, it’s overcrowded. I had nothing to inherit and I had people who were loyal to me. People I wanted to give a proper home to. So we gathered up arms, supplies, and some friends to help, and then charged this place. Really, I think the only reason we survived was due to the Fae magic we were able to wield. Fighting and defense was much easier for us.”

“Much easier as in you survived?”

I snorted because that was so true it was almost painful. “Quite. After that year, I was awarded the title and given the duchy. That’s when the work really started. I’d thought, quite naively , that so long as I had a place to offer my people, everything else would work out.”

“Ah, the naivety of younger us.” Jake nodded in complete empathy, almost in a nostalgic way. “Sometimes I wish for a time machine so I can go back into the past and give younger me a hug and a good smack to the back of the head.”

A chuckle jerked at my chest. It was nice to know he thought like me. He, too, wished to change things he couldn’t. I related to him a little more because of that. “If only. I’d love to do the same. I really should have put more thought into it all. We’re in this mess now because I didn’t hedge my bets more.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I think you were a little set up for this mess.” Jake’s eyes turned shrewd, narrowed as they studied me. “So what I hear is that you had no training for ruling, you’ve been making it up as you go along, and you don’t have strong connections with the other nobility because of how you acquired this place.”

“In a nutshell, yes.” I leaned back against the chair with a sigh. I felt both tired and resigned all at once. “I’m good at fighting, at protecting my people, but I don’t have a head for business and administration. I’ve learned over the years how to do it, but I’m not talented at it. It’s a talented partner I need. Unfortunately, this place is so unstable I can’t attract a spouse to marry in.”

“It is a conundrum, for sure.” Jake tapped the contract on the table with a finger, almost absently, like his mind whirled at high speeds. “Theon, I don’t have a plan for how to tackle the miasma yet because frankly, I have no idea how capable I am. Right now, I have nothing to gauge with, which means I can’t even guesstimate.”

He was entirely right. “I take it to mean you want training now?”

“If at all possible.” He jerked a thumb to indicate the Wall outside. “Because giving that any more time is a really bad idea.”

“Agreed. I can call for my cousin. She’s got some training in divine magic, which is close to your divine power, so I think she can help you. I sent a message to her asking for help after you left this morning.”

“Good, let’s do it.” Jake folded the contract, then paused. “Wait, does she live in the castle?”

“She does. In fact, she’s dining with the knights.”

“Is that normal?”

“It is. I normally eat with them, truth be told, but they’re a rowdy bunch and I didn’t want to overwhelm you. It’s why we’ve used the dining room the past several meals.”

“Oh.” Jake gave me a soft smile. “Thank you. I was feeling overwhelmed, so I really appreciate the thoughtfulness.”

For some reason, I felt strange. His gratitude touched me deeply, though I couldn’t quantify why. “You’re more than welcome.”

Jake stuffed the contract into a pocket. “I want to make a game plan for how to tackle everything, but I really need training first.”

“Fair enough.” I pushed away from the desk, leading the way. “While you train with her, I’ll find you a bodyguard. Perhaps two. I have a feeling that as soon as you have an idea of what to do, you’re going to dive right in.”

“Well, perhaps not dive,” Jake demurred. “But I’ll need practical experience to train against, right? Emergencies wait for no man.”

He spoke of caution, but I suspected that at the heart of him, Jake was a man of action. He wouldn’t be foolhardy, but he wasn’t the type to let moss grow on his feet either. To safeguard him, I’d best get those bodyguards quickly. I didn’t think Jake would wait for anyone when he decided something needed to be done.

Hopefully Ara could keep up with him. I had a feeling I’d just given my cousin more work than she’d signed up for.