105. King

I spent a week in Peregrine’s chambers, my husband by my side at night, sleeping with me and spending as much of the day as he could attending to me.

He was often called away to meetings with the king and his council on how to go about negotiating peace with countries that had threatened Tintar.

But what time he could spend with me, we spent walking back and forth across the bedroom, recapturing the strength in my legs.

Or he would read to me, having brought up all of our books.

I asked him to also ask Hazel to collect and deliver Cian’s historic handwritten account of Tintar’s terrain, the first book I had read in my temple training.

I wanted to hear a description of the country for which I had just sacrificed my left hand.

Whenever I grew forlorn about being one-handed, if I could, if I had the strength, I would walk to the balcony and look at all of the hand-shaped flags.

Friends and family visited, Helena, Maureen and Mischa first.

They came to spend the day after I woke with me, by my side while Alric bathed and ate and met with Hinnom’s council.

They helped me bathe with pitchers of warm water, carefully avoiding my bandages.

Helena recounted all of the rumors flying around Pikestully, most of them true, about my summoning of the stone drakes and how people were calling for me to have my own holiday.

She informed me her pregnancy was now making eating meals unpleasant and that it was most definitely a daughter.

Maureen brought me a sleepy Tabitha in a basket and told me she sang me a bedtime song I had sung to her when she was small.

I thanked her for that and did not tell her that, in a spirit realm, I had seen this.

Mischa, sitting next to me on the bed after they helped me stand up, clean myself and put on a new shift, asked me if my right hand had any pain in it.

When I said no, she asked to see it.

I held it out to her, it having returned mostly to my being able to use it, though the joints were stiff.

I pulled it back to me when she slapped it.

Maureen, startled, paused in her tucking the sheets around my legs.

Helena, sitting on my other side, working lavender oil into my hair, cried, “Mischa!”

“That is for going off and getting yourself almost dead,”

said Mischa, eyes on me.

The skin where she had slapped me tingled and I felt annoyance.

And then I laughed.

For the first time since I took an axe and drove its blade through my wrist, I laughed.

“Serves me right, I suppose,” I said.

“Serves you right,”

Mischa replied, her tone and expression hard, but her eyes shone.

River and Quinn visited, the former brimming with excitement over my recovery and asking me questions so quickly I did not have a chance to answer, the latter sedate and watchful.

Catrin came with Maureen on another day, bringing me more fresh flowers and a welcome distraction to my continual struggle with the pain in my upper body.

She informed me that all the nobles of Tintar were also calling for me to have my own holiday and that I be made a noblewoman with an allotment of my own land.

I found this amusing.

Hazel, Tuck and other earth temple staff visited as well, along with Zinnia and Beryl in the days that followed.

One afternoon, Anwyn and Vincent sat with me while Alric was called off to another meeting, telling me stories from the twins’ childhood and youth.

Towards the end of the week, Walter declared I could descend the stairs and walk the corridors to our own room, but as I had walked back and forth across the bedroom all day, he wanted me to spend one last night in Peregrine’s chambers and rest.

In the morning, I could try, which, the physician insisted, if I felt I could do, I should, as my lower half’s strength was returning day by day.

Alric had moved a small couch and a chair out to the balcony for us to sit and watch the sunlight fade from the city each night.

On that last night, I sat on one end of the couch with my feet in his lap where he sat at the other end.

On the chair, a pitcher of watered down whiskey and lightleaf sat with his cup and I held my own in my right hand, now able to grip and balance a full cup.

My left arm was strung up in a sling around my neck, which took some of the strain off of that shoulder and allowed for the broken bones in the forearm to heal undisturbed.

Under the couch, Tabitha purred ferociously in a ball.

As Alric began to read about the type of growth one could find in the marshlands, the door to the prince’s chambers burst open and Hinnom himself strode inside.

Both of us were too surprised to give the perfunctory half bow or even nod.

The Shark King lifted the cup and pitcher from the chair, setting them on the floor and sat in the seat next to my husband, but facing my end of the couch.

He stood and dragged the chair even closer to me, black eyes glittering, a smirk on his mouth.

With a yowl of surprise, Tabitha darted away from her spot under the couch.

“Your highness, good evening,”

Alric managed to say.

Hinnom barely acknowledged him with a nod, saying, “Edie, Edie, Edie.

Master of the stone drakes.

My, my.

What you have wrought, woman.

What you have wrought.”

I tried to smile.

“I pray you are not displeased with me, highness.”

“Displeased?”

he half shouted.

“I should think not.

The known world is on pins and needles, lady.

Pins and needles.

Magic like that has not been seen in our lifetimes or our fathers’ lifetimes or their fathers'.

What you have wrought!”

He went on to repeat some of what he had said to me while I was dying, my spirit seeing him from a tree in Nyossa.

He said treaties of peace were being proffered by other countries and settlements.

The king of Perpatane had begged for peace and asked that Tintar allow for his troops to march back along the dust road after sailing inland from Ruskar.

Hinnom said he was waiting to reply, wanting Perpatane to be in a state of terror as long as he could make it last.

“So peace will reign, your highness?” I asked.

He groaned.

“It will have to reign, madam.

As much as I would like to clamp down the jaw of the shark that is Tintar, I cannot.

My advisors tell me your act would be in vain if we struck now.

They force me to curtail my impulses and talk truce.

Which is, of course, the right choice.”

“You are a wise ruler, my king,”

I said, actually meaning it.

He shrugged.

“I suppose.

I would rather be a bloodthirsty ruler, but that is not what the gods intend for me.

They want me to be of sound mind for my people.”

I purposely did not look at him or my husband, afraid I would laugh.

“Now,”

he went on, picking up Alric’s tin cup from the floor and drinking from it.

“I have two questions for you, Lady Edie.

And then I will leave you to your evening.”

“Ask, please, highness,”

I said warily, but attempting to show respect.

He leant forward, elbows on his knees.

“Will you marry me, lady?”

My lips parted and I saw my husband go still.

“Your highness.

That is too high an honor to grant me.

I am not of noble birth.

I do not—”

“Oh piss and nonsense,”

he said, waving away my words.

“I do not care about nobility.

I care about magic.

I want to have the master of the stone drakes as my queen.

Perhaps we could even get a child on you yet.

You are not that old.”

He was matter-of-fact, awaiting me to speak.

Alric sat, inert, eyes unfocused but staring down at my feet in his lap.

“My king,”

I started, cautious, knowing he was a man of many moods.

“I must tell you, I am barren.

And maybe more importantly, I am already married.”

“Yes, but that was not a true marriage,”

he countered, not addressing my first reason.

“I can have you divorced in a day.”

I nodded, smiling.

“I know, my king.

I am beyond flattered by this proposal.

What can a woman say? Would you accept my telling you I must refuse because I love another?”

He squinted at me.

Then he looked at Alric. “Him?”

“Yes, my king. Him.”

He shrugged again.

“Well, if that is what you want.

I could have made you a queen.”

“It is honor enough to be your citizen, highness.”

“Alright.

My second question.

Though, it is a not a question I have for you, but an answer.

You first, must ask the question.”

The Shark King seemed pleased with himself.

“Is there a specific question I am to ask, your highness?” I asked.

He blinked.

“Oh, yes.

Any favor.

Ask me any favor and I will grant it.”

I tried to catch Alric’s eye, but he now stared out at the city, brows drawn.

I followed his gaze, out over all of those rooftops, still with the left hand flags flying.

“Any favor,”

he repeated, now starting to look impatient.

I realized that this offer would be rescinded as soon as he lost interest in playing the benevolent ruler.

“I do have a question for you, my king,”

I said, spurred on by an idea.

He clapped his hands.

“Marvelous.

Ask, madam!”

I sat up as straight as I could on the couch.

“Your highness, please allow any two Tintarians, who are at their majority, who wish to marry, be married.

Any two.

Two men or two women.

Let us be the first country on the continent to grant this blessing.”

Hinnom crossed his arms, a look of grief passing over his features.

I thought he must be thinking of his Gareth.

“So shall it be, lady,”

he said and departed the room without another word.

Alric and I sat, stunned at having our king sit next to us and offer me these things.

I said my husband’s name, but he continued to stare out at Pikestully.

I tried again.

“Now, if they wish, Anwyn and Vincent can marry.

This time by law.

As can Quinn and River.”

He nodded, but did not turn to me.

He said, “You just turned away a king’s hand in marriage.”