The waning days of September and the whole month of October are gone in a blur, and why I haven't hired the Shadow Hunters before, I do not know.
I see now why Espan raves about them. Anytime there is an attack on my gates, they are straight there. They scout my borders, work with my guards, and Onyx and Annaliya have just made it back from a two-week mission to assassinate another high-profile enemy commander. They've eased the workload for my army and for myself.
For her casual attitude to life, Renna runs a tight ship, and I didn't appreciate before quite how hard she works. She's awake in her guest study working late into most nights. The rest of the nights she spends with me in my bed.
It’s good. It is incredible, in fact. But truthfully I don’t know where it’s going, and I don’t want her to get hope when there is none. I cannot love. I’ll never love. I cannot let her believe otherwise.
As I sit at my desk surrounded by papers and try and envision any way wearen’tgoing to have to head to war this winter, the head of my army knocks twice and enters.
“Frian,” I say, in greeting as he strides to my desk with newspapers in hand.
He holds them up. “Want me to shut these down?”
I give him my usual answer. “Unless they’re about Siddie, no.”
He tosses them onto my desk and they slide to a halt beneath my nose. I glance down to read the headlines printed in dark green ink, and I realise that Renna and I have not been careful enough.
Has the King finally chosen his new wife? It certainly looked that way when they hugged in the training ground!
Renna, Shadow Commander, willing to stoop as low as sleeping with the King to gain favour for her people.
Should we start planning a wedding? King Rexxan seen laughing for the first time in years, out walking with Commander Renna.
Has Queen Alia been replaced after 719 years? Let's hope the King has sought his son’s approvalthistime!
is Renna trying to win our King’s heart, or just his money?
With a sour taste in my mouth and a heartbeat drumming too hard in my chest, I pick one up and turn a page, reading a random sentence.She seems a rather odd choice for the King who could easily take his pick from Ellia, Illyana, Lynna, and Silvassa. For those who haven't seen her, the Shadow Commander is five foot four, a brunette—and did we mention she's amortal?
My heart sinks with every word I read, and I know my relationship with Renna has gone too far. They'll pick her apart. I've given my people hope of a new Queen when there is none. Some of the articles are kind about Renna, but most of them are riddled with envy.
"My lord?"
Fuck. I hand him the papers that weren’t cruel about Renna. “Shut these papers down.” I hand him the last three. “Shut these entire businesses down.”
I draw the line at people printing shit about her like that. That’s too far. I’m fucking furious as Frian leaves. I hope he can get rid of them before she sees any.
She’s doing press-ups on her balcony when I find her, dressed only in a black vest and some scandalous black undershorts. She hasn’t noticed me. “Renna.”
She shrieks in terror, flopping onto the stone floor face first. “Rexxan, you wanker! I nearly shat myself! Is my nose broken?”
"No. We need to talk.”
She frowns, running a towel over her glistening skin, breathless. The muscles in her arms flex as she tosses it over the stone, ivy-covered rail. “Everything alright? Is it about the scouts we sent west?”
“No.”
“Okay, well, are you going to keep me guessing?”
I take a seat on the balcony. “What exactly is the nature of our relationship for you?”
There’s a little V between her eyebrows as she sits opposite me. “Oh. Well, we’re lovers, aren’t we? And friends. Best friends. And we’re….”
There’s something she’s hesitant to say, like she’s scared of saying it, and maybe I am too.
I don’t like this. The atmosphere between us feels almost awkward. The air between Rennalya and myself has felt many things over the last year or so; rage, betrayal, lust, friendship, humour, agony. But never awkwardness.
If I was someone else, and if she was someone else, I’d have put a ring on her finger last year. But as she has told me, being a Queen is her worst nightmare. Her being Queen is the public’s worst nightmare. And having another wife who is unhappy because I can’t give her enough time is my own nightmare.
