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“I won’t be marrying her,” I informed her bluntly. “And I can’t believe no one bothered to do their due diligence on her beforehand.”
Aradia’s mouth curled into an amused grin, her crystalline eyes glittering. Dust motes danced in the sunrays of my massive bedroom, catching over the strands of her crimson hair.
“Would it matter if they had?” she asked indifferently. “You’ll marry her, regardless.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “I don’t think so! She’s rude and has absolutely no place in a palace. Putting her in front of the kingdom is a terrible idea.”
Aradia raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
I got the distinct impression she was mocking me, and my fangs flared up, drawing her back at the sight. It wasn’t often that my wolf form sprung forward without notice, but my patience was on its end after the experience with Zephyrine.
“Forgive me, Alpha,” Aradia muttered, bowing her head, but was her contrition sincere? There was a little too much informality in the palace for my liking sometimes. We would need to tighten the reins around here. Things had grown too lax with me running things from such a young age. Maybe that was part of the problem.
“She’s just not… queenly enough. She basically laughed in my face when I informed her of her duties,” I retorted, my fangs retracting.
“Her parents and guides should have trained her for what’s upcoming,” Aradia commented, unbothered by my insistence.
“If they have, she has either ignored them, or they have failed miserably,” I insisted.
My enchantress looked at me oddly.
“What skills does she lack? I haven’t met her directly, but from what I’ve observed, she seems capable enough.”
“She refuses to wait on me!” I blurted out.
Aradia frowned slightly. “That’s not entirely her position, though, Alpha. She is supposed to be your partner, not your servant.”
I scowled, feeling the throb of my fangs again. “I don’tneeda partner, Aradia. I’ve been getting along just fine on my own for the last ten years.”
She raised her fiery crown of hair to meet my eyes directly. “The conditions of your throning are not in my hands, Cade. I can only tell you what you already know. You must marry this fae as per the laws of the land, laid out well before you were born. Zephyrine of Carrottrove will be your queen, or you will not be king. Ironhelm will be lost to you with the dark curse, dissolving the entire kingdom. War will ensue, and the other three kings of Mystara will probably fight over Ironhelm. That is the oath. There is no circumventing it.”
“There has to be a way that the oath can be rewritten,” I muttered slowly, my mind racing. “No one has ever seriously looked into it.”
Aradia stared at me. “We have discussed this before. Perhaps you don’t recall.”
Of course I remembered it. I had thought of loopholes and fantasized about ways out for months leading up to Zephyrine’s arrival. I didn’t want to marry a stranger. Stralia had always been the only one I’d ever wanted for longer than a month or two, and I’d never really considered the possibility of marrying her, either.
I’d run the kingdom just fine on my own. Why would I need anyone else now? These ridiculous rules were archaic and should have been changed eons ago.
My veins bubbled even before Aradia recited what she’d already told me in the past.
“A blood oath can only be broken by the previous generations,” Aradia went on, but I held up a hand to stop her.
I was stuck in this idiotic union because my father hadn’t bothered to undo the mess that my great-grandfather had created.
“And there are no provisions for if the fae is crazy? Or unworthy of being queen?” I challenged. “What then?”
“Is that the case?” Aradia asked in her infuriatingly wise way, which told me that she knew more than I did.
“Have you spent any time with her?” I spat back. “She has no intention of doing what she’s told. She seems to think she can do whatever she wants.”
“Haveyouspent any time with her?”
I glowered at the enchantress. “You’re not a parrot, Aradia,” I barked. “You’re supposed to be an advisor.”
Unlike the others in the kingdom, Aradia could never be unnerved by me, no matter how angry I got. It infuriated me.
“I find it very hard to believe that you would have been matched with a queen who wasn’t sent to empower you, just as your mother empowered your father, and your grandmother, your grandfather.”
