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I shot him a sidelong glance but did not feel the burning strike of desire I hoped to feel if I ever wed. Attraction, yes. Respect, definitely. Closeness—well that was building. Maybe desire could develop though? I wasn’t very well versed in real relationships, just physical ones. But I knew that nobles often had arranged marriages and surely some of those developed into more?
I wondered how many were soulmates? That was what I really wanted, even if I knew that finding my soulmate would be like finding a needle in a sea of loose thread. Still, a fae could hope . . .
The front doors opened at our approach and a wingless faerie appeared and bowed. “Warden Lisika, Frostveil Castle welcomes you.”
This faerie wore a royal blue tunic and spotless, crisp white trousers. A wide gold belt wrapped around his thick waist, straining against his bulk. The male turned his attention on me, and I blinked, taking him in. His deep violet eyes looked even more intense than my own. It was the first time that I’d seen another with my eye color.
“I am the Master of Household in Frostveil Palace. You may call me Genji.” The faerie’s eyes crinkled kindly at the corners.
“Thank you.” I inclined my head. “Lady Neve.”
“My fiancée,” Roar added.
Genji could not hide the surprise that flashed across his face. “Well, we had prepared a suite of rooms for you, my lord. But I suppose your lady would prefer her own suite?”
Roar answered for me. “We wish to have two rooms within a suite. This is my fiancée’s first time at court, and she’s nervous. Is there a maid’s chamber too?”
“Of course. Two, in fact. One beside each master bedroom, of which, coincidentally, there are also two.” Genji cleared his throat. “You brought a maid?”
“A lady-in-waiting to assist my fiancée,” Roar replied in a tone that brooked no argument. The king might have decreed that no personal servants were to join the nobles coming to the palace, but according to Roar ladies-in-waiting were an entirely different matter. “Clemencia will stay in the maid’s chamber next to my fiancée’s room.”
My lady-in-waiting inclined her head, though I felt annoyed for her. She was no maid, and really deserved more, but it wouldn’t do to argue with Roar. Not here and not now.
“Very well.”
I couldn’t tell if Genji approved of our choice to share a suite, but when he swept his hand for us to follow, I supposed it didn’t matter. People would think what they would about Roar and me. In fae society, couples shared a bed before they were married as often as they did not.
Genji led us through the corridors packed with people, many of them servants, but some dressed like noble lords and ladies too. The latter stared as we walked by, and a few whispered to friends behind their hands. Surely, they recognized Roar and that I wore his colors. Were they upset that the wealthy and handsome Warden of the West had brought a female? Who did they think I was? A love match? Or a courtesan?
Trying not to think too much about it, I took in the castle. The wide hallways unraveled, grand in both size and decor. Whereas the Aabergs had not been able to alter the outside of the palace as much as they probably would have liked to, the inside appeared to have undergone renovations. Royal blue, gold, and white were the dominant hues—Aaberg colors—and one couldn’t go more than a hundred paces before coming across some sort of imagery depicting a white bear. They had been etched in the paintings and tapestries lining the white walls and even had been carved into the walls themselves. Just when I thought I’d seen the most impressive depiction of a white bear, we turned a corner and found ourselves face-to-face with one.
I gasped and took a step backward, ducking out of the spacious junction that we’d come across and back into the hallway. In doing so, I ran right into Clemencia, who’d been following us so closely and quietly that I’d forgotten she was there. Roar put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
“Sorry, Clemencia,” I whispered. “That bear shocked me.”
“Apologies, Lady Neve.” Genji stopped. “I should have warned you. The bear is stuffed and sometimes I forget how lifelike it appears to those who have not seen it before. Quite impressive, no?”
An exhale parted my lips as my heart slowed. He was right that it looked so real. And massive. The bear had to weigh at least eight times what Roar weighed, and he was quite tall, muscular, and broad-shouldered for a faerie.
“It’s a sight,” I admitted, “but isn’t it the royal’s house animal? Why would they kill it?”
Roar’s family put up representations of snow leopards, but I’d not seen the real thing in his castle. Was that common?
“This one died of old age,” the Master of Household said. “To hear King Magnus tell it, this bear was one of the oldest of its kind in Isila. But he keeps a living one on site, if you’d like to see it.”
I cocked my head. “Does he have a menagerie?”
“Er, of a sort.” Genji’s lips thinned as if he wished he had not brought it up. “The king’s bear is on display, but he’s also used to enact the king’s justice.”
“I don’t understand.”
Roar answered my question. “If a fae breaks the law, and the king wants a bit of sport, he puts that fae in a pit with the bear to fight to the death. No one has ever beaten the beast.”
My insides froze. How barbaric.
“It’s said he got the idea from the Cruel King.” Roar’s hand gripped mine and squeezed. “Near the end of his reign, King Harald had a fondness for trials by combat. He never used a white hawk, of course. But he was rather partial to frost giants and the most vicious of ogres.”
By the stars! What was worse? Fighting for one’s life against a magical bear or the massive orders of fae with brutish strength?
