The Wolf Queen Awakens

Chapter 15

"Elisif."

Elisif smiled, feeling the sun's warmth on her face as she rested in bed, eyes still closed, just enjoying the moment before she had to get up.

Someone nudged her shoulder again.

"Five more minutes, Torygg," she said sleepily. A pause and then he was shaking her shoulder.

"Elisif, wake up," he said again, and his voice sounded off. Was he ill? She hoped he wasn't losing his voice. He sounded awfully gravelly.

"All right then, my love," she whispered, turning over and opening her eyes, smile on her face as she reached out for her husband.

It wasn't daylight. She wasn't in their bed at the Blue Palace. Rough earth walls all round her, a magelight on the ceiling... and that wasn't her husband kneeling by the bed, it was the King in Rags whose cheek she was stroking.

Elisif recoiled like she'd been struck, feeling her cheeks blazing. He was looking at her rather strangely, although not angrily. Just... surprised.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, mortified as she shrank back into the furs. Bad enough she still dreamed of happier days, but to start dragging strangers into them?

"It's fine," he said, voice sounding a little strangled and he didn't look entirely fine, there was something about the way he was staring at her, probably thinking she was completely insane.

"I thought you were my husband," she whispered, feeling wretched and embarrassed and oh gods, she'd never live this down. At least she'd not actually kissed him. That would have been just the end.

Another pause, and then a low chuckle from him.

"Get me my kingdom back, and I'll consider it. But until that happens, I'm afraid you're going to have to remain disappointed."

That got her attention.

"That is not what I meant!" she snapped, sitting up and glaring at the insufferable man. He was smirking back at her, and trust him to find it amusing. "You... you... I don't want to marry you!"

Now it was his turn to sit back, all righteous indignation.

"Well I'm very sorry, Brenhina, but while you may be used to Nord men hanging after your every utterance, pining for every scrap of attention, us Reachmen are harder to woo than that. It's marriage or nothing, Elisif, I'm not being your concubine."

"I am not after a - !" Elisif shouted, about ready to hit him... and then she saw the mischievous shine in his eyes as he began to laugh. Elisif stared and then shook her head, wondering why on earth she'd not just crept up on him and killed him to start with. But even as she thought it, she knew the answer. Damn him for doing it, but somehow she'd grown to like him.

"You are impossible," she told him sternly, trying not to smile herself or it'd just encourage him. "No, don't look pleased about it! You're supposed to be in trouble!"

"Get me my kingdom back and marry me, and you can tell me off all you like, and I will take it with a smile on my face," Madanach promised, still grinning, and honestly, no wonder he'd ended up in prison. The man never knew when to stop. All the same, he was making her laugh for the first time since Torygg died, not to mention having cured her embarrassment over nearly kissing him.

"I'm not marrying you," she told him firmly. "You're a wanted criminal, known insurrectionist and not only that, I think you might actually be insane."

"Oh, there's crazier than me out there," Madanach told her, levity disappearing as a faintly haunted look appeared in his eyes. "There's crazier than me in this very prison in fact. We had a new arrival while you were asleep. A young man who says he's a friend of yours. Calls himself Cicero."