“Are you out of your mind?” Marduk demanded. “The Zilittu can’t be trusted.”
“We’ve always known that,” Rurik replied. And then he smiled at Solveig. “Which is why you will be joining them. Your ties to your father shall be a statement that both clans are watching them. They won’t dare try anything underhanded.”
“Absolutely not,” Solveig replied calmly. “My part in this is done. I need to return to my father and rouse my warband. War is coming—”
“And the key to winning such a war is in Zilittu hands,” Rurik replied.
Marduk slung his arm over the back of his chair. Here came the fun part of the afternoon. Rock meet stone.
“You’re not my king, so the answer is no,” Solveig said. “And I’m no thief.”
She looked perfectly at ease, as if staring down dreki kings was something she did for sheer enjoyment.
“Even if I have something you want?” Rurik murmured.
“I’m not interested in gold or treasure or—”
“I must have something you want,” Rurik countered, his eyes flaring bright gold. “A… peaceful dissolution to a certain agreement between courts, perhaps?”
Solveig turned to stone.
But Marduk sat forward, sending a psychic link toward his brother. “I spent hours arguing for dissolution of our mating contract. You denied me every time.”
Rurik didn’t even look in his direction. “Such dissolution was not to the benefit of the court. Now, it is.”
“To end such an arrangement means the end of this alliance between our clans,” Rurik said out loud. “And with the threat of World’s End and this sudden incursion by the alfar, I think this is a time for the Sadu and Zini clans to hold strongly. But once the matter is dealt with—”
“I will not suffer this arrangement a second longer than I must,” Solveig growled.
“Nor would I insist this mating stand any longer than needs must. But an agreement must be reached. The alliance must stand until this elvish threat is handled.”
Solveig idly tapped her long nails on the table. “What do you suggest?”
“Marduk must make amends,” Rurik said, which made Marduk look at him sharply. “He will formally apologize to the Sadu on the agreement that you will not seek to cause him harm whilst you are under my aegis.”
Her eyes turned thoughtful.
“You will be part of the Zini clan’s embassy to Zilittu lands, in order to represent our alliance with the Sadu. Their king must think the Sadu-Zini alliance is without fault. Travel to their court with my embassy and help retrieve the key, and I will end your mating contract.”
There was not a hint of trickery on the king’s face, but Marduk had spent the past three months playing cards with him. This was not the whole of the story—nor the whole of the plan.
“Just what are you up to?” he asked, because he’d spent the past three months getting absolutely destroyed at cards—and he was very good at cheating.
His brother always played several moves ahead. It was a rare hand that beat him.
“Making peace, brother.”
“Peace? We’ll kill each other before we even arrive at the Zilittu court.”
Rurik cut the connection.
You son of a wyrm. Marduk fought the instinct to say it out loud.
Because he wasn’t the one his brother was maneuvering right now.
“Upon the retrieval of the key, the Sadu clan’s obligations to the Zini will be met, and our alliance considered to be cemented. I will gladly allow you to sever ties with my brother at the end of this quest,” Rurik continued.
Solveig finally looked pleased. “I accept.”
The king exhaled loudly as his inner court left his chambers, and slowly slipped his crown from his head. Its weight grew heavier each day.
His wife, Freyja, circled behind his chair, one hand resting on his shoulder. “Just what are you playing at?”
He slid his hand over his mate’s. Sometimes, it seemed as though his life would be far simpler were he to return to his days as the fierce dreki who slumbered in the volcano at Krafla.
But then he’d never have met her. Never have had a chance to love her. Never seen her grow to become a mortal queen of a dreki court.
And he’d not have been able to hold his brother and sisters in his arms and see this court free of the corruption his mother had wielded.
A small price to pay to lead it.
“I hardly think the alliance with Harald will crumble should they end their mating,” Freyja muttered, “considering the letter that arrived from him ten days ago.”
Rurik leaned back and she cradled his head against her midriff. “True. Perhaps you can consider us two crafty old dreki who seek to meddle in the lives of our reckless brethren.”
Freyja tilted his chin back so their eyes met.
“You’re matchmaking?” she asked incredulously. “You think there’s even a chance that Marduk and Solveig could possibly surmount the gulf between them?”
He drew her into his lap. “You have to understand my brother, my love. Marduk has always been aloof and prone to look to the horizon. He chafed within this court and longed to ride free on the wind. And for the last ten years, he has flitted from one country to another, from one bed to another. I have never once seen him look at something and wish to linger. Not the way his gaze does when he looks at Solveig.”
“I think she’s going to kill him.”
“Mmm. Not according to Harald.”
“You thought she was going to kill him,” she pointed out. “You were almost rude to her to begin with.”
Rurik unleashed a smile. “I thought about it all day, and Marduk was right. If she’d wanted him dead, then he would be dead. Did you notice how protective he became when I confronted her?”
“You were playing them then. What precisely did that letter say?”
“That it will take a charming prince to tame his daughter’s fierce spirit. Solveig has spent her entire life fighting to prove herself. Male dreki wince when she glares at them and flee when she crooks her finger. Her pride knows no bounds, and the walls she guards her heart with are solid steel.” He nipped at her finger. “But the only time he has ever seen his daughter falter is when Marduk first appeared in his court ten years ago.”
“What happened ten years ago?”
“I don’t know.” It was the one flaw to his plan. “I was in exile, and Árdís only knows that Marduk was sent to make a formal alliance with the Sadu, except he fled and was never seen again. And there was something about a song that spoke of a heartless princess, and for no dreki male to seek to surmount such a… wench for fear he’d lose those parts most precious to him.”
Freyja’s eyes narrowed. “I think I want to punch him in the nose.”
“Mmm.” His hand slid down to the curve of her hip. “My brother is many things, but loose with his tongue? I think not. Marduk could charm the birds from the sky if he wished it. But instead he mocked one of the princesses he was meant to choose as a mate. That is not my brother, my little mouse. Something riled him—something with wickedly dark eyes and an unsmiling mouth, if I have any sense to my name.”