Аманда Хокинг - Torn

“My Queen, can we settle this please?” Loki called to her, sounding irritated.

“This tracker is getting handsy.”

“The Markis hasn’t been too much trouble?” Sara asked, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment.

“Not too much,” I replied with a thin smile. “When we return him to you, you agree to peace until my coronation. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Sara nodded. “The Vittra will not attack you as long as Elora is Queen. But as soon as you become Queen, the embargo is over.”

“Now they can let me go?” Loki asked.

“Yes,” I nodded once.

I heard a skirmish behind me, and then Loki walked past me, smoothing out his shirt. Sara gave him a disapproving look, and he took his place at her side.

“It’s all settled then?” Loki asked.

“It appears that way,” Sara said. “Princess, you know you are always welcome at our palace.”

“I do,” I admitted.

“The King wanted me to extend an invitation to you,” Sara said. “If you return to the Vittra to take your rightful place at his side, he will offer amnesty to Förening and everyone who lives here.”

I faltered for a moment, unsure of how to respond. I didn’t want to go there, and I certainly didn’t trust the King, but it was hard to pass up. It would protect everybody I cared about, including Matt and Finn.

“And we can continue our late night chats,” Loki grinned.

“Princess.” Tove touched my arm, just above my elbow. “We have other business to attend this afternoon. Perhaps we should see our guests out.”

“Yes, of course.” I smiled thinly. “If you’ll forgive me, I do have things I need to do.”

“Of course.” Sara smiled. “We don’t need to take up any more of your time.”

“But if you ever want to take up ours, you know where we’re at,” Loki winked at me.

“Markis,” Sara said coolly.

She did another curtsey, which I reciprocated, then turned to away. Ludlow the hobgoblin never said anything, but he gathered up her train so it wouldn’t drag on the ground. As they walked out, Loki started to say something, but Sara silenced him.

Once they were gone, I let out a deep breath.

“That wasn’t so bad,” I said. It wasn’t bad at all really, but the buildup before it had been nerve-racking.

The Chancellor was sweating like a pig, but this was nothing new. I put my hand on my side, and smiled gratefully at Tove. It had been nice having him at my side.

Backup and support were never a bad thing.

“Those little hobgoblins freak me out.” Duncan shuddered at the thought of Ludlow. “I don’t know how they can live with them.”

“I’m sure they think the same thing about you,” Finn muttered.

“I think we all know what we have to do,” the Chancellor said, wringing his pudgy hands together.

“What?” I asked, since I had no idea what we had to do.

“We need to attack them while the embargo is on,” the Chancellor said. Sweat dripped down into his beady eyes, and his white suit had wet circles all over it.

“The whole point of the embargo is that we have peace,” I said dubiously. “If we attack them, we negate that, and we’re back at war.”

“We need to get a drop on them when they’re not expecting it,” the Chancellor insisted, his jowls shaking. “This is our only chance to have the upper hand!”

“No, this is our chance to rebuild after the last attack and find ways to handle this conflict peaceably.” I shook my head. “We need to work on uniting the Trylle and being as strong as we can be. Or coming up with something we can offer the Vittra to get them off our back.”

“Well, we know what we can offer them.” The Chancellor eyed me up.

“We’re not negotiating with them,” Finn interjected.

“Of course you’re not negotiating with anybody for anything,” the Chancellor glared at him.

“We can’t cross negotiations out,” Tove said, and before Finn could protest, he went on. “Obviously, we’re not giving them the Princess, but we can’t rule out other options. Enough people have died already. And after all this time we’ve been fighting, nobody has won. I think we need to try something different.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “We should use this time to figure out what that might be.”

“You want to find something new to barter with?” The Chancellor scoffed. “We can’t trust the Vittra King!”

“Just because he plays dirty doesn’t mean we have to,” I said.

“And the only reason we won this last fight was because they did it on our turf, and left their strongest players at home,” Tove said. “If we meet them at their house, they have the advantage. They would crush us the way they have every other time. We need to learn from our mistakes.”

“Fine!” The Chancellor threw up his hands, exasperated. “Do what you want! But the blood will be on your hands, not mine.”

The Chancellor stalked off, defeated. I smiled up at Tove.

“Thanks for backing me up,” I said.

“It’s what I do,” Tove shrugged.

After Sara and Loki left, I went up to report to Elora how I’d done. Garrett was sitting with her in the drawing room, and Elora was lying down. Her skin color had brightened, but she was still out of it.

I kept my explanation brief, but they both seemed proud of me. It had been my first official duty as a Princess, and I’d passed. Elora actually said I did well. When I left her drawing room, I felt surprisingly good.

I met Tove on my way back from the room. He came from the kitchen, and he had a handful of grapes. He offered me one, but I didn’t feel much like eating, so I shook my head.

“Do you feel like a real Princess yet?” Tove asked me as he munched on a grape.

“I don’t know.” I pulled off the heavy diamond necklace I’d worn to look the part.

“But I don’t know if I ever will. I think I’ll always feel like an imposter.”

“Well, you definitely look like a real Princess.”

“Thanks.” I turned to him and smiled. “And you did really well today. You were focused and very regal.”

“Thanks.” He tossed a grape in his mouth and grinned. “I spent a lot of time rearranging my furniture before the meeting started. It seemed to help.”

“It did,” I nodded.

We walked in silence for a bit, him eating his grapes and me fiddling with the necklace. The silence between us didn’t feel awkward, though, and I thought about how nice it was. Being able to be with someone without it feeling forced or weird or agonizingly restrained.

I also understood more of what Elora and Finn meant. Tove was strong and intelligent and kind, but his abilities made him too frazzled to be a leader. He did an amazing job of backing me up and supporting me, and I knew that no matter what, he’d be at my side.

“So.” Tove swallowed the last grape and stopped. He stared down at the ground and tucked his tangled hair behind his ears. “I’m sure that the Queen has told you of the arrangement that she and my mother came to.” He paused. “You know, about us getting married.”

“Yeah,” I nodded, feeling strangely nervous to hear him bringing it up.

“I don’t agree with them sneaking around and plotting things, like we’re pawns in a game and not people.” Tove chewed the inside of his cheek and looked down the hallway. “It’s not right, and I told Aurora that. She needs to stop treating me like a…

I don’t know. A pawn.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, and I kept nodding.

“She thinks she can control me all the time, and I know your mother tries to do the same stuff with you.” He sighed. “It’s like they had all these ideas of who we would be before we got here, and they refuse to adjust them even when they see we’re not what they expected.”