“Aldrik,” she breathed, walking into the room. The white marble floor was covered with a large, circular black rug that almost took up the whole space. There were two leather chaises near a couch that was reminiscent of the Crossroads and a desk with chairs to the right side. “This is yours?”
“It is.” His expression was unreadable.
“It’s—” she fumbled for words. Vhalla felt dizzy at the notion. Aldrik took a step forward to stand at her shoulder, holding his breath for her review. “Amazing.”
“Would you like to see the rest of it?” he asked softly.
“The rest of it?” Vhalla blinked up at him.
Three doors lead out from his initial sitting room. One he had led her through the night before—his bedroom. The second went into a smaller, cozy office. Vhalla realized the large, dark stained desk in the main room was just for show as she could immediately tell that this office was reserved for his real work. Papers littered the surface in an order only he understood. There was a smaller bookshelf that contained stacks of titles he’d squirreled away for immediate reference.
Vhalla paused. Tentatively, her fingers reached up to a stack of books that rested to the side of the middle shelf. She took one off the top of the stack. Aldrik said nothing as she opened it. Vhalla looked down at handwriting she knew very well.
Earthen magic tends to have deep roots.
The magic can take days or months to remove.
Remove carefully, please, or shock.
Please live. Earthen, magic, can,
create, please live, sensitivity to cold,
please live - or hot - please live, plaese lvei plselav pl-
Her writing had started neat and tidy but digressed into scribbles. She placed the book down and grabbed the next one. Her note from long ago, when she was doing research on that fateful rainy night, fell out. Vhalla leaned down and picked it up off the floor. It was much the same, though her writing was even messier. She returned it and grabbed the third book. Her note wasn’t even legible.
Vhalla looked back at Aldrik, speechless. He had told her what had happened that night. But to see the actual vessels themselves, the ones that carried her magic to him and formed their Bond, brought a whole sense of world-shaking reality that she had not experienced before.
“I wanted to keep them.” He gently took the book from her hands and returned it with care to the shelf. He considered the stack of books that saved his life. “They are very precious to me.”
“I still have all your notes,” Vhalla confessed. “They’re in my wardrobe.”
“I assumed you would have thrown them away.” Vhalla saw through the thin veil of indifference he threw over the words.
“I thought about it,” she admitted. “But I couldn’t. They, too, are very precious to me.”
“Yours are in the bottom drawer of my desk.” Aldrik shared a smile. “I look at them from time to time to remind myself of how foolish you were.”
“Oh?” Vhalla laughed in relaxed amusement. “Perhaps I should look at yours to remind myself of how much of an ass you are.”
“As if you need a reminder,” he snorted. It sent her into a fit of laughter.
Vhalla walked around the room, her amusement fading into a bright smile. He did not stop her, and he did not deny her access to anything. The most private man in the world allowed her to lift papers, open drawers, nose through books and more. Vhalla shifted aside the numbers of the Imperial coffers to look at some reports from ministers. He leaned against the bookshelf as she shuffled through them.
“The Minister of Coin didn’t agree to half of the funding for the Festival of the Sun this year?” She blinked at Aldrik. She had no idea, missing it during her time away. “Why?”
“He’s trying to rein in the spending,” Aldrik explained. “We have a lot of soldiers still on retainer. After my demand of spending at least half of the spoils from war on rebuilding the North, we didn’t come back with as much.”
Vhalla stared at him, her mouth halfway open. Her words, those had been her words when she demanded of him to help the North. “Why are you helping them still?”
“You know why.” The words were gentle, thoughtful.
“They’re conspiring to kill your father,” Vhalla reminded him.
“Hardly surprising. And I have no doubt that half the North would do the same if given the chance.” Aldrik looked over the papers and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment to collect his thoughts. “But the people of the North didn’t start that war, and I cannot blame them for hating the man who did; just as I cannot and will not punish them for it.”
Admiration swelled her chest, competing in space with pride for her prince. He was making hard decisions and fighting for peace at the same time. Some would call him foolish for it, but she chose to describe it as noble. Vhalla put the papers back in order, averting her eyes. “I suppose I can see the Minister of Coin’s concerns, then.”
“Shall we move on?”
He led her back into the main room and through to another room. It opened into a smaller space that was clearly more lived in than the first. It was a room designed for casual entertaining, but Vhalla couldn’t imagine Aldrik taking many visitors. Her eyes fell on a bar that stood barren.
“I haven’t touched it in months,” he admitted as shame deepened the prince’s voice. “I couldn’t. I promised you I wouldn’t and then . . .”
Vhalla watched the prince struggle to continue, neither stopping nor encouraging.
“Then I decided I wouldn’t let it have the better of me. I couldn’t stop quitting.”
She took a half step into his personal space, tilting her head to catch the prince’s gaze where it had fallen on a corner of the room. The lump in his neck bobbed as he swallowed hard, awaiting her judgment.
“I’m proud of you,” Vhalla whispered. “I know your struggles.”
“Better than anyone.”
Vhalla stepped away, avoiding becoming too engulfed by his essence. Her eyes scanned the rest of the room, darting over a carcivi board, across another bookshelf, and to the hearth. Around the crackling flame was a low area built into the floor with pillows and a low table in the style she had come to associate with the traditional West. Papers littered this table as well, a looser script across them. Vhalla instinctively walked over, curious.
“Not those,” he said suddenly. She stopped, surprised. He had let her nib through the Empire’s secrets, but would not let her see what was on those papers.
“Aldrik, secrets,” she reminded him, unconcerned if it was or wasn’t her place anymore.
“Not yet.” His expression softened a fraction. “I’m working through it. I’ll tell you when I’ve written them all.”
“Them all?” Vhalla repeated.
“Yes, my parrot.” The term now brought a smile to her lips. Something dawned on him, and Aldrik suddenly sported a wide grin. “Come, I wish to see something.”
Aldrik led her through yet another door that emptied into a throughway with his bedroom on one end and had a third door into his bathing room—which was as large as a small house—and his closet. No, closet was a loose term. It was an open space with racks of clothes and glass cabinets as big as people—cabinets that displayed gems, jewels, and fine trimmings of the crown prince.
Vhalla ran her fingers along the glass. The jewels weren’t tempting in the slightest. They were cold and meaningless.
“Aldrik.”
He hummed in reply, fumbling through a cabinet.
“When your father made me a lady, the gold . . .”
The prince paused, staring at her for a long moment, trying to read her expression. “I told you in the North, I wanted to shower you with the trappings the world had so woefully denied my giving you before.”
“I thought it may be something like that.” Vhalla laughed softly, turning back to the gems.