East

Troll Queen

OUR ARRIVAL AT THE PALACE was all I could have desired. There was a large assemblage to greet us, everyone brilliantly attired. And I was told that Simka had been working night and day on the sumptuous feast that we will enjoy this evening. (Simka's prowess in the kitchen more than makes up for her foul disposition.) The only thing that marred the homecoming was a trace of unease I could read in the eyes of my closest advisers. No one dared to say anything out loud when I said that the softskin man would be given the suite of rooms beside my own, but I sensed their displeasure.

Urda—sour, complaining Urda—is the only one who would ever dare to say that I am making a mistake in bringing the softskin here. All the way home in the sleigh she griped at me, saying that my people will never accept a softskin in the palace. I finally had to stop her tongue with my arts. (How she loathes it when I do that!)

Urda is wrong. I have always been able to bend my people to my will.

I will present him to the entire court at the feast this evening. But I will not tell them that the softskin man is to be their king. Better to wait, give them time to grow used to his presence here, before I tell them to prepare for a wedding.

As for me, to see him walk through the gates of my palace is the culmination of all my dreams, my plans. The joy I feel is immense; it burns inside me as though I have swallowed a piece of the sun.