“Your son will stop them, my lord,” the girl droned, playing her part and no more.

The king smiled at that, his eyes closing in some imagined rapture. “Our dread son. We made him tall and terrible…so lusty is our Gaunt Prince.”

The king sat forward, cupping the girl’s cheeks in his hands, leaning over her upturned face, his white hair falling around her.

“Do you find him delicious?” he hissed. “Do you wish to be his?”

“If my lord tires of me and commands it,” the girl replied, “I would go to him. Had I a choice, I wish to stay here with Your Grace.”

“Yes,” Jerrod hissed. “And you shall. We will bid Heggle make for us a feast and place it upon the bed where we can devour it in our ravishing! She will serve it raw, that our flesh might press against it and know bliss!”

Padric felt bile rise in his throat. Were she a farmer’s daughter, this girl would be a year or three from taking a husband and yet here she sat, the plaything of a lecherous tyrant.

“And what should I tell the Swinehelm, my lord?” the girl asked. “Is he to march?”

Jerrod lurched back, throwing himself against the chair in a fit. His jaw clenched, hissing spit issuing from between his teeth. His hand clenched into the girl’s locks and he sprung to his feet, pulling her up roughly by the hair before flinging her to the ground.

“We are betrayed!” he screamed down at her. “Irial has robbed me of my Forge Born! My glorious warriors of living iron beguiled with charms and sweet words! My goblins will die in droves and it will not be enough!”

The girl did not cower, or whimper or hide herself behind her arms. She simply stared back at the raving king with the resigned expression of long practice, waiting for his tirade to end.

Jerrod straightened, his face flushed with fury, then it suddenly fell as a realization dawned.

“They will come for our crown,” he said with quivering lips, removing the iron ring from his head with trembling fingers and gazing at it with covetous wonder. “They will snatch it from our dead skull. We will not allow it!”

He whirled around, his cloak billowing behind him as he strode out onto the balcony. The girl picked herself up, watching her king as he raised his hands towards the night sky squealing with mindless glee.

“We will give them no prize!” Jerrod squealed. “Do you hear me Irial Elf-king! Airlann is mine! Her people are mine! IT IS ALL MINE!”