The Elf Prince Is My Baby Daddy novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Terms

Linnet fights out a one-year marriage contract with her own clauses, then learns her Trial of Light will be judged by Aurelia.

"No," I said.

Ilvar blinked. "No?"

"You don't get to decide that in front of five hundred people like you're ordering more wine."

The Queen made a noise that might have been a laugh.

"My chamber," she said. "All of you. Now."

The Queen's chamber was smaller than Mam's kitchen and colder than the river in March.

She sat by the fire with a blanket on her knees.

Corvan stood at her right hand. Aurelia stood beside him with her arms folded.

Ilvar stood by the window.

I sat down without being asked, because I'd ridden a day and a half and three people were using my bladder as a pillow.

Corvan looked at my chair.

"Your Majesty," he said, "this cannot happen. A half-blood consort. The houses will never accept it."

"The houses will accept what I tell them to," said the Queen. "But I take your point. Go on, Corvan. I can see you have a clause."

He did. Of course he did.

"A royal consort must have magic," he said. "That's tradition older than the Blood Law. Let her pass the Academy's Trial of Light before the heirs are born. If she passes, she's a princess and the children are hers. If she fails, the marriage is void, the children go to the crown, and she goes south."

He spread his ringed hands. "It's only fair."

"I don't have any magic," I said.

"Then it should be a short marriage."

Aurelia smiled at me.

I looked at Ilvar.

"How long?" I asked. "Before they're born."

"Wood elves carry seven months," the Queen said. "Star elves eight. Half-bloods, who knows. And there are three. You're two months along. Say four more, five if you're lucky."

Four months to grow magic I'd never had.

"Fine," I said.

Corvan's eyebrows went up.

"But I've got clauses too," I said.

"You," said Corvan, "are hardly in a position..."

"I'm the only one in this room carrying the heirs, my lord. I'd say I'm in a very good position."

The Queen laughed out loud this time. It turned into a cough. She waved at me to go on.

I ticked them off on my fingers.

"One. I keep working. I'm a midwife. If someone in this city needs me, I go."

"A princess does not deliver babies," Aurelia said.

"Then I'll be the first. Two. My mother can visit whenever she likes and nobody calls her a peasant to her face."

"Agreed," said Ilvar, from the window.

"Three. Separate rooms. Until I say otherwise."

Aurelia made a small, pleased sound.

Ilvar didn't move. "Agreed."

"Four." I turned in the chair and looked straight at him. "You never lie to me again. Not about who you are, not about where you're going, not about anything."

The room went quiet.

"Agreed," he said, very quietly.

"Five. One year. After that, either of us can walk away, and the other one lets them."

"That," said the Queen, "is the most sensible thing anyone has said to me this month."

A clerk was fetched out of bed, in a nightcap, to write it up.

He wrote it in silver ink on heavy white paper, and read it back in a voice like a bored goose.

Corvan's trial clause was right there in the middle, in letters bigger than the rest.

I read every word twice.

Mam always said never sign anything you haven't read twice, especially if a man with rings is smiling at you.

Ilvar came over and stood beside my chair while I read.

"You can still say no," he said.

"I know."

"I mean it. I'll find another way."

"Like you found your way back to Rushford at the new moon?"

He took that without flinching. "I deserved that."

"You deserve a lot of things. We'll get to them." I held my hand out. "Pen."

He gave me the pen.

I signed. Linnet Merrow, in my plain midwife's hand, under all that silver.

Ilvar signed under me. His signature was long and elegant and had far too many loops.

"Show-off," I said.

The corner of his mouth moved.

The Queen sealed it with her ring, pressing hard into hot white wax.

"There," she said. "Married by morning. The chapel at ten. Somebody find this girl a dress that isn't covered in road."

"I like this dress," I said.

"I can see that. It's still covered in road."

Corvan bowed to the Queen.

He didn't look angry. That bothered me more than if he had.

"Then we're agreed," he said. "The Trial of Light is held at the Academy, as tradition requires. The examiner is the Academy's Master of Light."

"And who's that?" I asked.

Aurelia unfolded her arms.

She walked over to me, slowly, and bent down so her golden braid swung against my knee.

She smelled like lilies and money.

"Me," she said.

She straightened up and smiled at Ilvar.

"I'll see you in class, princess," she said to me. "Do try not to cry. It's so hard on the glass."

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