Page 12 of The Orc's Princess Bride
As twilight approached, she noticed something odd. According to the ledgers, twelve bolts of fine Almohadi silk had been included in her dowry—an extravagant gift meant to demonstrate her father’s generosity. Yet when she cross-referenced the numbers with the inventory of the royal storerooms, only eight bolts were accounted for.
Frowning, she rechecked her figures. Four bolts of silk, each worth a small fortune, were missing. It could be a simple clerical error, but the precision of the other entries made that unlikely.
“Your Majesty?” Elspeth’s voice startled her. The lady-in-waiting stood in the doorway, a concerned expression on her face. “The dinner hour approaches. The court will be waiting.”
“Elspeth,” she said, tapping the ledger. “Do you recall how many bolts of silk my father sent with my dowry?”
“Twelve, Your Majesty,” Elspeth replied without hesitation. “I helped pack them myself. The deep blue was particularly stunning—your father said it would complement your eyes.”
“Yet only eight are listed in the storeroom inventory.”
Elspeth’s brow furrowed. “How strange. Perhaps they were placed elsewhere? The quartermaster might know.”
“Perhaps.” She closed the ledger, a flicker of unease disturbing her. Missing silk wasn’t a crisis, but it represented a significant value. And if this discrepancy existed, what others might be hidden in the kingdom’s accounts?
“Would you like me to inquire about it, Your Majesty?” Elspeth offered. “I could speak with the quartermaster discreetly. No need to trouble the king with such matters when he’s so… preoccupied.”
She hesitated. There was something in Elspeth’s eagerness that gave her pause. “That’s kind of you to offer.”
“It would be my pleasure to help,” Elspeth said, her smile warm and reassuring. “After all, we Almohadi must look after one another in this foreign land, mustn’t we?”
The words were innocent enough, yet they deepened her disquiet. Elspeth had been nothing but helpful since their arrival, but something about this interaction felt wrong.
“Let us both look into it,” she decided, watching Elspeth’s face carefully. “I’ll speak with the quartermaster tomorrow. You can ask among the servants if anyone recalls where the silk might have been stored.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty.” Elspeth’s smile didn’t waver, but something flickered behind her eyes—disappointment? It was gone too quickly for her to identify.
As they walked to dinner, she pondered the missing silk. It was a small matter, perhaps, but it nagged at her. In her experience,small discrepancies often pointed to larger problems. And in a kingdom beset by enemies, every irregularity deserved scrutiny.
She would get to the bottom of this. It was a way to prove her worth to Norhaven—and to Ulric. A way to show him she was more than a political asset to be guarded; she was a queen capable of protecting their kingdom in her own way.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The roar of the crowd rolled across the arena as Brakk, a battle-scarred warrior with tusks like curved daggers, heaved a massive stone over his head. Muscles strained, veins bulging along his forearms as he summoned a final surge of strength and hurled the boulder. It crashed to the earth with a thunderous impact that sent dust billowing upward, landing a full arm’s length beyond the previous mark.
Ulric nodded his approval from the royal viewing platform, though his thoughts were elsewhere. The Bride Trials continued, each contest more demanding than the last, designed to match the strongest warriors with the foreign brides. Today’s stone-throwing competition would determine the next three matches.
“Impressive,” Wulf murmured. He’d delivered the report Ulric had requested but he hadn’t immediately returned to his village. He was sure the other male had remained because of the prophesied threat, but while he appreciated his friend’s concern, he didn’t like the way the other male watched his interactions with the queen.
His gaze automatically drifted to Jessamin at the thought.
She sat on a cushioned chair to his right, her honey-gold hair woven with small purple wildflowers in the Norhaven style. Against the backdrop of shouting warriors and flying stones, she was a vision of serene grace. Her purple silk dress—the color of a twilight sky—rustled softly as she leaned forward to speak with a nervous-looking Bride. The woman was giving Brakk’s huge body a wide-eyed look, but her tension visibly eased under Jessamin’s gentle attention.
He couldn’t suppress his pride in her. She had adapted to Norhaven with remarkable resilience, behaving with the grace and dignity of a true queen. The Brides looked to her for guidance and reassurance. His warriors, initially skeptical of a human queen, now bowed their heads with genuine respect when she passed.
The pride curdled instantly into fear, sharp and possessive. Jessamin’s very presence in Norhaven was like a beacon—a shining light in his harsh world. What if his original interpretation of the warning was correct and she was in danger?
“My king.”
The soft voice came from behind, barely audible over the crowd’s latest cheer. Rook.
“I will return shortly,” he murmured to Wulf, then moved to the sheltered alcove at the back of the platform where Rook waited.
“Report,” he commanded, keeping his voice low.
“We found the source of the missing silk, my king.” Rook’s expression was grim. “It was used to pay off a stable hand—Dren, who tended the patrol mounts.”
His jaw tightened. “What did he do?”
