Page 101 of Sweetling
One sad little laugh vibrated against his chest, where she’d pressed her cheek. “I don’t feel very strong most days.” She wrapped her own arms around him and squeezed gently. “But…you make me feel like I am.”
“One day soon, I hope you won’t need my assurances, though you will always have them. That you will see what I do.”
Molly tipped her head back, resting her chin on his chest. “What are you going to tell the princess?”
Allarion grumbled. “That’s not so easy. To draw the ire, and worse the eye, of a man like King Marius…he could make things difficult if he so wished.”
“Fuck him,” Molly said, bold as could be.
He couldn’t help a guffaw of surprise.
“You’ve already defied a queen far scarier than him,” she reminded him. “What’s a king to Amaranthe? A kingconsortat that.”
Allarion folded himself around his preciousazai,body shaking with the laughter he worked to hold in.
She smoothed her hands in soothing strokes up and down his back, whispering, “Don’t let him force you to do something against your conscience.”
He hummed in agreement. “Not diplomatic, but infinitely wise is myazai.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
22
Molly pulled in a breath to settle her stomach before walking into Town Hall. She was armed with a letter from Lady Aislinn herself, and a page had run ahead to let Mayor Doherty know she intended to come, but still, the weight of walking into the space settled on her shoulders.
It’s time,was the first thought she awoke to that morning.Time to fix this.
Her cousins’ situation at the tavern had become untenable. Molly liked to think she’d managed things well enough while in her uncle’s house, but those days were done. No matter how Brom needled or Nora guilted her, Molly wasn’t going back.
But that didn’t mean she’d leave the girls behind.
Town Hall was an ancient building, even for a place as storied as Dundúran. It’d once been a longhouse, built for the first chieftain family of the demesne. A long time ago—that Allarion apparently remembered, though Molly tried not to think much about that—Eirea had been the name of the land, not a kingdom. Dozens of tribes and clans had lived throughout the continent, and it was only after threats by the orcs to the southwest and Pyrrossi to the southeast that they banded into a unified kingdom under a single ruler. Most of the chieftains retained some form of control over their ancestral lands, however, and here was where the first Darrows had lived.
Centuries ago, as the foundations of Dundúran Castle were laid, the Darrows had gifted the building to their people. It’d served as the mayoral residence and seat of city politics ever since. The majority of the first floor was made up of a basilica, a wide central nave laid with gray flagstones and lit by great iron braziers. Square wood columns lined either side in colonnades, carved in exquisitely intricate designs that, as they spiraled upward, told mythical stories of the demesne and city. Through the colonnades were narrower aisles on either side with doors into smaller rooms, most of which had become administrative offices over the years.
The second floor held more offices, including the mayor’s and other leading city officials, and each of the guild-masters kept an office as well. The city public archive also resided on the second floor, containing many of Dundúran’s founding and most important documents. The third floor was the mayoral residence, where Mayor Thom Doherty and his large family had lived since he was first elected some twenty years ago.
Molly spotted the man himself on the far side, near the apse of the building. Squaring her shoulders, she walked with purpose down the nave, passing beneath heavy iron chandeliers dripping wax and around groups of harried city workers, off on this project or that task.
Light filtered in from the second-story windows above, illuminating those walking around the railed gallery and pooling in narrow rectangles on the stone floor. Through one of these beams of light, Molly caught the mayor’s eye.
After a word to the two people he’d been speaking with, Mayor Doherty stepped forward to greet Molly. His hand was dry and warm when she took it to shake, and the way he patted hers and offered a friendly smile settled some of her nerves.
“Well, good day, Miss Molly. It’s a pleasure to see you in Dundúran again.”
“Thank you, mayor. It’s been good to visit.”
Waving her along to follow him, Molly walked beside the mayor at his slow pace. Nearing seventy, Mayor Doherty was beloved throughout the city. Many of his ten children had grown up in the mayoral residence, and it was a widespread joke over the veritable army of grandchildren he had. A few political upstarts had run against him in the past two elections, but faith in Thom Doherty was unshakable.
“I received the message that you intended to come see me. I hope it’s nothing to do with that fae man of yours.” His bushy white brows rose as he peered at her over his shoulder.
“No, not at all,” she assured him.
“He treats you well?”
“Very well, yes. I’m happy at Scarborough.”
“Ah yes,” he chuckled as he led her into a small office off the corner of the apse. “I should be addressing you as Lady Scarborough now.”
