Page 76 of The Queens and the Kings
Her brow wrinkled. “But I thought?—”
“It didn’t work out that way,” he quickly said. A story lurked in what he didn’t say.
“Oh.”
He brushed it off. “We’re going to help them advance on Stenberg, if only to make sure they aren’t hurting innocent citizens.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Alma mentioned a mineral called damma, also known as sealstone. Have you heard of it?”
Her curiosity prickled.
“Mineral, you say?”
He nodded, running a tongue over his teeth. Moonlight canted through the porthole, lining his taut features.
“Mineral,” he confirmed.
“Like. . . the mineral the Keepers spoke about?”
“No idea, but it seems rather likely.”
“Damma?”
He nodded.
Despite searching for mental memories, she recalled nothing. “No, I can’t say that I have.”
“Supposedly, it’s an export from Stenberg. His Glory hasn’t been keeping up with promised shipments, and she’s willing to go to war over it.”
Blinking, she murmured, “They must be the same, right? The Keepers spoke about a missing mineral that hadn’t arrived and Alma?—”
“I think so.”
“What’s damma for?”
“She wouldn’t say. Only saidmagical suppression.”
Dots connected one at a time, from the abandoned Stenberg frigate, to the powder, to the inability of Pedr’s ship to obey his command until they left the frigate behind. Pedr had been mumbling under his breath about it ever since it happened. Her thoughts stalled, pooling in surprise.
“The mineral that the wyvern Keepers wanted, and the powdery stuff on frigate number thirteen.”
He jerked his head toward the porthole. “Einar sent a message to see if Arvid knows anything about it, just in case.”
The conversation fell into a contemplative lull. The words,Did she mention your mother?failed. He looked so uncomfortable, so nervous. Closed. She didn’t have the heart to ask something heavy and emotional.
Wasn’t that the problem? It never felt like a good time to ask emotional things of Henrik. She’d never be able to define what she felt for him when she hesitated over asking a simple question.
With soldats, nothing emotional was ever simple. So she deferred to the only way he’d responded positively in the past.
She touched his forearm.
“Henrik, are you all right? You seem . . . off.”
His arm twitched, but he didn’t pull away. “I don’t know.” She let the admission hang there. He added, “Alma said that a woman of great interest to me would be available after we assisted them.”
“Selma?”
