Alien Orc’s Prize (Starlight Brides)

2. Galbrath

CHAPTER 2

GALbrATH

“ L ady Tarley waited for you nigh-on half the day!” my mother exclaimed when Padreth and I finally returned to the palace.

“I have more important things to attend to than impatient orc noblewomen,” I growled at my mother. “If she could not handle waiting half a day for me while I attended to my people then she would not last one season as my queen.”

My mother Ohelia, who still remained queen after the death of my father until I produced an heir, snorted. Her tusks, painted red in mourning, flashed under the lamplight of the palace as the three of us moved towards the great dining hall for the evening meal.

“She made not one complaint, I’ll have you know!” my mother cried. “Truly, there is nothing wrong with her. I defy even you to find a fault in her!”

“She sat around waiting for me all that time and didn’t once complain? Then she is too meek.”

“Bah!” My mother’s tusks flashed again. So did her dark brown, nearly black, eyes. That rare, deep colour I’d inherited from her.

Grief for my father had not diminished my mother. If anything, it had only given fire to her purpose. Which was, lately, finding me a wife.

“If she complains, she is too impatient. If she does not, she is too tongueless. You are looking for a woman who does not exist!”

“I am not looking for a woman at all,” I said as I pushed my way through the great wooden doors of the dining hall, “because I’ve already found one.”

My mother, to her credit, did not falter in her powerful stride. But she did snap her head to regard me from the side, and my two younger sisters – twins – jumped up from their places at the long table when they heard my words.

“Who is it?” gasped Neena and Noona in unison. I quirked a brow at Neena, who appeared to have attempted to add some extra gloss to the mourning coat on her tusks. She did not acknowledge my look or apologize, but she did purse her lips and she ducked her head, just a little, away from the incriminating light.

“Yes,” Padreth whispered uneasily from beside me. “Who is it?”

“Not to worry! Padreth will take care of everything!” I boomed with vicious joviality, smacking him so hard on the back that the large man, nearly as tall as me, barely saved himself from falling forwards. “There is a new bridal program that I have decided to partake in. They will send me an appropriate wife.”

“An appropriate wife?” my mother echoed, each word as hard and perfectly-cut as Orhalla crystal, her eyes narrowing keenly. “An appropriate bride we have never even met?”

“I don’t see why you should have met her,” I said casually, “considering she is human.”

There was a moment. A single, blessed moment. The sort of moment a man like me with sisters and a mother like mine does not often get to experience.

Pure, miraculous silence.

Until the shock wore off, that is.

“Human?!” Neena and Noona cried, staring at each other.

“What?” Padreth exclaimed.

“When did this happen?” my mother demanded.

“Details, details!” I replied, sweeping my hand through the air as if to clear away their questions. “All you need to know is that I am finally to be married. Padreth,” I said, turning to my harried-looking advisor, “let’s move quickly on this.”

His lips thinned into a grim line around his tusks. But he pulled out his tablet and began making preparations anyway.

My sisters were still squawking with questions. My mother had gone quiet, watching me with slicing, knowing intensity as I seated myself at the table. I knew that look well enough. She wore it often, particularly when she suspected Neena or Noona were trying to fool her into something.

But I was not trying to fool her into anything. I did indeed plan to go ahead with this marriage. It might be ridiculous, but it would not be a total sham. They’d get their heir.

My mother took her place to the left of where I sat alone at the head of the table. As servants filled our cups with mead, she drummed the tips of her claws against her tusks, her gaze never leaving me.

I took a swig of my drink – needing it after the stress of the day I’d had, learning that yet three more fields were failing – when my mother finally spoke.

“You may find me overly proud,” she said, lowering her hand and grasping her cup. She did not yet drink. “You may even find me silly.”

“Silly,” I scoffed, putting my cup down just a little too hard, making the knife beside my plate jump. “Silly? Spending all this time and energy on finding me a wife while I’m trying to make sure our people don’t starve through the next three seasons?”

She inhaled, long and slow, then fixed me with a hard-eyed look.

“You believe those are two separate issues. Your marriage and the health of our people. I believe they are one and the same. Tell me, my son,” she said, anger edging into her voice now, “do you truly, in your heart, believe that Althrop would care about this issue the way you are doing now? Do you think, if Althrop were given power over this kingdom in the absence of you or your heir, that he would be out there day and night speaking to the people, to the farmers, touching the land with his own claws the way you do now?”

I shifted in my seat and took another swig of my drink.

“Of course he would not,” my mother said bitterly, saying the answer aloud that we both already knew. “That entitled oaf would happily let half our people starve so long as his own plate stayed full. You think I am merely matchmaking? Playing a foolish female’s game out of – what? Boredom?” Her voice rose higher. Neena and Noona fell silent. “Have you ever known me to be an empty-headed fool?”

“No.”

“No!” She hissed a breath between her tusks. “Every bride I present to you is not for you but for our kingdom. It means that you, and a subsequent heir raised with your values, your insight, your care for our people, will remain in power. Did you never think of this? What a difference a ruler like Althrop would make, compared to you?”

I hadn’t, because I’d never seen the need. Althrop wasn’t heir.

Except… he was . Right now, he was heir.

Until I produced my own.

For the first time, I began to understand my mother’s concern over my lack of marriage. I had not considered it from quite this angle before — that ensuring my heir would be paramount to ensuring the continued health of my people. Because I would raise my heir to care the way I did, and to care the way Althrop did not.

My mother sighed.

“If you wish to continue down this absurd path of selecting a human bride, then I will not stop you. Whatever you think of me and my motivations, I am a practical woman. As long as she is strong enough to survive an orc pregnancy, and strong enough to withstand you , then I will be at peace with your decision.”

Her words humbled me. I was on the verge of calling Padreth and cancelling the whole thing when he burst back into the room.

“They’ve already replied to me, my prince,” he panted, holding up his tablet and waving it in the air. “Your human bride has been chosen.”