The king nodded then stated, “It is good you mention the plot, Drakkar, for we need to discuss it. Your...” he again hesitated before again trying out the name, “Finnie may be from another world but in this world she is my daughter. And her life has been targeted twice.”

“Yes,” Drakkar agreed unnecessarily and impatiently to a statement he very well knew.

“Obviously, I do not like this no matter who she is. My realm is in the balance,” Atticus pointed out.

“And my wife’s life, Atticus,” Drakkar returned, Atticus glanced at his queen but she did not return her husband’s look. Aurora’s gaze stayed steady on Drakkar.

“True,” Atticus agreed after he looked back at Drakkar. “So what have you learned and what has been done?”

Drakkar answered swiftly, “Ruben interrogated the man he captured last night. The man who hired him is Lunwynian.” Drakkar watched both king and queen’s faces get tight at the news the conspirator was a citizen not a foreigner but he kept speaking. “I have sent Quincy and Balthazar to find him. They will make short work of that, as you know. Once found, he will be brought before us.” Atticus nodded and Drakkar continued speaking. “In the meantime, those of my men who do not have to stay to see to my ships will come to Fyngaard. I assume you increased the guard at the Palace as I asked?”

“Of course,” Atticus crossed his arms on his chest and leaned against his desk, “it is doubled.”

“Excellent,” Drakkar muttered then went on. “My men will stay in Fyngaard to increase the watch on Finnie. She does not leave this Palace, not even to wander the grounds, unless she is in my presence or she has at least four of your guard and four of my men with her directly as well as scouting for danger that may be around her.”

“That seems excessive,” Aurora put in then threw out a graceful hand in a way that was uncannily like Finnie. “This is Fyngaard.”

“And it was on the steps of this Palace in which we now stand where the assassin was felled by your daughter’s dagger, was it not?” Drakkar returned and he saw Aurora’s teeth clench.

Atticus butted in. “This is true, Drakkar, but the Fyngaardians are sophisticated and cultured. A doubling of the king’s guard and the men of The Drakkar wandering the city will cause unease. They are unused to this. Especially if their Winter Princess wanders her city under heavy guard. Normally, she wanders it freely and her guard, as it didn’t need to be,” he stated this unable to hide his pride, “was never heavy.”

“They can have the guard, my men and a secure princess or they can have Baldur’s rule,” Drakkar clipped. “Which do you think they would choose?”

Atticus closed his mouth.

Drakkar continued and when he did, his voice was low. “I will remind you of what I am sure you will never forget. Finnie is not Sjofn. She has not, from a very young age, participated in the hunt. She has not felled numerous deer and other wild animals. Indeed, the sight of a dead deer made her visibly retch. She does not carry a dagger on her person at all times and if she did, she would have no idea how to use it. Your daughter proved she could defend her person and her guard understood even before she proved it that, in such an event, she could handle herself.” He paused to drive his point home. “My Finnie cannot.”

“We understand, Drakkar,” Atticus replied, his voice low as well but his was placating.

Drakkar swept his gaze through Aurora before he locked his eyes on his king.

Then he said what he had called them both there to hear, what they both needed to understand and what they both needed to repeat into the right ears until the words swept Lunwyn and, indeed, the entirety of the Northlands.

“Indeed, I believe you do but you must now understand this. I have vowed to my Finnie that nothing will harm her, nothing will even touch her, and that I will keep myself from harm.” He bent at the waist taking himself forward two inches toward his king when he finished, “If she comes to any harm, if she is even touched, I will command it instantly and the drakkar will rise.”

Even Aurora pulled in an audible breath as Atticus’s eyes grew wide and his face again paled.

“Drakkar –” Atticus started, his tone now downright soothing but Drakkar shook his head.

“I will call the dragon, Atticus, I vow to you, I will call them all. They will sweep this land at my command and I’ll have your throne. You know I do not wish it but I will take it and the fire of my dragons will melt every flake of snow and every sheet of ice across this land and with it everything in their path and they will do this as my vengeance for any harm coming to Finnie. If you do not do all in your power to see that my wife is safe, regardless she is no longer a daughter who has your blood in her veins which means a child without your blood will eventually sit on your throne, I will call the dragon. I will not delay. I vow this to you.”

“You are heard, Drakkar,” Atticus whispered.

“Be certain the right people hear it too,” Drakkar replied.

Atticus nodded.

Drakkar’s eyes moved to Aurora and she was observing him closely but did so giving nothing away.

But he knew she heard him too. Aurora always heard. Aurora made an art of listening.

He straightened and nodded to his sovereigns by name but not by right then turned to go, muttering, “We are done. I’m away to bathe and then get to my bride.”

He’d almost gained the door when Aurora called his name.

He turned and caught her eyes.

“Your…” she too hesitated before she said softly, “Finnie. How did her parents die?”

“I do not know,” Drakkar replied. “The elves did not tell me.”

She nodded and he started to turn again when she again called his name so he stopped and raised impatient brows to her.

“She came to…” another pause then a very soft, “a whole other world just to…” she pulled in a slight breath, “see them?”

“Indeed,” Drakkar answered. “And in doing so, to see you,” he clarified.

Aurora held his eyes.

Then she observed quietly, “She must have loved them very much.”

“No,” Drakkar stated. “In the last days as I told her of you, any mention, even in passing, of your names, her eyes would light, her cheeks would pink with excitement, her attention, always avid, would grow intense. She did not love her parents very much, my queen. They were her world. And she journeyed from that world to have them back. That is something beyond love but I don’t know what it is. What I do know is that they must have been remarkable to deserve that devotion.”