Shalador's Lady

in her First Circle to shoulder.
    Then she found out she’d have to pay anyone who was officially in her First Circle, so she’d limited that Circle to the necessary twelve males. Which meant she had to take care of the boring duties, and since they were boring, she hadn’t bothered with them half the time. And lately it seemed like her Steward was handing her a list of complaints every day. And her Master of the Guard . . . Well, he’d seemed so charming when he’d first begun to serve her, and he’d been a darling when she’d been training with Cassidy. Now she dreaded talking to him because he looked grim grim grim when he reminded her that she was the village’s moral center and she could not allow rowdy young Blood males to use the landens for sport. There was already trouble because of a little mischief, but he’d wanted to publicly strap those boys because a landen had gotten hurt—and he hadn’t looked at her with any kind of warmth after she forbade him to punish the boys. And that merchant! Whining over a broken window and wanting the Warlord’s family to pay for the damages. Well, she couldn’t order that, could she? The Warlord’s sister was one of her closest friends. And then the merchant wanted to deduct the cost of the damages from the tithes and her Steward let him. Without asking her. Saying it was the only thing to do if she wasn’t going to hold the Warlord responsible.
    She didn’t have a big enough court. That was the problem. There should be people taking care of these things so that she could be a Queen .
    She’d spent some of the village treasury, which she shouldn’t have done and wouldn’t have needed to do if Cassidy hadn’t been selfish. So now she had to have the Queen’s gift in case the Province Queen’s Steward asked her Steward for a financial report. She had to replace what she’d taken, or she would end up having to justify her expenses to Lady Darlena.
    Even worse, because she was only twenty-one and this was her first court, Lady Sabrina, the Queen of Dharo, had given her Bhak to rule for one year. A proving ground, Sabrina had called it. If the villages, Bhak and landen Woolskin, prospered under her rule, she could keep them. If not, Sabrina would declare her court broken and arbitrarily reassign her males to other courts, and she would have to form a new court and find another village to rule since Bhak and Woolskin would be given to another Queen.
    It was all very distressing.
    “Are you all right?”
    She gasped at the sound of a strange male voice, then turned to face him, dabbing at her eyes so she looked as woeful as she felt.
    Mine.
    The shock of it rocked her, that pull, that demand that she be the one to hold the emotional leash that would keep him balanced. She’d never felt anything like this. Was she supposed to feel anything like this?
    “Yes, thank you, I’m fine,” she said. “A little distressed is all. I seem to have come at a bad time and upset Cassidy.”
    He was so handsome with that dark hair and those dreamy green eyes and that golden brown skin. There was a hardness to him that said warrior . More than being a Warlord Prince who was ready to fight, this man had fought, had been on killing fields that mattered.
    She was already a little in love with him, and she didn’t even know his name.
    “Who . . . ?”
    “Theran Grayhaven.”
    “I am Kermilla.” She offered her hand.
    He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. Not lips held a breath away from skin, but a real kiss.
    “Why are you distressed?” he asked.
    “Well, Cassidy and I had a little disagreement, and she ordered me to leave.”
    He stiffened. “Leave?”
    Maybe she had an ally in this place after all. She gave him a wobbly smile. “As in, ‘Get out of my house.’ ”
    A weird, chilling heat filled his eyes. “It’s not her house. She has no right to toss you out as if you were a landen.”
    “But . . . doesn’t she live here?”
    “This is my family home. I offered its use for the Queen’s residence, but this is still my house, not hers. And if Lady Cassidy has forgotten her manners, I have not. I would be honored if you would be my guest for as long as you want to stay.”
    “Oh, that is most kind of you, Prince Grayhaven. Or may I be so bold as to call you Theran?”
    His smile made her feel wonderful.
    “I would be honored to be addressed as a friend.”
    She vanished the handkerchief, then slipped her arm through his. “In that case,