of iron and crowns

CHAPTER EIGHT,

   HE STAYED FOR an hour, and they had a long and extensive chat into their personal viewpoints, past experiences and the like. It felt rather like an interview. A pleasant interview, but an interview nonetheless. They had to cram what ought to be months and years of knowing each other into around a week or two. It was a difficult feat for anyone.

  Things like this, it couldn't be forced. It shouldn't be forced. They've known each other for a long time, but not as friends, always as mere allies. Business partners, like he'd said.

  But it would be fine. Theirs would not be the first political marriage to start like so, and she was sure time would help bring them closer. And if it didn't, well, they were fine the way they were now. They could seek the pleasures and the warmth they wanted elsewhere. It wasn't difficult. There were plenty of people for them to choose from.

  Irina combed her fingers through her dark hair, let down after a day of being pulled up. She felt exhausted, but it was fine. It was time to go to bed, probably, but despite her physical fatigue she did not wish for sleep. Too much on her mind.

  She'd dismissed Bing Yi a few minutes ago, wanting to enjoy some peace and quiet. One candle flickered on the side of her table, lighting parts of the room. She stared it, and then turned away.

  It was getting closer, closer, closer to the wedding day.

  It was going to be okay, probably. Hopefully. She wasn't sure what she'd do otherwise, because Irina really was just clueless when it came to situations about herself. She was so good at micromanaging everyone else's life, but when it came to hers, it just... didn't work. Somehow everything always went wrong, against the way she wanted things to go. She hated it.

  The prince was a good match, though, as far as any match would go well with someone like Irina. He was intelligent, inclined to politics and she didn't need to wait for him to catch up. They both reached conclusions quickly, even though they might not be the same ones. That was all Irina cared about in any relationships. The bane of her existence was people who were too slow. She knew they existed, they had to exist, and that not everyone was an exact replica of her, but she just couldn't handle waiting for those around her to catch up. It was selfish and probably quite arrogant, but that was just how Irina's mind worked. Answering questions, especially stupid ones, made her temper rise like a bloody active volcano.

  Nothing she could do about it, just how she worked. Yet another thing in her life that was out of her control, even though it really shouldn't be.

  It was a pattern. Some divine act of balancing her, perhaps. Myrina would say that. Irina wouldn't. It was her weakness, pure and simple. A weakness she'd tried to deal with for many years, but always failed to.

  And when she felt out of control in situations like this, she always did one thing. She liked to make a list of all the problems she could solve, that she could deal with. It always made her feel less hopeless.

  And thus she began with her list:

Whatever the Meliqueans might cook up, because they were always planning something. They wouldn't dare do anything too bad, especially not after last year, but they would never show up without some malicious intent.

The wedding. She would make sure it went by perfectly. It did not matter if there was no love between her and Stephen—as long as they were friends. And any problems that rose during the wedding, as long as it didn't have anything to do with relationships and feelings, she could solve all those.

There had been a drought in the northern part of the empire. She couldn't precisely command the weather to start becoming wetter there, but she sure as hell could try to relieve the people's pain and starvation.