As Leal mused, his mood was as shadowed as the windowless corridor he was traversing to reach the throne room. If he had to guess again, Hilde’s wariness might be due to his purpose for coming to Arnica, which he had also teased her about earlier at the inn.
Quite obviously, she had no desire to marry at all, but if she HAD to, she had no desire to be married to him.
Leal already knew that, but anything can happen in the future. He could still do something to turn her opinion of him around.
It was the past he could do absolutely nothing about.
He had little clue as to what kind of character Lothar of Arnica had. He was a genius swordsman—that's all Leal and others like him needed to know. Some days ago, he would have scoffed: why would anyone care what kind of man the insufferably-tal
