Tina heard a noise of disgust. She turned to look over at Greta who was shaking her head. She looked back at the warriors, tensing as the whole eight of them filed in and surrounded them in a semi-circle.

She was about to get up, but Greta held her arm.

“Follow my lead,” she advised. “Do not think for a moment these… men are here to harm us. Or that they are even authorized to do so.”

They sure looked like they were, could, intended to.

“What do we do then?” she whispered to the older woman.

Greta sighed.

“We wait for the damn dwarf to make his appearance, “she said. “He’s quite the showman you know.”

“Really?” Tina said.

Greta offered her a sideways glance.

“What did you expect,” she stated then rolled her eyes. “Oh, you didn’t think the emperor himself sent this scruffy lot to disrupt our negotiations. He has more important things to attend to, you know, like an empire to run.”

A short figure pushed his way through the gathered warriors. And, as Greta has anticipated, it was Devon, decked out in an impressive suit of armor himself. And he wore it much better than anything she’d seen him wear yet.

“Oh,” he let out a breath of relief when their gazes met. “You are all right, Tina. I was worried when I saw that carriage carry you away. Didn’t you hear me yelling?”

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“Um... no,” Tina told him. Okay, well she might have heard him yelling, but she’d been offered a carriage, and he was surrounded by a mob on a rampage. It would have been stupid not to accept a fast way out of there. “And as you can see, I am quite fine.”

She picked the goblet up and took a sip from it. As much as she didn’t like what Greta had insinuated, she also still wasn’t happy with Devon and was not going to make this easy for him. Wow, was she that drunk already?

“Yes, you can go and take your scruffy lot with you,” Greta told him. “The greatest Murderball player in this world is exactly where she wants to be.”

Devon looked at her. There was a murmuring and a shuffling amongst the gathered warriors who seemed to be a little confused at what they were supposed to do now. Maybe Greta was totally right in what was going on and this was all theater.

“You have no right,” Devon said, turning his gaze to Greta. “She doesn’t belong with you.”

Greta offered a harrumph.

“And she belongs with you?” the woman said. “Just like you to justify a misleading contract, an act of kidnapping, forced labor.”

She turned to Tina.

“Do you want to go back with him,” she asked. “Do you feel you need to be rescued?”

“Um…” The band of Vikings didn’t seem to be at all a threat anymore. Tina offered, “not exactly.”

She took another sip of her Sangria.

“I think I’m good.”

The dwarf stalked up to her, eyes wide.

“Listen to me,” he told her. “Greta isn’t doing this out of the kindness of heart, she never does, since she doesn’t have one. She is doing this to remove you from your best path, and reshape this narrative to her own ends. Do not believe anything she tells you. She is after the hammer as well, and she doesn’t deserve it. She has not earned it. And she will not give you what she has promised.”

Greta made another harrumphing noise.

“And you will? What are you that you deserve Lola?”

He turned to her.

“Lola is not for me. She belongs in the Halls of the Mountain King at his side,” he snarled. “And that is where she is going to go!”