"Wine and Dine" by Jenny Olivera

"It's all turning out for the best, you have to understand that." Gyric took a sip of his wine and regarded his niece from across the long table. "Our country has been nearly stagnant for generations. I merely want to take what's due to us. Trine'il is so large they'll hardly even notice the difference once we take that little bit of land."

Shannae stared at the man who was so like and yet so unlike her father. Slowly, she pushed the tip of her table knife into the slice of veal on her plate. Brought up from further south, most likely. Cattle weren't raised in this mountainous region. If this were her father, she would be dining on goat meat. "And when they lose their trade with the dwarves?" she said cooly. "Do you think they won't notice then?"

Gyric scoffed and waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "They've more than enough to make up for that. After all, they have three hundred miles of coastline for traiding."

"Dwarves don't sail, my dear uncle. And they also have three hundred miles of coastline from which to launch an attack. I don't think I need to remind you that we do not."

"We'd lose a few of the mix-bloods who live along our coast, that's all. Nothing we wouldn't be better off without in the first place. The Dragonridge Mountains are ours by right."

"What right? Right of history? There, I think you should speak more with the scholars. Right of blood? The Trinelians have as much right as we." Shannae paused and lifted her goblet. If he could sense where she was headed, he gave no sign. He merely watched her with those cold grey eyes, as if she was some commoner he was humoring. "Right of birth? Of that, you have none." His eyes narrowed slightly and she raised the goblet to her lips. "May I remind you that you could very easily find yourself beheaded for treason. I am the Crown Princess. You, dear uncle, are only the King's half-brother -"

"Yes, yes, the son of nobility but not royalty. Alas, sad but true. I could have done so much better than my dear departed brother." Leaning back in his chair, he fixed her with a confidant smile. "My dear, I'm not sure at all what you mean to imply by that. You cannot possibly take the throne while the king still lives, and no one knows he's dead. Do you really think you would win if you cried me false and I accused you of trying to start a rebellion and take the throne by force while everyone believes that I'm King Tirran?"

Shannae's hand tightened on the stem of her goblet. Carefully, she set the vessil down on the table. "And do you think," she said through the tightening of her throat, "that the people will continue to accept you as King Tirran, while you continue to act in ways contrary to that for which he stood?"

"Tirran was so reclusive no one quite knows what he stood for. And really, my dear," he said with a grin that sent shivers up Shannae's spine, "I'm not starting a war here. Trine'il is. They just haven't realized it yet. And after we fend off their brutal, unprovoked attack, what else could I do but take some of their land as compensation for all they've put us through?"