“What do you mean, nobility?” Adil asked. He leaned his crutch against the engraved wall—the image was of traction benches, an odd choice for a bedroom if you asked him; but then, no one had asked him. No one ever seemed to ask Adil.

Ral’s heliotrope eyes gleamed, something rampant shining from the pinkish depths. “The Fountain of Paints has deemed Wetringed worthy and declared Wetrings a barony. And they’ve chosen me as baroness. That makes you consort, my dear, and Solon is the heir.”

“But—why? Why on earth would they choose us?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Ral snapped. She took a short, sharp breath.

“I…” Adil shrugged helplessly. “Well, we aren’t important enough.”

“Certainly we are—I’ve been a miner these two years, and you’re a member of the largest guild in Wetringed. Our children were born here! The dwarves like us, we’re the anchor of this town.”

The attacks by the reptile people had honed Ral’s temper, even as they had crushed Adil’s leg and irrevocably tied him to his crutch. While he thanked Tobul Diamondgold the Turquoise that he lived, that he could walk, though it required a crutch, the mysterious appearance and sudden deaths of the lurid green creatures had changed his family—changed all of Wetringed—profoundly. The trauma still lurked deep in young Solon’s eyes. The child would recover, but he and his sister would not remember their father as he had once been.

“Don’t you see how marvelous this is?” Ral asked, interrupting his maudlin reverie with a sweeping gesture around their new quarters.

She had a point. The engraved floor was all made of silver, the goblin cap bed of the highest quality. Even their storage chests were masterpieces, carved of jet and marble. A jet armor stand stood in the corner, though neither of them served on a squadron, and as they spoke, Ral angrily hung a spidersilk dress in a golden cabinet.

“All this time, you’ve wanted to acquire things, to adorn yourself in finery, and now is your chance—but all you can say is, ‘Why us?’ I thought you would be glad. I thought we could…” she trailed off and pointed lamely at the bed, her temper fading as fast as it had flared.

Adil tugged the dog bone earring, which was, until recently, his only real prized possession beyond his family. She had a point. And clearly he had misread the situation when he entered their new bedroom. He spread his arms open for her to step into.

“I’m sorry,” he said. She stepped into his embrace, and Adil kissed her clean-shaven head. “Truly, it is a blessing for our family. I love the dining room, especially.”

The dining room was rather ironic, though. Fully engraved gold floors and a jet table did not improve the quality of giant cave swallow lung biscuits and the same old dwarven wine, but Adil saw now that Ral did not want to hear that.

There had been nothing wrong with their old quarters; they were spacious, fully engraved, good honest mudstone floors and walls. But Adil had been unsatisfied, Ral was right about that. They had their children, and both were healthy and very happy. Ral was certainly happy, mining and hauling and socializing in the tavern. But for Adil, life here was still unfulfilling. He had no real job, no skills, nothing to offer their civilization. He could not even remember the last time he had carved something of value.

Their ascension to the nobility made as little sense as the sudden disappearance of the reptile men that had ruined his health and killed so many. It seemed—sometimes—that whatever divine forces ruled Wetringed, they were as arbitrary and thoughtless as the fall of the snow outside. He shouldn’t question it, he knew, but somehow it deepened his sense of aimlessness. The purposelessness of it all hung over his mind like a stagnant grey miasma.

But Ral, glowing with her glorious transformation into royalty, did not notice his malaise. She nuzzled his beard. “This will be the start of a new future for us—and for Wetringed.”

Adil forced a smile and squeezed her tightly.

“What do you plan to do with your new power?” he asked, trying to sound playful.

“Hmm,” Ral said. “Well… I think I’ll order the construction of gauntlets.”

“Gauntlets? Why gauntlets?” Adil’s sense of detachment from reality intensified.

“I’m not sure,” Ral said. “But I think I ought to do something, as baroness. Might as well start there.”

“So you’re choosing at random?”

“Something like that.”

She slipped her hands inside his vest, and Adil asked no more questions.