Page 37 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

Twelve

I opened my eyes to see Aben Verforge's smiling face leaning down beside the bed.

"Just how drunk did you two get last night?" he asked with a grin.

I narrowed my eyes noting Io's still even breaths behind me.

"Not drunk at all," I said, my voice gravelly with sleep. "Why?"

"Because my cousin does not sleep...and now, not only have I come into his chamber without waking him, but I'm talking, in a rather loud voice, to the naked woman in his arms, and he still has not moved."

In response, Io reached above his head and chucked the pillow directly into Aben's face. "Get out!" he growled as he pulled the covers over my shoulders, tucking them in at my chin.

Aben was laughing as he picked up the pillow and tossed it back to us. "It's dawn, you idiots. You should probably scurry back to your rooms before the servants start moving around."

I heard the door close with a quiet snick.

"Did you not lock the door last night?" I asked.

"Someone distracted me," he said, sleepily, pulling me against him with the arm still around my waist.

"Yes, well Aben is right." I turned in his arms and laid my cheek against his chest, resenting the next words I had to say. "I have to go."

He reached for my thigh, pulling my leg around his waist as he kissed me, catching my lip between his teeth. "Stay with me, Sera darling, and damn the consequences," he growled.

I laughed. "Those consequences would be war," I said, but my heart clenched a little, not at the words I said, but the ones I had nearly said: Those consequences would be war, my love. That was what I had nearly said.

With my heart thundering in my chest with some fear I would not even put to words, I left him.

I would see him at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I promised myself, and then tonight...tonight would be ours again.

After returning to my chambers to bathe and dress, I found myself wandering down the main hall of the castle. I had already peeked inside the formal dining room and realized that he was not yet seated at breakfast.

Tatana was hovering in an alcove in front of the long gallery doors, looking nervous on my behalf.

She did not often eat in the formal dining room, but it had nothing to do with her being permitted to. As my companion, she had an automatic seat with my ladies in waiting for most formal occasions.

Tatana did not wish to eat with the Windemerians, and I could hardly blame her for it. She was proud, and it took a great deal of humbling herself to sit at the table with Markus now that she had the freedom to refuse his invitations.

Markus was still away from the city, though, so she had agreed to come to breakfast with me to meet Io. She wanted to assess him, if only to ascertain for herself how much danger I had put myself in with my nighttime excursion to his room.

"He's going to know you're waiting for him," she hissed after a group of well-dressed older ladies passed by and entered the dining room. "You're being too obvious, Aelia."

I smiled at her, realizing all at once that I didn't care if he knew I was waiting for him. After the night we'd spent together, I didn't think it would surprise him to know I was anxious to see him again. Especially since I was certain he was just as eager to see me.

A group of nobles from White Spear, a city on the coast of the Sorn Sea, appeared at the end of the hall. They wore long, flowing robes in a myriad of pale colors from white to pink to sea foam green.

The women looked especially lovely with their long hair loose around their shoulders and their skin in every shade from pale white and sun kissed bronze to deep ebony.

A dark-haired woman with skin the color of teak was excitedly gesticulating something to the others. A wing of fabric attached to her wrist fanned out as she raised her arm, revealing a peacock feather pattern that caught the air and billowed out beneath her sleeve.

I was enchanted by the hidden feature of her gown, the gold and blue green of the feathers glinting in the sun filtering in through the high windows.

I didn't immediately notice the group of drably dressed men coming from the other end of the hall, heading toward the breakfast room.

The Minototians—four of them grouped behind the gray-robed Prelate Vijohn, were striding down the hall, their faces severe, as they watched the White Spear nobles approach.

I darted into the alcove, shoving Tatana through the gallery doors as her expression registered surprise.

"What?" she whispered as I quietly closed the door behind us and pulled her down the corridor.

"Minototians," I said.

No further explanation was necessary as Tatana hurried her steps beside me. Neither of us wanted to be caught alone in the hall under the censure of their judgmental glares.

Of course, as our footsteps echoed down the empty chamber, I thought perhaps staying in the hallway where I knew guards were stationed at both ends, just out of sight, might have been better than coming into the deserted gallery.

I didn't think the Minototians would actually follow us, even if they had seen me dart away. They would likely relish being alone with two women just as much as I relished being within a hundred miles of them.

Tatana and I passed through the long, central hall that held the portraits of former Windemerian rulers running down both sides. My parents were at the very end, on the opposite wall, where the little reflecting bench sat in front of the wide credenza of memorial candles.

Someone still lit a candle for my parents almost every day.

I once thought it might be Markus himself.

It was said my mother pitied and doted on him, often excusing his bad behavior as a disenfranchised son of Divestra.

Their branch of the noble family had been an offshoot and not in line for the Dukedom.

Markus had inherited his title from the nearly destitute House of Smeck, passed down from a childless aunt. It granted him only the house and grounds in Ardmore, and the right to call himself lord.

I had long since stopped believing it was Markus who lit the candles for my parents, though. No one who loved someone could treat their only child with as much disdain as Markus treated me.

We reached the little memorial. The candle had not been lit. It sat in its tall, clear votive, waiting for whoever loved my parents enough to think of them every day.

I didn't take the little strike plate and light it myself, though. I always left that duty for the mysterious mourner, realizing that they were likely honoring people they had known, people for whom they had real memories to recall. I had never even met them, so I had no one to memorialize.

The side-by-side portraits of King Ander and Queen Laisera, with their rich chestnut hair, looked so similar they could have been siblings. Madia claimed that was more the artist's doing than any similarity that existed between my parents, though. Even their hair color had been different in life.

"Your mother's hair was rich and bright," Madia told me once. "It looked nearly red in the sunshine. But your father had deep, dark brown hair, like Arkadian."

"Why in the devil did they make them look so similar?" I asked Madia as she and I stared up at the portraits on the wall. Even their faces had similar shapes.

"I always imagined it was bad eyesight or laziness on the old painter's part," Madia said.

The thought made me unreasonably angry then, and even that morning, standing beside Tatana, I felt some edge of that anger return.

The only other paintings of them were from when they were children, so an artist's lazy brushstrokes had taken away my ability to ever truly see what my parents had looked like.

The gallery door creaked open, and I turned, my heart sinking to see Prelate Vijohn stepping through the door.

I looked at Tatana, who reached her hand out to clasp mine. She was likely afraid, but I was only irritated to see him striding down the hall. The idea that he, of all people, would believe it was appropriate to follow us into the gallery, was laughable.

In Minototia, just the sight of me, uncovered and outside my chambers, would have been enough to have me publicly whipped.

"Your Highness," the Prelate said, his mouth curling up into a menacing approximation of a smile. "I do hope I did not startle you when I approached you in the hall."

I gave him a tight-lipped smile. "You did not, Prelate."

"Please, address me as Brother Vijohn," he said. I believed he meant it as a boon to me, to allow me to address him less formally, but I couldn't help but rankle at just the suggestion of a command given by such a creature.

"I could not possibly," I said.

His smile faltered, but only slightly, as he nodded. "Very well, Princess. As you please...of course."

The words felt like an insult, a placation, as though he was only humoring the whims of a silly woman. I forced myself not to respond. I was aware it could be my own preconceptions about the man guiding my interpretation of his words.

I had already had enough of him, though. Minototia's thoughts about women were well-known across the continent. "If you'll excuse—"

"The truth is," he interrupted me, quite pointedly. "I had hoped to gain a moment of your time. Your uncle has made it rather difficult to arrange an introduction with you."

"That is—" I began.

He cut me off again, his voice rising to drown out the sound of my words.

"I believe that what Windemere needs is an alliance with the Undenary.

It is obvious that this kingdom has been set on a path of willful sacrilege, infected with magic, and by the rule of those who would turn a blind eye to the immoral failings of the common people and the justification of the willfully, rampageously blind among us in their pursuit of unholy virtues. "