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Odette giggled at our little staring contest before asking, “But isn’t the election in November? What is the point of having a vote now?”
“From my experience, that means they are fearful,” my mother said as she looked through her letters, her red hair pulled neatly back and her glasses hanging off the bridge of her nose.
“Of?” Odette asked.
“The people,” she answered, lifting one letter and smiling. “They fear that having it on the ballot will cause the rest of them to lose their local elections, and the balance of power will be lost from them for good. They are trying to cut him off to save themselves.”
“Mother, is that the mail you’ve been waiting for?” I asked, curious about what she could possibly be asking for every day. “What is it?”
She ripped it open with her silver letter opener, and out came a few pictures. Happily, she turned them over for me to see, but I had to lean in. “Is that Sophia?”
“She’s just arrived in Malaysia. I asked her…well, more like demanded that she not only email me but she sends actual snail mail. I wanted an actual postcard of the places she will be during her tour,” she replied, handing Odette and me the photos with Sophia surrounded by hundreds of children painting a picture in a classroom. It had been a long time since I’d seen her with such a wide smile.
“She looks so happy,” Odette whispered. “I’m glad.”
“Me too. Her guards had notified the palace she’d arrived and were fine. Still, I wish she would have taken more with her, though,” I replied.
“Gale, she has about ten people around her at all times.” My mother laughed. “I was initially worried when you made her a princess. I felt as though you were trapping her in this family. But now I’m kind of glad…at least wherever she is, she is still protected under royal law.”
“You had an issue with my making her a princess?” I frowned. She had never said anything at the time. “Mother, you should tell me these things.”
“It’s old news now,” she said, waving her hands for me to give her back her photos. “Besides, your instincts have been leading you well so far.”
I grinned. “Well—”
“Don’t get overconfident,” she warned, giving me a stern point of the finger, and I dropped it quickly. “Your Majesty.”
I chuckled, shaking my head, looking at Odette, who was very focused on the television in front of her as she mindlessly ate her chocolate-dipped fruit platter. Truthfully, she only wanted the chocolates, but luckily the chef and doctor were trying to get her to add healthier foods to her diet any way they could. Apparently, this child was giving her the biggest sweet tooth.
“You are very focused,” I whispered behind her.
She jumped slightly, glancing back at me. Licking strawberry juice off her lips shouldn’t have affected me as much as it did…but it did. And my mind was already thinking of new ways to incorporate chocolate.
“Curious as to what is going to happen,” she said back.
I no longer cared about that. “Care to share a strawberry?”
She lifted the tray so I could take it, but instead, I just opened my mouth so she could feed it to me.
“Ahem!” My mother’s voice reached me, reminding me where we both were. “It’s starting.”
Dammit. I frowned, reaching for the strawberry myself.
“Later.” Odette winked, and I grinned.
There was one thing I really did enjoy about her hormone shift…last night, she had nearly jumped and shackled me to the bed in order to ride her way into bliss. It was almost every night, and I did not mind at all.
“I would like to thank my fellow Honourable Members of this great chamber for being here for this most unfortunate and frankly embarrassing moment for us all. When I nominated a member of the People’s Party, Ivan Hermenegild, I did so with the belief and hope that this young, fresh face in Ersovian politics would breathe new life, vigor, and hope into our party. Instead, what we have been given is chaos, confusion, and utter embarrassment, time, and time again! I brought my concern to the prime minister on several different occasions, expressing my apprehension over the direction he has been ramming the throat of this nation. To which the prime minister would reply, ‘We are on the right course. Give the people time to see us through.’ Instead, what the people saw last month was the People’s Party disgracing its king!” the man hollered into the microphone.
When the camera focused on the prime minister’s face, he sat looking unphased, but I knew by how he gripped his cane, he was anything but. “What happened to the king was a national embarrassment. Which has left the nation wondering if the People’s Party can even create proper law. We can. We simply need a leader who is less concerned about his own legacy and his own popularity and more concerned about the actual people! It is for this reason, I deliver a motion for a vote of no confidence, as I have no confidence the prime minister seeks to learn or change!”
When he stepped down, he was greeted with a round of applause from both parties. Odette looked at me, and I was not sure what to say, other than I enjoyed seeing him get a verbal beating, though I couldn’t say it out loud.
“So, what happens if he loses? He’s not a prime minister anymore, but he’s still a member of the party?” Odette asked me.
“Most people retire after they lose a no-confidence vote,” my mother answered, looking at her. “I mean, what else can they do? If your party has no faith you, it’s hard to rise, and so you will just be sitting there as a former prime minister.”
“Believe me, Mother, he would stay. He’s too young to retire…and he has the…confidence to believe he can always rise back up.” That is why I didn’t have much faith in this vote. If it were that easy to get rid of him, it would have almost made all the fighting I did against him be worth it.
