AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Things were clicking in my mind faster than I could keep track of them.
“The king likes you,” I said, thinking through the things that had just happened.
“The king likes my mother,” Mara corrected, shaking her head. “He would rather not think about me. He doesn’t approve of me being a healer.”
“But he will now, surely,” I said. “You stitched up his hand.”
Mara let out a breath and gestured for me to walk on. “That’ll be enough to stop him from pulling me out of the college,” she said, “but nothing else. He’ll go back to ignoring my existence. Which is just how I like things.”
I glanced sideways at her as we turned a corner that took us quite suddenly out into a garden where festival activities were in full swing.
Only, seeing it now, seeing the decadence and waste of jaded noblemen and women fucking young, beautiful people—who might not have had a choice in how they participated in the harvest festival—seeing the food and drink that was being spilled and dropped, filled me with a sense of righteous revulsion.
“The kingdom is falling apart, King Julius is talking about forcing men out of the fields and into the army to chase after a rogue general for the sake of his pride, and all these people can think about is their own pleasure,” I said, shaking my head.
“Now you know why I didn’t want to come here by myself,” Mara said, still managing to sound calm about the situation.
Or perhaps she was numb. I could easily see how someone who had lived surrounded by this kind of debauchery would grow immune to it after a while. It was exactly what had happened in the cities of the frontier. People had grown complacent and too used to their callous ways toward the wolves, and it had killed them in the end.
“I want to go home,” I said, blowing out a breath and rubbing a hand over my face. “Do you want to come with me?”
“I want to leave the palace,” Mara said, gesturing for me to walk with her through the crowd of naked and half-naked revelers, the drunken musicians who could hardly play their instruments, and the harried palace servants—who I could now see were disapproving at best and fearful at worst of the guests around them. “I’m not ready to go back to the college, though.”
She glanced back over her shoulder to me as we moved around a large, circular couch, where three thin young women were taking turns sucking on a large, older man’s cock while he fondled them. “There are far better entertainments to be had at a harvest festival than this mess,” Mara added.
I hoped so. I was beginning to understand in a way I never would have before why Magnus and Rurik chose to flee the Old Realm for the frontier. I was surprised that Magnus had ever enjoyed the sort of thing that half the people around me were being subjected to. I was no prude, not in any way, but there was a line, and that line was being crossed all around me in the palace of Royersford.
I was glad I had Mara to lead me out of the palace. I understood how I had gotten lost as she took me through room after room of revelers, through gardens and courtyards, and down several corridors that curved and confused me about which direction I was going.
“It’s designed this way on purpose,” Mara told me when she saw the baffled look on my face. “Apparently, my great-grandfather had it designed this way so that enemies who were called to an audience with the king would have a hard time finding their way out if they needed to make a quick escape.”
“The king would hold audiences with his enemies here?” I asked as we finally turned a corner and entered the garden where I’d been right before being separated from Leander and Darius.
Mara nodded. “King’s City has always been for government and administration,” she said. “Royersford has traditionally been the seat of diplomacy. It’s on the sea, after all.”
That made sense to her, and I guess it made sense to me. It was just another complication of the Old Realm that I didn’t want to think about.
Then again, without even trying, the Wolf River Kingdom was on its way to having a similar situation. The new king’s city was being constructed to provide a seat of government, but Gravlock had emerged as the most important city because it was Magnus’s. I wondered how long that would continue.
My thoughts were cut short as Mara and I made our way around the pool of mermaids and mermen only to spot Leander and Darius. The two of them stood off to one side of the pool area, back-to-back, their hands entwined at their sides, as each of them was having their cocks sucked by another set of twins—two men who might have been eighteen if you used your imagination. They were being watched by at least a dozen men and women who were engaged in various sorts of self-pleasuring.
I wasn’t going to lie to myself. The sight was striking and hot, and my cock responded, in spite of how angry and disgusted I was with everything else. At least the younger set of twins looked as though they were well-fed and genuinely having a good time.
“Looks like Darius and Leander are busy,” Mara said with a sideways grin, grabbing my sleeve and tugging me on.
“Looks like it,” I said almost managing to grin as well.
I thought we would make it past them without drawing notice, but before we reached the archway that would take us to the outer courtyard, one of the twins called out, “Oy! Conrad, Mara, where are you going?”
“We’re just getting started,” the other called as well.
“Looks like you’re about to finish,” Mara called back.
The twins laughed, then lolled their heads back against each other, twisting to kiss as best they could back-to-back.
One of the men watching them came with a cry at the sight, spilling spunk over his hand without seeming to care who or how many people saw him.
“We’re leaving the palace to see what else is going on at the festival,” I called to the twins, not entirely certain they were paying attention to me.
