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“A lot of beautiful pieces here,” my aunt remarked. She stood beside Lord Castemont, his hand on her lower back as they peered over the case of jewelry that had been left to me by King Umfray. Rings and belts and pendants, all solid gold and crusted with obscenely large gems, all waiting expectantly in my dressing room. “Some of these are fit for a queen.” I could tell she was trying to make it come across as an absentminded observation, but I knew it was anything but that. I braced myself for the question I knew would come next. “Whendoyou think you’ll find yourself a queen, Cal?”
I knew she was aching inside. She and Lord Castemont had been together for eight years now, and it still wasn’t yet officially recognized by the Court. He’d attended monthly appointments with some amalgamate of High Royal leaders, a board or convocation that the king was apparently not a part of. Every month, they denied his request. “I think they’re close to approving our courtship,” he’d say every Saints damned time, and she’d try to hide the disappointment from showing. She’d gotten worse at it over the years. It was eating away at her.
“Haven’t really thought about it,” I replied, straightening the hem of my unassuming surcoat that would go beneath the ridiculous ceremonial cape. It hung in the wardrobe behind me, haunting me like a ghost as I looked in the mirror. Without the cape, no one would know I was on my way to being crowned the King of Widoras. I was still uneasy about the entire situation, about the lies we’d told to get here.
“Well you’re not going to find your queen in the brothels.”
My eyes flew wide. “How do you know–”
“Cal, you smell like a different type of perfume multiple times a week. You know I’m not stupid.” My ears heated with embarrassment and I looked away. “You’re not stupid either. You know you’re not going to find her at Amalthea’s Desire or the Silken Vixen.”
Humiliation washed over me, but at least she didn’t know about–
“Or the Rider’s Bathhouse.”
Shit. I righted myself and tried not to shrink under her gaze.
“I’m not there to look for a queen,” I grumbled. When I was sworn into the Royal Guard, I’d taken an oath to forgo a partner and family and remain unwed my entire life. Though it wasn’t expressly forbidden, I stayed away from the brothels out of respect for the position. But I wasn’t a member of the Royal Guard anymore, not really. I knew that the search for a queen would commence soon after my coronation, so when King Umfray passed and I wastechnicallyreleased from my duty to prepare for my ascension to the throne, I took the opportunity and ran with it. For all intents and purposes, I was still acting as a Royal Guard…except for the brothels.
The truth was that I had met some beautiful, interesting, and truly captivating women. The sex was phenomenal, but I was always sure to ask them aboutthem— where they were from, if they had any family nearby, what they liked to do when they weren’t working. It always caught them off guard at first, but it usually didn’t take long for them to open up.
“I’m sure he’ll find a queen soon enough,” Lord Castemont offered. I had to fight an eye roll. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had a few women in mind already.
“Why do I have to wear all the ceremonial garb?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “It’s just going to be a few of us there.”
Aunt Berna turned to me, a soft smile on her face. “Let me see my boy as King of Widoras just once.” Her hand grazed my cheek and pride radiated from the touch. But the smile quickly faded and her hand dropped as she turned back to the case of jewelry, peering at the baubles that rested on velvet. “I don’t know when you’ll be dressed like this again considering you want to live in the shadows like a common rat. How are you supposed to find a queen if the women you meet don’t even know you’re King?”
I sighed at the passive-aggressive comment. “I want to be able to come and go as I please. You know this.”
She nodded, her back still to me. “You want to be able to go to Rider’s Bathhouse.”
“You know that’s not the reason.”
“Well maybe it’s one reason,” she muttered.
This eye roll, I didn’t hide. “Aunt Berna.”
“I know, I know,” she laughed. “It just seems like more trouble than it’s worth.”
I sighed. “If a king takes a planned trip to the slums of a city, what’s going to happen?” I asked her. She turned to me and cocked her head. “It’ll be announced. It’ll be curated and planned down to the number of shits the horses pulling my carriage will take. I’m not going to get an accurate picture of the people there.”
“I suppose so.”
“Or if I send someone in my place, I’ll get a secondhand account of it. I’d get a watered down version of the truth. But if I walk into Inkwell as no more than a normal Eserenian resident, from say, Sidus, no one is going to think twice. I’ll see the real, raw truth of the state of Widoras. I can be a better king if they don’t know I’m a king at all. I’ll be able to better help my people.”
Aunt Berna took a deep breath and nodded her head. “You’re going to be a good king, Cal, no matter what. Your mother would be so proud.” My eyes misted over at her words, even more so when I realized what was coming next. “Tobyas, too.”
I dropped my head, blinking hard. “Yeah, he would be proud, wouldn’t he?” I nodded to myself. “Bet he’d have plenty to say about that gaudy cape, and he’d say it with a shit-eating grin on his face, too.”
She smiled again, her blue eyes alight in the glow of the chandelier. “I can hear him now,” she laughed, sorrow behind the sound. “That’s stupid,” she sneered in a mock-Tobyas tone. I couldn’t help but laugh, too, because she was right. “And don’t think I missed that swear in there. If you’re not smart enough to say something without swearing…”
“You’re not smart enough,” I mumbled. “Yeah.”
Lord Castemont stepped forward, looking at me in the mirror. “King Belin Cal Myrin,” he mused with a prideful smile on his face.
“Not just yet,” Aunt Berna said playfully, finding her place next to her Lord. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him to plant a kiss on the top of her head. “He still has to get through his coronation.”
“The arrangements have been made?” I asked.
