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I glanced up to find Olympia cowering behind the ledger while her shoulders shook tellingly.
“You dare laugh—” I began, only for her to drop all pretenses.
Peals of laughter severed the stillness of the turret, high and annoying and beautiful all at once. I stared, disbelieving the boldness and fearlessness Olympia possessed to engage in this mockery. Her lips were split wide, teeth gleaming in the low glow of the solar lamps. Curls escaped the prison of her braids and curled over her cheek.
It had been a long time since I’d witnessed such gaiety without pretense—or common sense, for that matter.
I attempted to push myself off the splintered chair, only to hear yet another crack from the frame. The apron split in half and pushed into the leathers at my bottom. I hastened off the death trap, glancing back to ensure that there weren’t splinters clinging to my posterior.
Fuck.Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Tears sprung from Olympia’s eyes, cascading down her cheeks in uncontrollable streams.
“I see nothing has changed,” she choked out, the words barely comprehensible.
“The hell does that mean?” I retorted, straightening to my full height. It annoyed me to no end that she was still a couple of inches taller.
“You’ve always been destructive, even when you don’t mean to be,” she said, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. “It’s one of your more endearing qualities.”
The wetness of her tears caught in her hair, and the curls glimmered with a coppery hue.
“You can’t presume to know me after all these years,” I insisted, hating the telltale pinch of heat on my cheeks. Embarrassment was unbecoming of a king.
“Remember theJewel of the Sun?” she said between ragged breaths. “You told me how precious the flower was because it only bloomed once a decade, and then proceeded to lop it off with the edge of your sword when you bent over to tie your boot laces.”
“Thatwas an accident!” I protested, feeling my cheeks burn as Olympia’s mirth intensified. She could barely breathe through the peals of laughter.
“I’m sure it was,” she teased. “Everything you destroy is an accident, Zo.”
“You need to pull yourself together,” I warned.
“You need to pull that chair back together,” she rebutted, the last word melding with a giggle.
“Goddess, you’re infuriating,” I murmured, running a hand through my hair.
“I’m only infuriating because you’re never able to laugh at yourself, Zo,” Olympia said, leaning against the open window to draw a decent breath. “Anyone else wouldn’t have been able tostoplaughing.”
“How was that funny?” I demanded.
Her stare was infantilizing. “The newly crowned king of Agnivale sprawled on the ground after a chair breakstwice—that’s not funny to you?”
I shrugged, glancing back at the ridiculous piece of sub-par furniture. It now looked like nothing more than kindling, waiting to be shoved into a fireplace.
“No.”
The growl of my voice seemed to sober her up. She straightened, sniffling lightly as she pushed stray curls from her face.
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “Be a boar, as usual.”
I gestured to the guest list in her hand. “Get back to work, or it’s your head.”
With a dramatic sigh and a roll of her eyes, she glanced back down at the papers I had handed her earlier.
Surreptitiously, I raised a hand to the base of my back, rubbing the slight soreness there.
“Wait,” she said abruptly, jabbing a finger at the list. “Almanera? Gilford Almanera?”
I pictured an Alpha of average height with a trimmed goatee and age lines creasing his skin.
