AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She smiled stoically and then ushered the two pages, the offended herald, and the acrobats from the room.
The group of guards were the last to go. All female, they hailed from Steelhaven, and I knew they took their job of protecting me with the utmost seriousness. After consenting to have them take up a station just outside in the corridor, I closed the heavy, oak doors to the bedchamber and turned back to Lyrastra.
“You didn’t let the herald finish,” I said.
“Fuck the herald.”
“Tsk, tsk. That’s not very nice. Though I suspect he’d likely be willing. Shall I call him back, and we’ll find out?”
“Don’t you dare,” Lyrastra snarled.
I didn’t bother to hide my grin. “Are you sure? It might improve your spirits.”
“My spirits are fine.”
“The decree stands whether you heard the full thing or not, you know.” I leaned casually against one of the wooden pillars holding up the canopy bed. “You’re looking well.”
“I look like shit, and you know it.” She scanned me up and down. “You look like shit, too.”
I winced. “Fair. I’m working on it. We can’t be our best selves when we’ve taken up brooding in bedrooms, now can we?”
For a second, she looked curious. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”
“Brooding, yes. Not literally lying in bed while brooding, no.”
“Fair,” she muttered. “You have me beat then, I suppose.”
Cautiously, I took a seat on the edge of the bed. When she made no sudden, violent move, I let my body relax slightly.
“It’s time you were up and about. Don’t you wish to know what the herald was about to say?”
Lyrastra turned away, studying the closed curtains over the window across the room. “I don’t care.”
I followed her train of vision. Rising to my feet, I crossed the room and yanked the curtains open. Light flooded into the chamber. I turned back to see Lyrastra squinting.
“It’ll do you good. Be careful, or I’ll send Breena to you next,” I warned her. “Now, are you going to let me finish, or do I have to bring back the entourage?”
Lyrastra’s eyes flashed. “Don’t you dare let anyone carrying a trumpet set foot in this room again, Draven, or I swear to Vela, I’ll send them wailing to their mothers, one and all.”
I snorted. “Never took you for the devout sort. I doubt Vela honors that sort of a threat.”
Lyrastra’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s Morgan? Oh, that’s right. I hear she left you.”
I swallowed, trying not to react. “That’s right.”
“You made her your wife. Without asking, might I add. You made her our empress. Also without asking, might I add. And now she’s gone.” She shook her head slowly. “No wife. No empress.”
“Yes. I am... bereft.” It was true, but I said the words lightly.
Lyrastra shrugged. “So, you rule in her stead. It’s the way it ought to have been all along. It was idiocy to try to change it. You should have been satisfied with winning and taking the throne on your own, not tampering with fate.”
“Sheisyour empress,” I said softly. “And shewillreturn.”
“Perhaps in a few hundred years. If she lives that long,” Lyrastra said sarcastically.
“I’ll be bringing her back long before that,” I said, meeting her eyes steadily.
She froze. “You’re... leaving?”
