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The queen blinked, shuttering the raw emotion away. Her gaze broke from Jori’s face to Kymri and Odson behind him and back to Jori.
She straightened and turned to Kymri’s mother, “My antechamber.”
Kolina bowed her head, descending the dais toward Jori. The queen remained as she was while they were led away.
Jori pulled his shirt on, catching Kymri from the corner of his eye and stopped to pull her into his embrace. Her arms enveloped him.
Kolina stopped several paces ahead, “Come along.”
Kymri couldn’t read her mother’s expression.
Jori twined his fingers with Kymri’s and resumed walking. He didn’t appear to have noticed Odson behind him with his escort of guards bringing up the rear.
She didn’t know why Odson was walking with them, but what little she knew of him, she doubted he would have done so without good reason.
Kolina led them into the queen’s antechamber, which was much less formal and more comfortable. The escort resumed their position to either side of the door. Jori turned then, as the door clicked shut, and he noticed Odson, the shock of his presence clear in his expression.
“Uncle Odson, what are you doing here?”
“Your father sent me to look for you.”
“My father?”
Odson nodded, “After your last broadcast was never followed up on, he started calling the Coast Guard, and anyone else he could, to go out and find you. Even me.” His mouth quirked at the corner.
“Shit,” he breathed. “My dad called you and the Coast Guard?”
The door at the opposite end of the room opened, and the Queen’s Guard filed through, followed by the speaker of the council and then the queen herself. She’d removed her assembly robes. As soon as she crossed the threshold, the door closed behind the queen. She walked up to Jori, looking up into his face, ignoring his linked hand with Kymri’s.
Finally, her gaze fell to Kymri, “Have you told him?”
Which part?
She shook her head. None of it.
The queen’s gaze then slid to Odson, the corner of her mouth rose, “Now I understand why you’re here. You should have told me.” Her expression shifted to immovable steel.
Odson cleared his throat and bowed his head, “I promised her I wouldn’t.”
The queen looked stung. She stepped back.
Kymri held her breath.
The queen returned her attention to Jori, and after several long moments, she seemed to accept Odson’s reason.
She turned away from them then, moving to the decanter at the back of the room and poured from it into several tumblers. She brought two forward, handed them to Jori and Odson, then returned for the third. She didn’t offer it to Kymri, “None for you,” she said, with a finger pointed at her from over the glass before she knocked the drink back, swallowing hard.
Jori and Odson drank theirs and Kolina moved in to take the glasses away.
“It seems there is a long, interesting, story going on here that needs to be told,” the queen said, gesturing toward chairs surrounding a table. The queen took the chair at the head of the table, Kolina and the speaker to either side. Kymri sat next to her mother and Jori moved in beside her. Odson took the chair across from her, drawing the full weight of her curiosity.
Indeed.
She was about to find out more about her lover than she had expected.
“He hasn’t been initiated,” the queen said.
Initiated? Her heart lodged in her throat.
