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But today’s loving couple were just generic highers, and in many ways this would be a rehearsal for our own ceremony. It would be my opportunity to practice getting all dressed up and behaving like the mate of three royal dragons.
My dress was still hanging on the front of my closet. Ice blue and falling to the floor in cold silken folds. Designed just for me and like nothing I’d ever worn before. I’d put it on if I ever managed to get the lashes attached. Lessers didn’t wear makeup. My hand shook as I tried to lay the individual lashes along the lash line. Not that I didn’t have decent lashes, but I’d been informed that I had to do this in order to show I wanted to fit in.
Not that I especially did want to, but I felt I owed it to my mates. So I continued to apply the lashes one by one by one until I wanted to scream. Who had the time for this nonsense? Lipstick, check, eye liner, check, foundation, powder, blush, layers and layers until I didn’t recognize myself anymore. My hair at least, had been styled by someone else into a complicated series of braids drawn back into a smooth bun at the back of my head. It had grown so long since I’d been here. I’d wanted to cut it short, but my mates had been so disappointed. Oh, they were supportive but let me know how much they liked my hair anyway.
So, with my hair all styled and my attempt at makeup hopefully less garish than it appeared to me, I stood up and slipped out of my robe. I couldn’t resist a look in the mirror at the pretty lacy lingerie soon to be covered up again.
Fun fact: lessers not only don’t have pretty underwear, they rarely have any at all. Those women who were better endowed than others managed to come up with some way to contain their charms, but not one of them had a cream lace bra and panties set. And I had so many more where that came from.
It was obscene for one person to have so much while others had almost nothing. But when I wanted to give a lot of it away, my mates pointed out that in my role as a royal mate, I would need to have appropriate clothes. They did feel awfully good under all my clothes. But if my role was anything at all more than just a figurehead, I’d find a way to get the lessers better clothes. Better food. Better working conditions. Better…
“Mate?” Jude poked his head into my room. “We need to get going. The ceremony starts soon.”
I hurried to slip my dress over my head and step into the high-heeled sandals that just happened to be the exact color of my undies. A twirl in front of the mirror, and I was ready to go. My mates were waiting in the living area, each of them in a suit of a different color. Soren’s was a rich maroon, Jude’s a subtle gold, and Nico’s a silvery bronze. They were custom, of course, and fit them like a glove. I was the luckiest dragon in our caves to have these three males on my arms for the wedding.
We strolled out of our room and through the hallways to the great hall, talking about nothing of great import, since many of our topics of interest were revolutionary and likely to get us in trouble. As we got closer, we became aware of something strange. Usually, lessers were bustling about from place to place, but today, there were clusters of them standing around and speaking in low voices.
“What’s going on?” I asked my mates. “It feels very off around here.”
“I’m not sure.” Soren stepped away from us and appeared to be studying a painting on the wall. One he’d passed every day of his life and couldn’t possibly have any interest in, but it put him near a trio of female lessers whose shrill, tense giggles were interspersed with whispered, excited words. He listened for a moment and then returned to the three of us. “It’s not good.”
“No, I sensed that.” Nico shook his head. “What did they say?”
“They’ve all refused to serve at the wedding. It’s the rebellion.”
Chapter Twelve
We weren’t sure if the wedding would even go on without the lessers or how the High Council would handle their refusal to serve. But we went on into the Great Hall to find out. The other lessers seemed to have been going about their tasks, cleaning in the hallways and carrying things to the kitchen. It seemed their only rebellion was concerning the wedding. An odd choice? Or targeted to annoy? Either way, it wasn’t something that could be ignored. The buffet lay empty, the decorations were almost nonexistent, and the bride was having a total meltdown at the front of the room, surrounded by her mates. I’d somehow thought it was just one female and one male, but this particular higher had no fewer than six mates, if she could just close the deal on them.
Her wails made it all the way back to where the guests were clustered at the back of the room, and I shook my head. “I don’t think there will be a wedding today.”
“Doesn’t look like it. Six mates,” Jude marveled. “We’d have to cook so much more food.”
“But if they don’t do the ceremony, it may not happen.” Nico spoke low. “Rumor has it that at least a couple of those guys weren’t interested in marrying her. And this may give them the out they need.”
“Either way,” Soren put in, “we don’t need to stay here and see this. I’m so sorry you went to so much trouble, mate. You look beautiful.” The others all chorused their compliments as well.
“Well, you are the handsomest mates in the caves. All of you.” I admired them from head to toe. “We’re all dressed up with nowhere to go.”
“Speaking of going,” Nico said, “I think we’d better. I just overheard someone saying the highers are sending in someone to deal with the lessers who refused to serve. The bride is the granddaughter of one of the High Counselors and they are going to make examples of them.”
“Since our plans have changed, would you mind if we took advantage of our free time and went to look for Hilda again?” I hung back, more worried about Hilda than ever before. “We still haven’t heard from her.”
“Sure, mate.” Nico hugged me and steered me away from the Great Hall. Noises were starting to emanate from there, noises that didn’t sound all that good. “We should go now.”
“Wait.” I tried to pull back but his arm was locked around my shoulders. “Shouldn’t we change first?” We were so fancy, way too dressed up to hit the mountainside.
“We will.” Soren came in on my other side. “But we need to put some distance between us and the wedding site first. The High Council isn’t going to take this rebellion well.”
I tried to look over my shoulder but with Jude at my back, the three of them were moving us along at speed. “Are they going to hurt someone? Just because they didn’t want to serve cake?”
Rattling, banging, and a cut-off cry had me trying once again to go back. “We can’t leave them. What if they…what if they hurt them?” Tears were dripping off my face and splashing on the stone floor.
“Keep walking, Freya,” Jude warned. “We’ll take a back passage to the apartment and get changed, then Nico can take you to look for Hilda and Soren and I will go and see what we can do to help the lessers.” He placed a hand on my lower back as if to help the others keep me moving. “Are you all right with that plan, Soren?”
“Yes.” He didn’t say more, but he didn’t have to. We were moving faster, but when we came around a corner, they all came to a stop, making me stop with them. “This way.”
Soren tapped at the wall and an opening appeared. One I’d never seen before. But I didn’t ask questions, just let my mates usher me through and into a narrow tunnel that led into the back of the caves and then up a flight of stairs. It was dimly lit, but after a few minutes, we were exiting another almost invisible door into the corridor outside our rooms.
