Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Human, fae, demon, witch, conjurer, we seemed to always be searching for more space.
As I sipped my water, it wasn’t hard to turn my attention from the nightmare to the night.
I rested a hip against the counter and glanced behind me at the seating area where I’d left the two empty bottles of wine and three glasses, the detritus of Gayle, Cat and I dissecting and re-dissecting every second I spent with Prince Aleksei (and incidentally, not coming up with any answers to his and my short, bizarre tête-à-tête).
We’d left the club almost immediately after Prince Aleksei left me because we had a ton of dissecting to do, and we didn’t want anyone to hear it.
Although we came up with no answers, I did learn from Cat that royal etiquette was expected to be observed, no matter where you were.
“King Fillion, but more, Queen Calisa are really into that shit,” she said.
She would know. She’d actually met King Fillion and had been presented to Queen Calisa and served two seasons at court in her seventeenth and eighteenth years. She’d also been at a weekend house party at Capice Point with Princess Aleece and had been propositioned by Prince Timothee in an ante-tent during a laser joust (she had declined, but only because he was more than mildly inebriated at the time, and if she went there with him, she wanted him to remember it).
I still thought all of that protocol nonsense was archaic.
Yes, I (along with everyone else) had seen Prince Aleksei’s beast soaring over the midnight waters around Celestial Palace, and his beast was as handsome, huge and powerful as Prince Aleksei, with his gleaming blue-black scales, purple-hued webbed wings and abundance of cruel spikes.
Anyone with an imagination could hark back centuries and see that beast laying claim to Night’s Fall in a manner no one would challenge him, and if they did, they’d be reduced to ash in purple fire.
But it wasn’t that way anymore.
Constant war, death, intrigue, broken accords and treachery had given way to the establishment of the Four Realms, the slender strip of a neutral Center and diplomacy.
So sure, sometimes that diplomacy was tenuous and other times heated.
But there had been peace among the realms for decades.
And at this juncture, each realm had stood solid under their royal claims for centuries.
The Center, where nearly everyone who lived there was involved in governance and inter-realm relations, was where ambassadors debated, trade deals were forged, and compromises were sought for grievances. Onward from that, each realm had its own government, both realm-wide and locally.
On the other hand, in the lands of Night’s Fall, Dawn’s Break, Sky’s Edge and Land’s End, kings and queens held state dinners, hosted elaborate balls and provided pomp, circumstance and militantly guarded tradition.
Not in generations had anyone in the Celestial Palace shed blood or sacrificed anything for the glory of Night’s Fall. And although the king, all three princes and the princess were delegates to the Center, and the king’s word held great weight, each province, parish or county of each realm had an elected official at the Center, so the royal family was not our only representation.
No.
They were merely born royals; they hadn’t done anything to earn their status or the respect they thought it demanded.
I didn’t argue this with Catla. She was a royalist, through to the bone.
Gayliliel didn’t really care one way or the other, but if forced to lean in a direction, I knew she’d lean toward the royals because she adored pageantry…and gossip.
I would have done the same, until I was forced to curtsy to a male who was just a male, doing this with the attention of a room full of rich people, and then made to feel like a fool by him.
A shadowy streak jumped up to the counter from the floor, and my flame-point Comet asked, “Meow?”
“No, it’s not time for breakfast.”
“Meow,” he disagreed.
“I think you’ve well learned these last few months, just because I’m awake, it doesn’t mean you get food.”
“Meow!”
I set the glass aside and took hold of my cat, tucking him under my arm.
Comet wasn’t a fan of being held (because usually, me carting his heft around induced me to telling him he was too chonky), and therefore his next, “Meow!” was filled with insult.
As usual, I ignored it, and we went to bed. The minute we were ensconced, he shared he was still nursing his affront by jumping away.
Nova, my cuddle muffin, took his place, already purring.
I rolled into her, stroking.
She made biscuits on the duvet.
I sighed and forced my eyes closed.
I had Gayle. Cat. Monique. Lancet (the designer who’d made my pink dress). Other friends. Comet and Nova and their brother, Jupiter.
I was not alone.
And yet, I so very much was in a way I always would be.
Forever.
At the pain of that thought, I opened my eyes, Nova’s affectionate drone humming in my ears.