At least Alastor waits until we’re alone in our rooms to point out the obvious.
“Save your breath? Sweet Firesta,” he curses. “You thoughtthatwas the winning response?”
“You’re hardly one to lecture me on tact, Alastor.”
He collapses into a plush chair, running a hand through his floppy hair.
“That may be, but what would your grandfather have to say about it?”
“Respen knew what he was getting into when he sent a soldier to do a politician’s job,” I shoot back.
“With good reason, Leon,” Alastor says.
I turn away, not wanting to think about why, exactly, I’m here and not someone else.
“Besides,” Alastor continues, “I think he assumed you’d at leasttryto maintain civility. Inter-kingdom relations is, after all, the whole point of this trip.”
Technically, new trading routes and tariffs between our borders are the point of this trip, but those are just a cover for the main message: reminding the Trovian royals who their real friends are.
“And I have been civil, haven’t I?” I say. “I looked the pair of them in the face without making a single threat—that should be commended.”
I’m being truthful. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it, after everything, but Elowen and Alaric Angevire are just tolerable enough—on the surface anyway—for me to hold my tongue.
The Temple of Ethira is another matter, however. My grandfather didn’t give me any orders about respectingthem.
A servant knocks and enters with a trolley, laying an impressive selection of food across the nearest table with shaking hands.
“Well, it’s clear we won’t be dining with the royals tonight,” Alastor comments, but he doesn’t sound too cut up about it, leaning in to sniff a dish near him.
“Ask him if that’s normal.” I direct Alastor toward the human with a flick of my wrist.
Alastor rises, peering curiously into the human’s face, who looks alarmed.
“My lord?”
“What does the queen mean by sending food directly to our room?” Alastor asks him in a voice layered with magic. “Does she do it with all her guests, or just the ones who’ve offended her?”
I roll my eyes at his phrasing, but Alastor’s sensic power is already at work. The servant’s eyes glaze slightly, and then he blurts out a stream of truth.
“Her Majesty often prioritizes guest comfort over formality, my lord. Even if the Nightmare Prince hadn’t spoken blasphemy in front of her court, she may well have saved him the chore of dining in the royal hall on the night of his arrival.”
The servant’s eyes glint back into focus, falling nervously on Alastor.
“I—I’m sorry my lord, I…” For a moment I think the servant is going to be one of those people who realizes exactly what Alastor’s just done to him, but then his expression smooths as his mind lets the strange experience go. “Is there anything else I can do for you, my lord?” he asks, back to the nervous-but-polite manner he showed when he first came in.
“That will be all, thank you.”
“Blasphemy,” I snort once the servant is gone.
“It’s whathebelieves to be the truth,” Alastor reminds me as he picks through a bowl of fruit. “Who knew that after nearly a century your reputation for doling out terror and mayhem would still be so fresh with the humans?” he adds, selecting a bright green apple and taking a bite out of it.
I can’t keep the scowl from my face as I throw myself down opposite Alastor. My friend didn’t hear the servants whispering earlier, but I know what he’s referring to.
“Nightmare Prince,” I grumble. “I suppose it’s slightly less of a mouthful than ‘Prince of Nightmares.’”
“Turns out the humans have longer memories than we thought.”
“And the Temple’s rhetoric is such a help with that, I’m sure,” I add.
