“What now?” the king groaned.
Winston held up a hand. “I think I speak for a lot of us when I ask gently, Your Majesty, if your recent concessions with Princess Jorah are because you are thinking of soon abdicating. It is not like you to change your mind.”
A silence blanketed the entire room, sweeping from the parliament members to the guards, and to the very doors themselves. Not a sound was made as everyone waited to hear what the king would say.
The king sat up straight, his body language tense, as if the mere thought of abdicating made his black magic churn beneath his skin. “While one of my son’s Assemblages is done, one is not. So no, I do not wish to abdicate at this moment. Once Keiran decides on his princess, I may have her fill in as proxy some as well. While my sons have all but grown up in these meetings, their counterparts have not. Both princesses will bewell preparedto be queen before they ever so much as touch my wife’s crown.”
He believes Gwen needs more time too then.
I turned my eyes to Krew’s for only a moment.Agreed, but why is he never without the stupid sword now?
Krew’s eyes were on mine. I don’t know. I felt like the right thing to do was give Keir more time. But since that meeting with The Six, my father has never been without it.
So why even take it off to begin with then?
Because he knew how close we were to figuring it all out.
I let out a sigh. The sword was always just out of reach, perched on the king’s left hip as we sat during these meetings. I had half a mind to just make a move for it and snag it. Just to end this.
The discussion moved again to our upcoming nuptials. We were to host a large banquet following the ceremony at the castle. I had already sat in no fewer than five meetings on all the wedding traditions and customs.
I was exhausted already, and the wedding wasn’t for another week.
I answered a few questions and then we were all dismissed for lunch. I spun to Krew only to find Keir on the other side of him looking like he’d swallowed a bug.
“What is it, Your Grace?” I asked Keir properly as I grabbed Krew’s elbow.
He gave his head a little shake. “Nothing. For now.” The look he gave both of us, his head cocked and his eyes on ours, had both Krew and I understanding that we would all need to chat later.
He should have been wining and dining the remaining two women in his Assemblage, but instead, Keir was up to something.
* * *
I feltKrew before I saw him. Realizing he was just off the balcony, I headed that way. It was a bit too early for the princes to practice, but apparently whatever Keir was up to couldn’t wait. That was the only reason I could think of for why Krew would be standing on the ground beneath his balcony.
I’d only just returned from eating dinner with my mother and Flora where they were staying over by the training room Owen and I used. They, of course, also had guards handpicked by Krew.
Owen followed me and we looked over the balcony at the ground where the two princes appeared to be in a heated discussion, by the looks of it. They were both standing within a two-toned blue sound barrier.
“Want to head down to see what they are going on about?” Owen asked gently.
“You were supposed to be off duty an hour ago,” I reminded him.
He gave me a shrug. “Like I care. I want to know what those two are bickering about just as much as you do.”
I took two steps back from the rail and toward the door before turning around and staring at it. I was a little sore from running today and the training Owen and I had done. I was graduating from a wooden sword to a small real one. My shoulders were sore, but so were my legs from being so tense under my body weight today.
“Jorah?”
Did I really want to walk down all those stairs I had just come up? No. No, I did not.
I gave Owen a slow smile and then I took off. I jumped over the rail and used my magic to glide me back down. And then just before I hit the ground, I had it slow me down, landing me just shy of the ground. I reached my foot down like it was an actual step and not my magic holding me midair.
Owen landed beside me laughing.
With a flick of my fingers, I burst the sound barrier and put up a larger one of my own that encompassed the four of us.
In the nicest voice I could muster, I asked, “What are we whispering about, My Princes?”
