to hear the shouting coming from behind the soaring, engraved mahogany doors.
I approached reluctantly, each step punctuated with a stilted breath, and knocked with the blooming rose handle.
My knock went unheard as my mother shouted from within, “Absolutely not! I will not have any more of those things in my home! It’s enough I have to deal with you making that half-breed your princess!”
A rib-rattling fist slam, followed by a booming growl from my brother Leander made me flinch. “Don’t talk about her that way!”
“That’s what she is!” my mother retorted shrilly.
“This morning only keeps getting better,” I muttered bitterly to Agnë and Meira as I gestured for them to leave me, before pushing the door open.
As the guards rushed to close it behind me, I entered my parents’ royal quarters to find an all-too-familiar scene.
By the windows overlooking the gardens and Eglantine, our capital, my father, King Florent of Arbore, sat with his back to the whole scene. His spectacles were halfway down the bridge of his nose as he pored over papers in his hands, ignoring the argument between his wife and eldest son.
Father had always seemed he would rather be on the frontline with his soldiers than in a room with my mother. And until recently, he had been. He’d stayed there, even after the war had officially ended, involving himself in negotiating the peace treaty with our rival kingdom of Avongart to its last, minute detail. I suspected because it had been the best excuse to continue avoiding his wife. Not that I blamed him. Everyone gave Queen Zomoroda as wide a berth as they could.
But once that deal had been struck, he’d been eagerly herded back towards Eglantine to preside over the war’s end celebrations, and to reclaim the reins of the kingdom.
I’d gathered they couldn’t push my uncle, Prince Jonquil, off the throne fast enough. I’d heard enough covert comments before I’d left to Cahraman to realize he’d been an inadequate replacement. It seemed that under his rule, the kingdom had suffered, not only from the war’s repercussions, but from his ineptitude.
I couldn’t help but wonder how different things would have been had my brother gotten the chance to become our wartime regent. The chance he’d been robbed of when his own curse had fully manifested.
From his efficiency in championing my case since he’d returned from Rosemead, I was certain the kingdom wouldn’t have been so eager for my father’s return. He’d rounded me up every unmarried royal in the Folkshore in record time. That none had worked out wasn’t his fault. He’d gone above and beyond. In fact, he seemed even more desperate about my situation than I was.
Now the dread of telling him his efforts had failed rivaled the fear of my inevitable fate itself.
Letting out another ragged breath, I tried to move out of the entryway. When I couldn’t seem to steady my shaking legs, I decided to remain unannounced until I could gather what today’s problem was.
“When will you accept that she is the best thing to ever happen to me?” Leander paced in front of our mother, hands fisted at his sides as if to curb the urge to shake her, his sonorous voice filling the chamber with his frustration.
He was wearing a loose, white dress shirt, fitted brown pants, and black leather riding boots, the same kind of casual wear he’d been sporting since his return, to our mother’s fierce disapproval. I myself preferred his new informal look, even if he now looked a little wild with his acorn-brown hair escaping his ponytail, and falling over his flushed face.
Our mother—impeccably dressed in a forest-green gown, and adorned in jewelry studded with her namesake, emeralds—was taking up the couch with her skirts and flat-faced cats, Sheir and Shokkar. A prized breed from her land, favored for their docile demeanor, they looked perpetually annoyed. I would be too if I had to stomach her theatrics all day.
“After what she’s done to save me, the least you could do is appreciate her,” Leander rumbled.
“She wouldn’t have had to save you, if her kind hadn’t cursed you to begin with, now would she?” she scoffed.
So this was about her circling back to her disapproval of his choice of bride. Oh joy.
At least I wouldn’t be around that much longer to suffer more of her unrelenting intrusions.
It was also good that Bonnibel was off keeping a visiting duke’s wife company. I would have hated to make uncomfortable eye contact with her in this