Horis awoke refreshed and eager for breakfast, but along the way a gaggle of giggles called him aside. He spied Lady Fert and Miss Maude tittering over a piece of parchment and simply had to know what it was about.
"You seen this, Horis?" Fert asked, curling herself around him with the parchment held under his nose.
"Madame Tiddles won't like all those fellows about. She gets shy at big parties." Maude said, cradling her pooch.
Madame Tiddles wagged her bushy, white tail and snuffled at him. Horis had given the animal to Maude when he heard the poor girl lost her parents in a tragic sock accident. She was too young for intimate company to take her mind off her loss, so a pet was the best he could do for her.
"I've not yet got my head around letters. Could you read it to me?" Horis asked and scratched Madame Tiddle's ears. "Madame Tiddles is welcome to hide in my bed-shroom from scary parties. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Yes you would!"
"You'll have to hide Maude from this one too. Kabech is throwing a soiree for all the most handsome fellows in the country! Her pick gets to be Lord, can you believe it?" Fert said.
"She's—WHAT?" Horis almost choked on his tongue.
The pooch snuffled at him.
"I apologise. I didn't mean to startle you, Madame Tiddles."
"The Rogue King slips from her grasp and she thinks he'll fall for a daft idea like this!" Lady Fert laughed heartily.
"Rogue King?" Horis said, narrowing his eyes at the slip of parchment. He needed Eraz to teach him to read at once. "The Wyverkiiri fellow?"
"Handsomest in the world, they say. He's seduced everything from harpies to sea-hags and even a bridge-troll!" Fert's cheeks went red as radishes without the need of that unsavoury fellow's tongue.
The rogue was a fool. He had Tyvern at his doorstep, yet he ran off to seduce trolls instead.
Fert stood on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to Horis' neck. "He'd have a run for his money from you though. I do hope you'll go and do us all proud!"
"I shall need that parchment from you. I must speak to Eraz this very moment."
Fert gave it to him. "I'd suggest waiting for breakf—"
Horis did not have time for breakfast. He did not even have time to knock. Straight in he went to show Eraz that cruel pamphlet.
The pair were making so much noise that they completely unaware of his entrance.
Usually Horis would not think to interrupt their loving embrace, but he could not help noticing Eraz' awkward mistake. He coughed and murmured in his friend's ear so that he might correct it, and perhaps Soyle would not realise.
But she heard all of it.
"IT'S NOT WRONG, HORIS, IT'S JUST DIFFERENT. NOW BY KYOS' FOUL NAME, GET OUT! AND DON'T YOU DARE REMOVE YOURSELF UNTIL I'M FINISHED, ERAZ!"
"It's a matter of absolute urgency! I'll look the other way and let you continue. As you were."
Horis closed the door and faced the teal-and-rose splodged wall. Curiosity compelled him to glance back. An Amphen would never, could never. The feathered tail would get in the way. He turned to the wall again and tried his hardest to admire the marigold swirls around the splodges.
"Lady Kabech is having a party for the most handsome fellows in the country to spite me! She means to take someone else, Eraz! Lady Fert even suggested that she might be trying to lure the Wyverkiiri King back into her grasp. So on my honour as Emperor-to-be and as a handsome fellow in this rotten country I shall have to go face-to-face with him to prove I am the most desirable in the world. If I'm to do that you'll have to give up all your secrets, Eraz. I'm going against a fellow who has seduced everything, when I didn't even know you could do that with a Lady."
YOU ARE READING
Revolting Relations
AdventureWhen summoned to retake his throne to mend the frayed relations of his homeland, Vrye finds himself undone by his weakness for relations of a more scintillating nature. Ensnared by the exquisite nose of an Alchemist, he elopes on the back of a unico...
