My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER TWELVE

xii. the princess and the dreamer

romantic
// tradition has no use for the hopeful. love has no place in the bride's bed. she gives what she cannot have to the young—to the ones she holds most dear.

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The queen of Alaimore had not been pleased to learn of Ambassador Nivai's desire to forego a supper spent in the company of the royal family, but after a short exchange with your father, she'd begrudgingly assented to it. The king had assured her that the ambassador would most definitely be present for breakfast the next morning.

Of course he would be present; he was a man without kindness, not a man devoid of manners.

Well, now morning had come. You and your siblings and father and mother were seated at the table, but there was still an unoccupied chair—an extra seat pulled up for your foreign guest. It was like a bruise—an ugly blemish on your mother's clear, unbroken pride.

She was still simmering from yesterday's slight; Ambassador Nivai was only adding fuel to her fire. You could hear it crackling in the silence blanketing the breakfast table. The heat was prickling, brushing your arms and face like pointed fingertips, and the flames flickered back and forth like the tail of a crouching cat, or the tongue of a viper, waiting to leap out from the underbrush.

You didn't look up from your plate, empty though it was; you didn't glance at Didi or Havel or Tealai. Movement could set the viper off—could cause the cat to spring forward and sink its claws into the flesh of the mouse. If you looked up you could risk sparing the empty seat a glance—your gaze could catch on your mother's or your father's or Isil's.

Isil. His presence had softened your mother's anger—given her better reason to contain it. He wasn't a simple servant—a disposable man whose thoughts and deeds held no clot against her own. He was a noble—a champion—who had bound himself in service to his king.

He had presence. He had authority.

He needn't be aware of the less-than-friendly dealings between the ambassador of Ceorid and his king. He needn't have any more reason to doubt the integrity of the treaty.

You heard movement—the soft pad of a servant's feet—and you chanced a glance in the direction of the sound. Your father had called a servant over. They stood near him and bent their head toward his face, and he muttered something into their ear. They nodded and then scurried off, disappearing with quiet alacrity through the doors and down the hall.

Silence again swallowed the room once the servant was gone. It was a pressing silence, like a bed being made—a linen sheet, stretched and tucked tightly over table and body.

Your gaze fell from your father before his face could turn to you, and then you heard a rustling from your left: Didi, fidgeting in her seat—shifting to stave off a stiffness from forming in her legs.

She glanced at you out of the corner of her eye, and you tilted your head toward her—tried to angle your ear so you could hear her whisperings clearer.

"I'm hungry," she muttered. Her gaze fled to the empty seat, and then to your father and mother, the latter of whom had her stony gaze fixed upon the doors to the room. "We should just start eating. It's obvious he isn't coming."

You stared past Havel—let your gaze settle on the far wall. Isil didn't often stay around for breakfast—he had other duties to tend to in the meantime—though this time he had. Perhaps it was because of what happened last night. Perhaps it wasn't.