Two Wicked Courts

Chapter 6

Leander shook me awake. "Come on, get ready. We have places to be."

I fantasized about jumping up and tearing his throat open with my teeth like a wild animal, but I only groaned and sat up.

It had been a long night. After the king departed, Leander fled, too embarrassed and enraged to deal with the courtiers. I had to find my way back to my rooms myself. Leander never appeared in our bedroom and I spent most of the night trying to calm myself down. I wondered why Xanthe interrupted and if I had learned anything from last night, it was that Fae never did anything without expectation. As to what her expectations could be, I had no idea. I also wondered what the things she had said to Leander meant and why he had such an adverse reaction to them. I could only guess.

I glanced out the window to see the sky was barely fading to the light gray of early morning and turned back to Leander, a question poised on my lips.

"You see why I never liked going to these things. Why they can't plan it for a remotely reasonable time is beyond me." He looked around the room. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get dressed. You can dress yourself, correct?"

"Yes." I scowled. "Those of us less fortunate learned to dress ourselves."

"Carry on then." He waved dismissively and nodded to the newly added wardrobe.

Nothing in it was less revealing than what I was usually dressed in. All were the dresses of sheer fabric that felt like water across the skin, brightly dyed, artfully and painstakingly embellished, and carried not a hint of modesty.

My God-fearing mother would have died at the sight of these long ago, I thought with a smirk as I shook off the disheveled dress from last night and kicked it aside to step into a fresh one.

Leander was impatiently pacing by the door so I didn't have time for anything else. I combed my fingers through my hair as I followed him through the corridors. He took a different route than I was used to and we arrived to a set of large double doors. He opened one to reveal a large war room with maps plastered all over the walls and countless pieces of parchment strewn across a massive table. The chairs were all empty, but there was a tray of fresh fruit and bread.

"I'm not surprised," Leander huffed as he slid into one of the chairs and pointed his chin to the neighboring chair for me to sit.

"My prince?" I asked for an explanation.

"They like to test me by telling me to be at these meetings at a certain time and then make a point of being late, and if I decide to do the same, I'll be hounded relentlessly by the advisors and my father." He picked through the fruit and then decided on a slice of bread.

Across from us was an elaborately painted map of what I assumed had to be the continent. Clear borders sectioned off the land mass into quadrants, luminescent blue marked bodies of water, artful renditions of mountains tore through the majority of the northern part of the continent. Countless cities and villages were marked, I could tell by the little letters.

It felt like a lifetime ago, but when the construction of the church first started in our village, a priest and a young acolyte training to one day take over had come to oversee it. I had been even more petulant than usual and decided that seducing the acolyte would be an interesting form of entertainment that summer. He had been learning how to read and write in Latin and taught me letters and how to sound them out. I couldn't read, hardly anyone in the village could read, but with enough effort I could eventually form words.

I decidedly had enough effort and curiosity to try with the map.

Leander picked at the bread and chattered about how he shouldn't entertain his father, but he must or he would lose the crown, and he mustn't let that fall to Lys, so I tuned him out.