Kingdom's Vice Series: Journey to Alleria ( #1 2014) #Wattys2015

EPILOGUE

The Tale Room is still open to visitors, Faeore and my Uncle most often attend in the quieter times of the night or early hours of the morning. Dawn is Faeore’s favourite time to visit, for she reads the tales better in that light. Her Father, on the other hand, prefers the night hours, for in the night the wind blows a gentle breeze and the whispers roll in freely then. He still weeps sometimes, I hear him in the night when he thinks the door conceals his cries. I do think he puts too much faith in his unreliable hopes, but that is another matter.

I step inside the Tale Room again, but this time I see Alec perched in the chair, hunched over The Ancient Histories of Alleria: The Pure Kingdom. I smile and slowly approach him, a sly remark tingling my tongue.

‘You are the last person I expect to find here,’ I tell him, making my way over, until I find myself sitting in his lap, his arms looped around me so the book rests on my legs. He pays no attention to me at first; he just keeps on reading.

He lets out a breathy chuckle as he tries to deny my presence, but he breaks after a moment.

‘You are making it awfully difficult to read,’ he sighs, his lips wet.

I flip my hair back over my shoulder. ‘Is that a bad thing?’ I ask in my smoothest voice, my eyes glued to him.

He drops the book onto my lap and holds me, his attention finally shifted wholly onto me. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘that depends, I suppose.’

I smile, ‘On what?’

He leans in, brushes the tip of his nose against mine, and looks into my eyes. ‘On whether or not I care for the histories of the kingdom, or whether I care more for the attentions of my wife.’

He says it with such sophistication; I think he has a hard time believing it came out of his mouth. I stop his words with a kiss and my mind returns to our wedding day; the second one in front of King and kin, where we swore our vows to one another under the light of The Tree. Bliss comes in many forms, so I was told many years ago. This, of course, is just one of the many.

As we kiss, he lets the book drop to the floor, not caring to pick it up. Instead, he pulls away mid-kiss, turns to the shelf and plucks another. He plops it onto my lap and pats the cover, bound in leather. He smiles and invites to me open the first page. We turn it together, our hearts in-sync again, and our eyes fall on the title.

The Age of Piracy in Unknown Lands: Volume One.

We share the same surprise, for neither of us believes in such things as pirates and islands full of hidden treasures, mountains of human desire. Nevertheless, if the folk linked to piracy are known for anything, it is for their cause: vengeance. For them, revenge is common place and expected. You cannot take a man’s wife or a man’s gold without paying for it with blood or something of that ilk. Pick a bone with a pirate and you are guaranteed an early grave. That’s why I hear the coffin trade has picked up lately, since they are in constant need of new coffins, for the soon-to-be-dead, for ill-words and bad blood deem the island of Katan perilous soil.

Suddenly, I feel a twinge of something: fear. Alec had sent the survivors of Kennah to Katan, the island across the Sea. How long they shall last there, I do not know for certain. What I can do for them is also uncertain. But I fear that something ill will fall upon Katan before long.

~.~.~.~