*THIS NOVEL IS A SEQUEL TO WILD CARD & CANNOT BE READ AS A STANDALONE*
There is a legend that one in four royal advisor-mages will betray their monarch, overthrow them for power.
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Gwenore, the new Queen of Acewood, is on a throne most would kill...
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Teodric and I passed the enormous portrait of my father, his icy eyes piercing through me, trying to break my resolve. I hastened us forward, away from the suffocating walls, away from the pressure.
Once we exited the meeting-room, we paused near the threshold, breathing in the purer air. Settling our nerves from the meeting, resting our minds for a spell.
Teodric was silent at first, then he turned to me and flushed, shrinking. "You thank me, but if anything, I caused that deceit."
"No, absolutely not." I squeezed his arm. "You shed light on it, and for that I'm grateful. Now, if only you could get me out of hosting that dreadful ball."
"You know..." he coughed into his fist, "I have some experience with balls, if you wish for some advice. Ways to make the time go by faster, certain cocktails to imbibe that might relax you."
We turned, moseying down the windowless hall with its magic overhead lights sprinkling glowing dots all over our arms.
"Good, because I'll do anything to survive that night and not lose my mind. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not much for frills." I chuckled. "I shrugged off all those duties to my sisters. They have that inherent feminine gene that prompts them to squeal and squirm over dress fabrics and pretty pastries. I would rather be outside." As I said it, my gaze wavered to the window, my heart warming with need.
"But not atop a clubber," joked Teodric, remembering my distaste for the awkward, bull-faced creatures.
"Definitely not. You must wonder why I dislike them so much?"
He nodded. "They were strange, for certain, but...accommodating once you get used to it."
"Well, I refuse to." I snickered. "My mother was from Club Fields, which is where clubbers are bred and raised. Daughter of a prominent aristocrat, poised in every way, and obsessed with clubbers. She wanted to enter the business of raising them."
I smiled at the memory. My father told me how my exquisite, well-mannered, very ladylike mother was once fascinated by the beasts I hated.
"When her father sent her to court and she fell for King Hendry, she abandoned that dream, thank goodness. But she insisted I learn the trade, and so I spent an absurd amount of time with those things. Their odor is forever imprinted in my nose."
He laughed, but stiffened, his expression becoming serious as we took a right turn down a hallway of marble floors and giant windows letting in striking streams of sunlight. He drank in the view. I wasn't sure if he'd had the opportunity to explore our backyard yet; a lush landscape of vibrant flowers, maze-like passages between thick foliage-ridden hedges, fountains and benches and pebbled pathways navigating to various secluded areas.
I hoped he'd get a chance to, before an all-out war broke out.
"So your mother wasn't born royal?" He freed himself from whatever rabbit-hole of thoughts he'd spiraled into. "My entire lineage has royal blood from somewhere in Eroa. There are multiple kingdoms and they often mingled in the past."
