THE ROYAL CROWN WARS

Chapter Five

Eating in silence stunk!

Typically breakfast in the dining hall was absolute chaos. Dozens of consultations, servants, guards, and others ran around doing whatever the King and Queen ordered them to do. Dozens of news reports played in the background directly on top of each other. How anyone understood anything was beyond me.

Instead of all of the chaos, all I could hear was the sound of my own chewing. The smell of coffee lingered in the air, along with fresh cinnamon oatmeal.

My dad sat at the head of the ridiculous 12-person table. He wore a black suit with a tie. His brownish-grey curly hair looked like he rolled out of bed or he couldn't stop playing with it. It wasn't his typical look.

Mom sat next to him quietly sipping her coffee. Her dirty blond hair had been turned back into beautiful French braids. She still had her silk dark red robe wrapped around her. Her hazel eyes stared hard into her coffee. I sat across from my mom and shoved the remaining oatmeal around in the bowl.

No one else sat at the 12-person table with us.

"Jamie," Dad said. "Don't play with your food. It isn't very proper."

"Sorry," I muttered. Shifting uncomfortably in my chair, I looked over at both of them. "Is there something going on? We don't usually have quiet breakfasts."

Dad picked up his coffee cup and sipped it. "We just wanted a quiet breakfast, Jamie. I thought it would be nice to have it just be the three of us."

"We don't have that often," said Mom.

She was right, we didn't. Sometimes it was like I had to make an appointment for their attention at breakfast, but right now, they were giving me too much attention.

My brows knitted together. "No... we don't. I just figured after your meeting yesterday that there'd be lots to discuss."

"And why is that?" Dad asked.

I shouldn't have said that. I wasn't supposed to know that anything was wrong. I certainly shouldn't have known about the missing crown jewels.

I shrugged. "That's the way it normally goes. If the meeting went good, I guess."

Dad raised a brow. "The meeting went well, Jamie."

"It was a great time. We discussed a lot of things."

Why were they lying to me!? They did it so well. How many other times did they lie to me like that? I had to be honest with them, but it didn't work the other way around. What. A. Joke.

Shouldn't I know those types of things? Weren't Princesses expected to do something?

"Oh," I muttered.

Mom and Dad glanced over at each other. Mom then turned back to me. "Why are you asking?"

Instantly my face started to heat up. Instead of answering, I shoved a huge bite of oatmeal in my mouth. "No reason."

Mom's nose wrinkled up in disgust. "Jamie, I've told you a million times that you can't talk with food in your mouth."

"Sorry," I said. "Can I be excused? Lizzie's coming soon."

"I don't know. Can you?" Dad asked.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "May I be excused?"

"Yes, you may."

With a forced smile, I shoved myself away from the table and disappeared down the hallway. The hallway buzzed with dozens of guards muttering to themselves. The second I got within earshot, they all stopped talking. No one was on their phones or distracted either. Wasn't that just great?