SHE WILL MASTER TERRIFYING POWERS OF ENCHANTMENT...TO SAVE THE MAN SHE LOVES
In a land of sorcerers and elf warriors, powerful women weld magic--but the only things Elspeth wields are dirty pots and pans in a castle kitchen. That is, until she was...
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ZEPHYR WAITS AT THE INN, injured and feverish, fretting that Theo will be beheaded at the palace. Meanwhile, Theo confronts his father, the King.
At the palace gates,Theo was rather astonished to be met by Rufus the King's steward. Rufus only met high-ranking visitors, but with him at Theo's side they were quickly passed through the long halls, unchallenged by the guards. He'd forgotten what a long march it was to the King's court.
"I'd expected to request an audience with the King and wait my turn," Theo said to Rufus, as they passed the long colonnade where petitioners waited for hours and hours to be heard by someone at the palace.
Rufus turned to look at him. "You are the king's son. There is no delaying this matter," he said cryptically.
Everything looked much the same after such a long time away, impossibly grand, and yet to him the rooms seemed more narrow, and terribly ornate after the bare simplicity of the tower—itself a masterpiece. The people seemed less terrible than was a half-elf scrawny child, running about the palace. At that time he spent much of his time looking down, or off in a corner, ignored and silently scorned by the majority. Now he just thought the looks they got impassive, or guarded. Meanwhile, he'd assumed he could judge Ancaster's displeasure at his return by the length of his wait. It must be a very good sign then, being whisked before the king so quickly. Unless it was a very bad one.
Certainly Rufus was unchanged. A small sense of doom presented. His imagination went from the visage of his father, gravely displeased at his return from banishment, to being publically stripped, beaten and beheaded, to Zephyr left alone and friendless in a (he realized now) hostile land.
Why had he been so sure that his father who had always ignored him or left him behind before would be pleased to meet him now?
He felt a tumble of emotion. Because Ancaster was a warrior. One who was never defeated in battle and by popular acclaim was elected Winter King. Wouldn't his father be proud of him, now that he was a warrior himself, and triumphant in battle?
If he were brought into the King's privy chamber for an audience, then he would know. Foreigners were kept to the outer court. Subjects, nobility, along with councilors went so far as the inner court. Only the King's most guard, his retinue, long time friends went as far as his chambers. And beyond that were his privy chambers. Behind those doors the most important business in the kingdom took place, and only the most trusted loyal subjects—family, his body guard, his fewest precious advisors went in there.
Ancaster had been made King while Theo was with his mother's family. When he returned as a youth, he had never penetrated so far as the privy chamber. It stung, along with the fact that he had never been acknowledged at court. His father was ashamed of him.
Today Rufus led to the outer court, and stopped. So. There it was.
His bowels turned to ice. These could be his last minutes alive. He wanted to scrawl a note for Zephyr. This was a gamble he did not think he could lose.
