Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
I groaned loudly and obviously, swiping a hand down my face before clasping my hands before me and giving Cassius an imploring look.
“Please let that be it,” I begged. An entire afternoon of practicing royal etiquette, greetings, the proper way to address people of different stations and a whole load of further mindless bullshit besides, and I felt like my skull might crack in two from the pressure of remembering it all.
Not least because I hated most of the pomp and pageantry that the nobility wasted time on.
To me it all seemed like it was just put in place to force conformity and steal any semblance of freedom or fun from the Fae who abided by it.
The nobility were so suppressed that I had to wonder how they hadn’t all just died out, too afraid of saying the word cock to ever actually interact with one.
I really hoped my princess would relax her inhibitions quickly.
I wasn’t the type to spend five minutes fumbling beneath the sheets in a darkened room.
So if she was coming to my bed then she was going to have to get used to all forms of worship and depravity at their finest because when I indulged, I took my damn time and wrung every inch of pleasure and more from the flesh of the women who joined me.
Perhaps I would warn her of that when we met and watch the way her cheeks coloured with heat and desire as she saw the truth of my claims in my eyes.
“That will do,” Cassius grunted, though I could tell he had further thoughts and corrections he wanted to make. “There are other things we need to get in order anyway.”
“Such as?”
“When entering the pageant, your identity will need to be verified. There is an application which needs to be filled out too, and of course the matter of the payment to the crown.”
“Kyra,” I asked, turning my head to look at my little goddess who had made it up into the lemon tree during the mind numbingly boring lesson on the layout of the kingdom of Carubai where I was claiming to come from.
Cassius had found some old books stored in his family office and had pointed out place after place on the map, correcting my pronunciation of most of them.
But then we had gotten into an argument over the pronunciation of other places within the empire and in all honesty, he was just lucky I hadn’t broken his nose.
“Yes, Master?” Kyra asked, flipping upside down and hanging from a branch of the tree by nothing more than the hooks of her knees.
I sucked in a breath, giving her a wide smile as she swung there, her dress bunching around her thighs and only keeping her undergarments concealed because it had gotten caught on the branch.
Her raven hair tumbled down to brush the table before me, and I found myself forgetting what I’d been going to ask her as the desire to climb the tree and join her filled me instead.
“It will be rather hard to explain that behaviour to my ma-mar and sisters,” Cassius muttered irritably as he looked at her and Kyra blinked.
“Is upside down not how things are done?” she questioned.
“Not usually. But there are at least six things which I can think of that are made far more enjoyable in that position,” I replied.
Cassius banged his cup of water down on the table hard enough to force me to acknowledge his presence and I gave him a scathing look while he glowered at me.
“It would be preferable if you came down, Kyra,” he gritted out.
“Okay.” Kyra kicked her legs, forcing my heart to catapult up into my throat as she launched herself off of the branch, tumbling down so fast that I barely managed to lurch out of my chair towards her before she hit the table.
She rolled as she landed, the fabric of her dress flying up around her and concealing her from view for a moment before she tumbled from the table and into the chair she had been sitting in earlier.
Kyra swept her dress back down over her legs and a lock of ebony hair fell into her eyes for a moment before she blew it aside and settled back into her seat as if nothing had happened at all.
“By the gods,” I said just as Cassius echoed the same sentiment, though I sounded more impressed in comparison to his somewhat horrified curse.
“Were you going to ask me for something?” she asked, cocking her head to one side as she looked at me, golden eyes glimmering, and I swear I felt the crackle of the magic contained within her lifting the hairs along my arms.
“Papers,” I said somewhat dumbly as I had only half listened to what Cassius had been saying about the things we needed to get me accepted into the pageant. “Birth records, family tree, all the shit Cassius mentioned.”
“Official invitations to the pageant were sent out several months ago,” Cassius added.
“They included the application paperwork for anyone eligible who wished to enter alongside the invitation itself marked with the royal seal which will need to be presented when we arrive at the palace to put your name forward. I caught a glimpse of them before they were sent out so I think I can help you create a convincing-”
“Like this?” Kyra held her hand out, a stack of thick parchment somehow clasped between her fingers, the ink on them glistening as if they had just been written out.
Cassius reached for them with a look of wonder on his face, leafing through them and reading each in turn before laying them before me to check them over too.
I gave them a quick look, the scribbles and symbols meaning nothing to me.
Reading hadn’t been something required for my survival on the streets, so I had never wasted any time trying to master it.
Not that there had been anyone I could have asked to teach me if I’d wanted to.
The only way for a kid from the slums to learn to read was by pledging their life to one of the many temples throughout the city and being taught to read the sacred texts about gods who had long since abandoned our kind.
It had never appealed to me, especially not after I had been forced to spend time with a holy man whose intentions were far less than pious, but even before that, a life of prayer and ritual in worship of gods who had stopped listening seemed pointless to me.
It wasn’t even like they could offer much in the way of food or shelter within the temples.
They would buy meagre meals with some of the money that was donated from wealthy Fae but not with any kind of regularity which could be relied upon.
Some saw it as better than fending for yourself on the streets, but I had heard enough rumours of the various kinds of sacrifice and worship required in the temples to know that I wanted none of it.
“Kyra,” Cassius breathed, his finger skimming over the wax imprint of the royal seal. “These are utterly exquisite. The birth record even shows the appropriate signs of age, and the parchment is the twin of what they use in the palace.”
“So they’re good enough?” I asked, taking the way he was salivating over them to mean they were.
“These are more than good enough,” he said.
“Perfect.” I rose abruptly, allowing my chair to scrape over the cobbles. “Then I do believe we are owed a bit of respite from this endless training.”
Cassius looked inclined to disagree but the sun was already waning, the shadows growing longer and the scent of something mouth-watering was drawing all of our attention back towards the kitchen.
“We will need to continue tonight, once my mother and sisters are sleeping,” he said firmly. “There are many things which still give you away and we need to take every possible moment to prepare ourselves.”
“Fine,” I agreed, though I wasn’t really looking forward to a night spent learning facts about the kingdom and enough about land management to be able to convince people that I was who I said I was.
But Cassius insisted that a single slip up could cause the entire plan to fall apart, and I was still on board with the idea of becoming emperor, so I was willing to put in the work.
After dinner anyway.
I headed over to the double doors which led back into the dining chamber, pulling them wide and causing a series of gasps and giggles as three of Cassius’s sisters all looked up at me from the table they had been in the middle of laying for our meal.
“I hope you enjoyed your time in the courtyard, My Lord?” Imani asked, fluttering her lashes at me as I drew closer.
“You have a beautiful home,” I agreed, my eyes slipping over her and taking in the dress she’d changed in to. It was a stunning orange silk, the way it was tied revealing a long slit which ran up her thigh.
“Have you finished your business now?” Lyla asked, pulling my attention to her. “Perhaps you would like to join me on the balcony for a lemonade before-”
“The count is in need of a bath,” Cassius snapped loudly from behind me. “He has spent a lot of time travelling over the past few weeks and I think it would be prudent to allow him to bathe before dinner.”
“Would it?” I asked, knowing precisely why he wanted me occupied with a bath and making very little attempt to conceal my amusement over his horror at the thought of me spending too much time with his sisters.
“Yes. Forgive me for pointing it out, but you are smelling rather ripe from your travels,” he added.
I barked a laugh. “Is that so?”
Kyra appeared so suddenly that I almost flinched as she leaned in close to sniff me. Not so close that she was in danger of actually touching me though, and I couldn’t help but notice how carefully she avoided crossing that line.
“Hmm, I think I’d have to lick you to be certain,” she murmured. “But that isn’t really an option.”
“Isn’t it?” I teased, watching her eyes flash with what I had to assume was embarrassment, the colour in her cheeks only making me want to fluster her further.
“I can draw you a bath, My Lord,” Imani said brightly, stealing my attention back to her.