Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
I was still holding the breath I'd taken just moments before my veil had been stripped away. Twenty-one years I'd remained hidden. Now that time was abruptly over. And even after all the times I'd dreamed of this, I wasn't ready for it now that it was actually here.
Eight suitors lined up before me on the balcony, though I was sure I'd been told there were only seven.
There would have been far more, but the price of entry had been set so high to keep the numbers manageable, making sure only the wealthiest of suitors could try for my hand – because what other criteria could possibly matter any more than wealth?
My heart pounded unevenly at the feeling of being so exposed before them.
I’d been desperate to cast the veil aside for so long that I hadn’t given myself any time to truly think about what it would feel like to stand here, stripped of my eternal hiding place.
I was bared to the world now, my face, my feelings, my soul, all of it stripped back and laid out for the hungry wolves to devour, and it looked like they’d already arrived for the feeding frenzy.
I tried to decipher what they thought of my face, but with eight pairs of eyes slamming into my skin at once, I'd never felt so scrutinised. I was being ripped apart like a scrap of meat torn into by a bunch of dogs, and yet still they looked hungry.
Their muscles were tensing, their chests puffed out, chins tipped high and posture impeccably rigid. Apparently, it was a who-can-look-the-most-pompous competition. Was this supposed to impress me?
My gaze fell on the single man in the line-up who didn't look like someone had just pumped too much air into his lungs. In fact, he seemed utterly relaxed, his gaze trailing over me curiously but without that sense of proposed ownership somehow. He wasn’t looking at me like he was here to buy me, more like he already owned the world and if that meant I came with it then he was game.
He was undeniably handsome, his features seeming cut from stone with a rugged edge to them that made me wonder about him and where he’d come from.
I even spotted the edges of tattoos peeking out from beneath his cuffs, the idea of a nobleman marking his flesh in such a way stirring my interest despite my determination to have no interest in any of my suitors.
His eyes were unlike any nobleman's I'd ever seen. They glittered with secrets and dark promises, a life filled with so much more than I’d experienced within my own life of rules and solitude.
His handsome features were skewed in an indifferent kind of expression to the posturing nobles who stood alongside him.
Not entirely without a hint of intrigue, but nothing of the raging excitement wafting from the other suitors.
Their desperation tainted the air, the want in them like something feral hidden beneath their impeccable exteriors.
He was somehow casually disinterested and yet completely engaged in looking at me.
It left me feeling like he was absolutely in love with me and yet didn't want me at all. And I wasn’t sure how that made me feel.
They all briefly bowed their heads. The bored looking one did so too a beat later, but with hardly any enthusiasm and a smirk which said this was a game to him. One he knew the rules to but didn’t often play by. And that made my curiosity in him sour and blacken.
I wasn’t even respected by these men. I was just a feather dangling above a bunch of cats.
My gaze scraped across the group from right to left, recalling their names from the descriptions I'd been given by Zira. Whoever the mystery man was, I didn't have a name for him. I tried not to let my eyes drift to him again as I gave each of the suitors my attention.
Kahn stood to the far left, towering above them all, his auburn locks still in place since the gifted potion from his mother had altered his looks.
He was handsome but his face now seemed as though it were carved from the boulder he’d been born with the brain of, his nose the perfect sort of rectangle found on the statues in the walled gardens.
Next was Prince Amun Jah-Fal. Three times my age and son of the Ageishan King.
Tall, thin and with grey hair that had been slicked with oil to try and make it appear black.
His expression reminded me of a toad with a lily pad stuck up its arse.
Maybe it had something to do with the weird shape of his eyebrows.
I grimaced as I turned away from him.
Shit, I have to stop wrinkling my nose. They can see me.
The veil was gone. I seriously had to remember that.
A low snort of amusement drew my attention to the mystery man again, but I stopped my eyes from trailing towards him. What kind of nobleman snorts?
Lord Tyron Kalaviv was next: a roguishly handsome man with the typical dark curls and ebony skin of the Forken Empire in the south.
The only man not from our own empire and clearly here with the hopes of further bonding the two great powers in this world with our union.
I wondered if he was hoping to turn the Osarians against the Quellioths in the war they were currently fighting against them. He was a renowned hero. A warrior.
I had to admit, I might have been slightly interested in him if he hadn't been paying my father to try and buy me and secure himself more power in the world. That single fact alone would have ruled out every one of these bastards if I'd had a choice in it.
To his right was Lord Theodore Darell, a fit-looking man wrapped in black robes, his bald head looking like it had been recently polished.
He hailed from the kingdom of Tymera which lay to the far east where the Carlell river sprang up from the ground before starting its journey west where it passed through Osaria itself and gave life to all around us.
Tymera was said to be the one kingdom which still worshipped the old gods as reverently as they had back before the lie, a time when the Fallen still claimed immortality and full use of their Affinities.
The city was said to be stunning, the buildings all built with the red stone mined from the foothills of the Greymorian Peaks at the edge of the world, their walls all adorned with silver effigies of the old gods.
Priests chanted day and night, the sound supposedly heard from everywhere in the city at all times.
Of course, I had never left Osaria and likely never would, but I loved hearing tales of the other kingdoms and the wonders they had to offer.
Next to him was Count Anis Cartoum from Falgesh in the far north where ice and snow were said to cling to the world at all times; he had the look of a demon about him with piercing eyes and overly long fingernails.
Beyond that, was Prince Alexander Gurvine of the forest kingdom, Dunemare, a spotty teenager who looked like his head had been transplanted onto the body of an ox.
Beside him was Captain Jonty Hariot of the Cartlanna Fleet to the west. His face was weathered by years at sea, but he was young and primed with muscle. His hair was sun kissed and his eyes two pools of chocolate. Finally, there was the alluring enigma.
I beckoned Zira closer, whispering in her ear. “Who's that? You didn’t mention his name before.”
“Count Drake Nazari,” the man answered for himself, evidently hearing me, his eyes sparking with amusement as he saw me flustered. “From Carubai.”
I nodded, straightening my spine as I gazed upon his deeply attractive face, heat crawling up the back of my neck.
His fine robes clung to his powerful frame, ink peeked out from the open collar of his tunic, and he was clean cut in a carefully put together and yet somehow entirely nonchalant way.
He looked like all the others in some regards, presented as a package of prime nobility, but why did something about this one feel. ..off?
Carubai was the kingdom farthest from Osaria, set in the northeast of the empire and said to be a place inhabited by wild men and warriors alike.
They were rumoured to settle feuds in blood – fights breaking out as easily as laughter and blood spilling on the streets daily.
They were a savage people, and I could see some of that savagery in this late comer’s eyes.
The city itself was said to be set around a castle built of onyx stone, the Fae who resided there claiming their positions through brute force and strength.
They had been the last kingdom to join the might of the Osarian empire, and my ancestors had tried to tame them as a part of the conditions of their allegiance to the crown, but it hadn’t worked.
Acquiring the brutal strength of their warriors had been more important at the time than any need to civilise them, the emperor choosing to ally with them rather than attempt to take them on.
Magdor moved before the men, and they bowed low to her. Lower than they had to me.
Count Nazari dipped his head a moment too late, the only one who didn’t seem to be interested in simpering for her and Magdor eyed him with disdain while he gazed steadily back not seeming the least bit concerned with invoking her ire.
A smile graced my lips and I battled to school my expression as Father raised a stern eyebrow at me.
“You may now approach the princess,” Magdor announced and in seconds I was swarmed.
Lips on the backs of my hands, roses thrust between my fingers.
This was it. The hounds were ripping in, trying to fight for their pound of flesh.
Compliments flooded my ears and I shuddered, backing up, not liking this at all, instantly overwhelmed by their attention and their desperate work at trying to win me already.
My gaze landed on Count Nazari over their heads, wandering casually towards my father and joining him in the shade of the palm tree.