"My mother had to leave for a little while. If anyone needs anything, they can run it through me."
"Very good, sir." Griswold crossed his arms behind his back and nodded. "Is there anything I can do for you?”
"Not right now.” I yawned, the entire morning suddenly feeling like it had taken weeks. “I think I’m going to get some rest.”
I stumbled to my room, stripped off my jacket and collapsed onto my bed. My body sunk into the thick mattress as the soft sheets brushed against my skin. Shadows danced along the far wall as the afternoon sun peeked in and out of the clouds through my window. Each shape cast triggered a different thought in my brain. My father’s cage. The abandoned baby in the basket. The crown. My mother. Then just as my eyes closed and the light disappeared, a warm rush flowed through me. Emerald eyes sparkled in my mind. A sarcastic smile on the reddest lips. Curves my hands ached to touch and follow wherever they might lead. One face above the rest.
Veda.
7
2nd June
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I rolled over and groaned.
"Who is it?" I called toward the closed door, not bothering to even sit up. Yesterday's clothes still clung to my body, now wrinkled after what appeared to be a full night's sleep by the way the red dawn shone a line of fire on my wall.
The door swung open without a response. Griswold hurried in and held the doorknob for the parade of servants to enter behind him.
I shot up, my hand landing in a wet puddle of drool on the duvet. Gross.
“What’s going on here?" I asked as the servants rummaged through my wardrobe and arranged my father's crown along with a collection of jeweled rings and brooches on my dresser.
"With the queen unavailable, you must hold court in her absence." Griswold clapped his hands and a couple of the servants bowed and took their leave. Two servants remained and stood in a row with their heads cast down toward the floor, waiting to complete their duty of dressing me. "And you must hurry, I'd been knocking for nearly twenty minutes.”
He pulled back the covers and clapped his hands until I slid from the bed and stood next to the dresser adorned with jewels.
"Court? You must be kidding, Griswold? I'm not prepared."
Griswold nodded at the two remaining servants and they quickly started buzzing around me like worker bees. One of the servants, a pretty dark-haired girl, unbuttoned my shirt and slipped it off my shoulders, while the other older woman slid on a clean one. Both wrinkled their noses, as the sharp smell of sweat hung off my body like a cheap cologne, but both of them had been trained well enough not to mention it.
Griswold grinned, pleased to be moving forward or just content to see me uncomfortable. ”I’m afraid so, sir. The Council is expecting you, and the line of complainants began early this morning.”
I groaned as the servants continued to primp and polish me into something that would be presentable for the public. The younger servant gazed up at me through her impossibly long black lashes and I smiled, teasing a pink blossom in her cheeks. However, it didn't have the same satisfaction that flirting with a beautiful girl usually did. Something in my head must be broken.
In record time, they'd morphed me into a proper royal, all pomp and circumstance and clean clothes then disappeared with sweeping curtsies out the door.
"Much better." Griswold adjusted the cape at my shoulders and carefully picked up the crown off the dresser and placed it on my head. "Now you're perfect."
I glanced in the mirror. The bright and shiny version of me stared back with an uncertain glare. I forced a wide smile but didn't feel it.
"I'm definitely far from perfect, Griswold."
“Well, it will have to do, Your Majesty.” He swept his hand through the air toward the door. “Now off to greet your subjects. Quickly now. Everyone is waiting.”
I rushed out the door and down the hall towards the throne room, my shoes clicking as I lugged the heavy costume of the king on my back. Lord Covington, Lord Anwar, and Lord Marchand stood outside the door waiting and dressed top to toe in black as if expecting a funeral.
"A pleasure to see you, Your Majesty,” Lord Anwar said as the three bent their knees and bowed in unison. "It is a shame the queen could not be with us today."
"Indeed." If they thought her absence was merely a shame than for me it was a tragedy.
"Then this shall be another rite of passage for you on your way to claiming the crown. The people will want to see your face and know you have the ability to lead them in a fair and just way,” Lord Covington added.
"Well, I will do my best. Although this is my first time."
"Of course, we will be right there to assist you." Lord Marchand stepped forward. "It's a shame we haven't seen you at more of these, it would have been an education for you. May I?" He nodded at my head then straightened the crown, the weight dragging it crooked.
"Thank you."
Lord Covington pushed open the door to the throne room and a trumpeter sounded our arrival.
"All hail his Majesty, Prince Fallon of Aldric,” the
