“Yes, if you lose either of Lord Yaranbur’s or Lady Hevva Tilevir’s votes, you will lose your crown. That’s not even considering Stormhill and his three, but I believe he's is on your side.”
Yes, sure.He couldn’t breathe deeply enough to eke out any words to his mother. Because,ifHevva married him, she’d lose her vote as Countess of Kabuvirib, no matter which course she took. If she chose to retain her title in addition to Queen, her earldom’s two votes would be moot. If she decided to pass the title to Lord Kas instead, it would revert to her father until the young lord’s eighteenth birthday, thus those votes would still disappear for the next five years.
It didn’t matter that Hevva had rejected him. Hecouldn’tmarry her, even if she had agreed.
“I need to think about what to do.”
His mother nodded and stood from her chair. “I believe your best course of action, at this point, is to ensure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have Midlake, Kabuvirib, and Stormhill firmly in hand.”
Obviously, mother.But Ehmet let her leave the room without issuing a response. When she had gone, he filled his snifter to the brim, drank it down, and refilled it. Then, King Hethtar lowered his head in his hands and wept.
It was the worstday of his life. She didn’t want him, he desperately wanted her, and his fucking duty was determined to keep them apart. If he didn’t love his people so gods damned much, Ehmet would grovel on his knees before Hevva, and beg her to reconsider. Sure, he wasn’t offering true love, or whatever bullshit she seemed to believe in, but he thought she wasfun. They were friends! Maybe shewouldreconsider, and then they could run off together after he lost the crown to Yusuf.
King Yusuf Hethtar the Fifth, what a dumb fucking name that would be.His money mongering would surely ruin the kingdom. As he’d confirmed in conversation with the Gulans, Lord Yusuf Hethtar was barely scraping by at running the single city of Kashoorcih, and even that wasn’t without the consistent oversight of Ehmet, and his father before him. He couldn’t let him take Selwas.
Pacing the length of his apartments, Ehmet stewed. His mother, gods bless her, picked up on his sour attitude and made his excuses at dinner. Tonight was a moonlit picnic on the grounds. Floating flames held aloft by the fire mages on his staff dotted the south lawn, illuminating the affair. The lilting tones of a string quartet drifted in through Ehmet’s open balcony doors.
He slammed them shut sharply and yanked the curtains closed.
He would’ve gone, if Hevva was going to be there. But Parosh let Ehmet know the lady was under the weather and would be taking supper in her chambers. His manservant had gleaned the information from Aylin herself, who’d made it very clear Lady Tilevir wasnotfeeling well, and absolutely no one should bother her on that night. Ehmet’s unflappableservant had turned up, flapped, to deliver the news. Parosh also bore a wet spot on his shirt from where the lady’s maid had poked him with a firm jet of water, to make her point.
The king sighed when he heard the news, for he’d been hoping to speak with Hevva. But he would have to wait until the following day, because Ehmet was not about to risk Aylin’s scalding water magic to try and speak with a woman who had no interest in talking to him in the first place. His stomach clenched and his heart throbbed as he thought of how very wrong everything had been going of late.
An oppressive silence cloaked his suite as he paced the salon, wading through the mire of his own tumult. Soft scratching broke through the quiet and he turned in the direction of the noise, expecting to see a mouse or other such critter. The side entrance to his apartments was located at the end of the darkened hall off the sitting room. There, a scrap of parchment shone brightly upon the dark parquet floor.
Ehmet loped over and plucked up the odd missive. Returning to his salon, the room brightened by candlelight, he folded open the page and read:
Whilst another trip ’round the sun is celebrated, at the end of the first set, join me in the winning and losing carambole?
Let us speak, and perhaps dance a waltz of our own making. I shall await you there, in a dress of salmon, might you wish to feast, upon a table of green velvet.
Well—he read the note again—that was a turn of events. He hadn’t expected to hear from Hevva yet, she had seemed so...put off by him the night before.
The small spark of hope that threatened to heal Ehmet’s pained heart was snuffed out by the unyielding weight of duty. It didn’t matter what they wanted, it didn’t matter if she changed her mind.
They couldn’t marry.
Releasing a cry of frustration, Ehmet crumpled the note and tossed it into the low fire in his hearth. Scrubbing his hands against his hair, he stomped to the bar where he poured himself two fingers of whiskey.
A deep internal debate had him caught between going to the billiards room after the first set, or not. The king found that pacing was no longer helping to calm his roiling thoughts. He established a new route that took him around the perimeter of the sitting room. He was on his fifteenth lap, for he found counting helped to calm him, when a series of thuds sounded on the door.
“Enter,” Ehmet barked, pausing beside the door to his bedchamber.
His brother ducked in and sealed the door behind him. The prince pleated his brow at the state of the king as he eyed him across the expansive space.
Ehmet glanced down at his untucked shirt with its misaligned buttons, and his lack of footwear, and shrugged. He took a swig of whiskey before resuming his course.
As he rounded the room and came up on the prince, Nekash scoffed. “Mother said you were in a bad way. Come, let’s go to the training room. It’s been a while.”
“No.” He was too furious, enraged, confused, frustrated...Ehmet feared he would kill his brother if he took him up on the offer. “Another time.”
“Fine.” Nekash helped himself to a drink from the king’s private collection while Ehmet completed another two laps. Then, the prince set pace beside his elder brother, for a time.
The trail the king had carved out was wide enough for one, and Nekash kept banging into furniture. So, after one stubbed toe too many, he parted ways with Ehmet and flopped down onto a settee. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Yusuf and other things,” Ehmet ground out.
“What’s our bloody uncle done now?”
