“What about you, Vita?”
Vita’s silver eyes flashed to him. “No.”
“Liar.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Nikator scoffed, dropping his scroll. “What are you both, children?”
Minos groaned and dropped his head on the book, slouching in his seat. “This is so fuck—freaking”—he shot her an apologetic look, perhaps thinking that she didn’t like hearing curse wordssince she was a refined lady— “boring. I thought we’d have some fun! Take a peek at mages doing mage stuff. Ya know, the exciting mundane stuff. Butthisisn’t what I thought when you mentioned we’d be with the princess in the library.”
Vita’s light brown eyebrow notched up. Today, she was dressed in dark leathers just like Nikator, the clothing hugging her lean figure and the various straps holding weapons of all sorts. Her bluntly cut light brown hair reached down to her shoulders, unrestrained by any hairpins.
“We didn’t come here to fool around,” Vita said.
“That’s right,” Nikator said with a frown. “You offered to come, not the other way around.”
“Why can’t we pass this task onto a mage or something? Or, better yet, why not ask a mage for their expertise on the matter? They study this stuff all day long. I’m sure there’s a few out there that know a spell to undo it.”
That was the last thing Biyu needed. She wanted to kick the man for speaking so much sense and logic, but Nikator saved her when he clucked his tongue.
“Any mage will directly tell His Majesty.” He pointed to Minos’s book. “If you don’t want to read or help, that’s fine. I don’t need?—”
“What if you make the mage swear a magicked oath?”
“No mage will agree to help and bind themselves to an oath,” Vita interjected.
“Plus,” Biyu said. All three heads turned in her direction. She licked her lips nervously, all too aware of her position. “If any mage concurs to an oath, isn’t that suspicious in itself? No loyal mage would agree to something that could potentially harm His Majesty, the palace, or … anything, for that matter.”
“That’s very true.” Vita bobbed her head, appearing surprised to be agreeing with Biyu.
She could feel Nikator’s gaze burning the side of her face, but she avoided him by looking at her opened scroll and then back at Minos, who sighed loudly.
Minos dramatically laid his head back down on the book. “You’ve changed, Nik. You used to be so much fun. Now you’re boring—and gone half the time. Did you know he used to be fun, princess?” He raised his head so his chin was sitting in the center of the cracked book. His black, wavy hair fell over the table, wreathing his handsome face. In the bright lighting of the library, his eyes looked a shade lighter than their usual dark blue.
“I can’t imagine it,” Biyu said, shifting in her seat. She cast a quick, furtive look his way, only to find him staring at her. She looked back at Minos. “He seems serious most of the time.”
“Nik and I used to be the fun ones in the group. Every group needs to have a goofy one, right? Now it seems like I’m the only one with the unbearable weight of making people laugh.” He sighed louder and crossed his arms on the book and popped his head on them. “Atreus and Vita are the serious ones. Thera’s the kind one. Remus is the dumb one. Nik’s the carefree one. And I’m the beautiful, funny one.”
Vita snorted and said a word Biyu didn’t recognize, but by the woman’s amused expression, she could tell it was something along the lines ofhorseshit.
Nikator’s eyebrows pulled together and he said something to Minos in their native tongue, and Biyu had a hard time seeing him as anything but serious and threatening, because that was mostly what she saw of him. He rarely cracked jokes. He didn’t talk to her much. And he wasn’t fun to be around. Quite the opposite, actually. But seeing him with these two, she realized she didn’t know much of anything about him.
“I’m still the same as I always am.” Nikator leaned back in his seat and scowled at Minos, who was quietly chuckling tohimself. He crossed his muscular arms over his chest and Biyu had to physically turn her head away so she wasn’t staring at his bulging forearms or his biceps. “Just because I’m busy and I don’t have time to fool around like you doesn’t mean I’m suddenly a different person. Remember when Atreus had to go on a mission for two months and was gone? I don’t recall you calling him weird names.”
“I definitely recall that.” Vita smiled, and it was such a rare thing that Biyu could only stare at her. Her silver eyes, which reminded Biyu of a dagger’s edge, lightened up. “You weren’t here, Nik, but Minos whined back then too.”
“I didn’twhine.” Minos glanced at a passing mage, who shot them a curious look. He grinned at her. “But I did ask Muyang why he sent him away for so long.”
“His Majesty,” Vita corrected.
“Ah.” His attention skated to Biyu. “I meant His Majesty.”
It was strange to Biyu how the Peccata called the emperor by his given name so casually when they were amongst one another. In public, they kept up the image of being loyal subjects, but they were closer to Drakkon Muyang than they let on.
“We should get back to work.” Vita rolled up one of the scrolls by the metal handles and nodded at Minos’s book. “If you’re too busy, maybe you should go elsewhere so you’re not distracting us all.”
