“Verin despises pomp,” Savassa explained. “He finds feasts to be exceptionally pompous and full of ridiculous frivolity that he is then forced to endure.”
“The food is fine,” Verin added. “But I must sit there for hours to eat it.”
“I get it,” I said sympathetically. “Let me just ask you one thing in complete seriousness.”
Verin grunted in a prompting manner.
“Do people have sex at your feasts?”
“What?” He whispered, so horrified that he resorted to actual speech.
“No, they donot,” his mother answered for him, her expression suggesting that she eagerly anticipated my explanation.
“At my first feast in Tír na nÓg, I had to sit at the high table with the Sapphire Royals and watch nearly the entire court copulate openly andenthusiasticallywhile the Duke of Sapphire tried to get me to join in and the King of Sapphire played with the Queen's lady bits.”
“What?!” Verin roared.
The other people in the library froze, staring at us in horror until Savassa smiled and waved reassuringly.
To me, Savassa said, “I've heard that the Shining Ones are sexually uninhibited. How fascinating.”
“Several courts, including Kyanite and Onyx, are more discreet but, on the whole, Shining Ones enjoy sex and they especially enjoy it in public. So, believe me when I say that I've had to sit through far worse spectacles than you have ever endured.”
“Did he touch you?” Verin snarled, his shoulders hunching in as he bent over me protectively.
“Who?” I asked in bafflement.
“That duke!”
I blinked rapidly, trying to process.
“I'll see you two later tonight at the feast,” Savassa called gaily as she strode away.
“No, he didn't touch me,” I didn't bother to say goodbye to Savassa, it seemed more prudent to focus on calming her son. “They're not rapists. Well, generally not. When I said no, he pouted but accepted it.”
Verin let out a long breath and made a placated grunt.
“Just out of curiosity, what would you have done if I told you he had touched me against my will?”
Verin's eyes flashed and he bared his teeth.
“I see,” I murmured. “I wish I knew if that was the real you or simply the spell.”
“There is nothing simple about this spell,” he grumbled.
“Fair enough,” I conceded. “But I still want to know what you would have done normally. If I were Meilen, for example—”
Verin groaned and turned away from me.
“I'm serious!” I chased after him. “Try to remember what it was like to be with her and tell me if you would have reacted so violently if she'd been in such a situation.”
“A comparison can't be made.”
“Why not?” I grabbed his arm and stopped him.
Verin glanced around us at the curious courtiers in the library, then took my hand and pulled me out of the room. We strode through several corridors, past ancient statuary (several of which were dragons), weapon displays, and paintings (several of those were dragons too). The ceilings were high with a pearlescent sheen and columns of blue coral fronted the walls intermittently. Verin took me up a spiraling staircase and past several floors until we emerged on the top level of a tower.
The circular room had a round couch in its center with pillows piled in the middle. No one was currently lounging upon it, which was a good thing because I had a feeling the Dragon King would have expelled them with all haste. A chandelier of white coral branches hung from the domed ceiling, imparting soft light that didn't add a glare to the windows. The windows, which took up most of the walls, with only columns of blue coral between, gave a spectacular view of the submerged city. Undersea mountains rose to either side, creating a valley we could see straight down. Homes were cut into the mountainsides in a terraced manner; lights sparkled from their sealed windows and enormous columns bracketed the courtyards before them. At the far end of the valley, the space between mountains was filled by a wall that mirrored the one behind the palace.
