“You have my blanket approval to use your delicious powers on me anytime you’d like... as long as it’s for the fun sort of torture.”
“I won’t forget that,” she murmured sleepily.
“I’ll be by your side the entire time at the banquet. I promise. Take a nap, then we’ll plan for tomorrow. Does that sound good?”
“Mhm,” she managed, before her breathing evened out and her body went limp in his arms.
seventeen
George goes to a banquet.
Withthebanquetlooming,George and her friends gathered in her apartment to prepare as they always did before palace events. It was a spot of light before diving into darkness.
Ean glamored Isahn into a nondescript Salskanan aide. Better than a sight mage’s mirage, his elven glamors affected the lookandfeel of the hidden object—or being, in this case. A mirage that effective would take two mindmages to pull off, one handling sight and another managing touch. George could, hypothetically, accomplish it herself, but it would require her full focus and quickly drain her well of power. Elves didn’t seem to have those—she’d asked, but had never gotten a clear answer. They were more than entitled to their secrets though, so she never pushed.
Wynnie adjusted George’s diadem while Burke reviewed his guard position, earning Hildy’s grumbled complaints about too many questions.
Though her dear friends tried to keep things light, any time George put on her headpiece, the mood inevitably shifted. Dunstan had once joked that she should consider wearing it all the time to desensitize them to its oppressive presence. She considered it for all of three seconds, then declined.
One day, when she was queen, she’d melt her diadem down—her father’s crown too—and start anew.
Thetricliniumwaswarmlylit and smoky with incense. Guards stood straight-backed and cold, like stone pillars against the walls. Viceroys and palace residents filtered into the room. Those who arrived with their aides on their arms, like George, went directly to their seats. Those who needed an assistant had to line up to greet the king and receive their assignment. This is how it was always done under Gasparo’s reign, where tradition, for the most part, had been tossed aside in favor of his bizarre, degenerate whims.
George took Isahn around the edge of the room, skirting behind the king to approach their seats on thelectus imus.Lying down first, she propped herself up on her right arm with her back to her father, and gestured for Isahn to join her. He stretched out beside her, all olive skin and dark hair, as Burke took up his guard directly behind them with his back against the wall.
It was the oddest thing, seeing Isahn like this. He wore a white tunic with sleeves that ended just past his elbows and highlighted the corded muscles of his forearms. Over top, Dunstan had successfully wrapped Isahn’s goldtoga. The clothes were new, but his appearance was what she found mostjolting. George reached up with a finger to twirl one of his false, dark curls.
“This is making me jealous,” he whispered, voice gravelly.
“Oh, why’s that?” She kept her reply a hush.
“I know you’re looking at another man right now.”
George grinned just as a meaty finger tapped her on the shoulder, and Isahn’s eyes followed the smile slipping from her face.
“Georgetta, which pet should I give to your friend here?”
Suppressing a sneer, she rotated to face her father. His brunette aide lay between them, her eyes unfocused as she held up an olive between two fingers, waiting for Gasparo to want a bite.
George swallowed back bile, hating the moment, hating her father, and hating the way he abused and dehumanized every person around him.
Drawing herself back to the present, George took a steadying breath and looked to see which of her friends was waiting.
With her chest hollow and throbbing, she glanced between Dunstan and the three aides standing off to the side. All of the enslaved women were dressed in short goldentogasthat ended at mid-thigh.
Thetogawas worn by the two extremes of society: noblemen on one hand, and the enslaved on the other. The juxtaposition made her sick. When she was queen, there’d be no forced service, and those who chose employment in the palace could dress as they liked.
Shoving her tongue behind her top lip, she smoothed away the sneer that threatened to curl it. Dwelling on her father’s insanity, that he was demanding she pair a captive with her friend, wasn’t helpful. Instead, she forced herself to feign interest and study the poor aides. One woman batted her lashes at a viceroy behind Dunstan and Wynnie. George wouldn’t select her, as she likelywanted to be paired with the man she was ogling. While that was practically unheard of, it washeardof—that’s how Elio and Greta met, after all.
The second woman looked timid and scared, shaking with nerves as she wrung her hands. The third looked tough. That didn’t mean she was, or that being an aide in Hepikoru wasn’t the godsdamn worst thing that had ever happened to her, but she seemed stronger than the one in the middle. That one, she needed to be paired with someone kind who wouldn’t make her life a waking nightmare, someone who would allow her to remember the night, should she wish.
“The little one,” George barked, pointing at the shaking woman. “State your name.”
“Helena.”
George’s heart stuttered, her throat tightened, and she hoped shame and her apology were evident in her eyes because she couldn’t do anything but say, “She’s perfect—looks fragile. Give her to Dunstan.”
Her father boomed with vicious laughter, and the other guests tittered accordingly. “So it will be. Go, sit.” He waved them off with a flap of his hand, annoyed at Dunstan and the nervous aide.
