Her putrid father leaned over his aide, his hot breath stinking of whiskey as he asked George, “Where’s that one you selected earlier?”
“With Dunstan,” she eked out.
“Ah, yes.” He swiveled, pointing a fat finger at Helena across the room. “You! Come up here again. Strip.”
George wanted to vomit.
Beside her, Isahn gasped.
“Do you want me to send you to space?” she whispered. This was new, this was egregious, even for Gasparo.
“Will you be there?” he replied softly.
“No.” George wouldn’t look away, no matter how terrible the abuse her father brought onto his subjects. She would, of course, afford the victims as much privacy as possible, but she wouldn’t avoid the onlookers. It was cathartic, cataloging each and every one of the aristocrats who leered at their peers and the aides while they were mistreated. She kept track. One day she’d be queen.
“I won’t avoid this either.”
She squeezed his hand.
“You’ve made this syrup? Yes?” The king gestured to a large bowl of spoon sweets, figs, cherries, and citrus peel, all soaked in a rich, sweet liquid.
“I have, Your Majesty,” Ceadda replied in his low baritone.
“Wonderful. Sample it for me.”
George recognized the gleeful shimmer in her father’s eye and realized what he had planned.Fucking gods.He’d reached new levels of depravity. Never before in her twenty-three years had she seen him do this.
Adda tipped his chin and moved to lift a spoonful of syrup from the bowl.
Gasparo waited until the spoon was an inch from Ceadda’s mouth before he stopped the chef with three horrifying words: “Off her cunt.”
Three. That’s how many viceroys grinned at her father’s command.
Four others smiled when he screamed at Helena for covering her breasts.
And two laughed when Gasparo forced Adda down onto his knees with a burst of touch magic so harsh acrackrang out against the tiles.
She cataloged the audience as Adda completed his task.
When it was done, the cook was ordered back to the kitchens, and the aide re-dressed herself in her crumpledtoga. Isahn gagged, lips twisting as he swallowed back his own vomit.
George caught his gaze, her own filled with apology. She hated this. She hated her father. He didn’t deserve the power he held. He needed to die.
Finally, after-dinner drinks replaced the desserts. She downed a full glass of whiskey before helping herself to a second. Isahn did the same.
The guests began to stand and mingle, viceroys with their aides on their arms, chatting with one another in small groups. The king called in the musicians and dancers who wore what amounted to little more than bathing cloths.
The shifting activities were the opportunity George and her friends needed to escape. Wynnie escorted her aide from the room first, clutching his ass tightly as she made a big show of dragging him off to have “fun” together. Dunstan went next, carrying Helena out as he murmured something in her ear. To anyone watching, it looked like he was impassioned. He was probably promising to get her out of the party to safety.
Then it was their turn. George ran her palm languidly down Isahn’s chest as she moved behind her father.
“Oh, my dearest Georgetta, off so early?” His falsely singsong voice slashed at her eardrums.
“We are, Father. I find I can’t keep my hands off my Salskanan pet any longer,” she purred as she tweaked one of Isahn’s nipples.
This placated the king well enough, and they got away.
Atthefarendof the long hall outside of thetriclinium, George, Isahn, and Burke met up with Wynnie and Eanraig, who buzzed around her head, waiting for his next assignment.
