Chapter 14
Surprise of a princess:
I met the most interesting individual.
Would I want to meet him again? No.
But I did meet him.
And I can say I lived to tell the tale.
“Ow!” I rubbed at my forehead where it had just slammed down onto the book I’d placed on the table. I blinked blurry eyes down at the page I’d read five times already…and fallen asleep. I slurred drowsily, “Shit.”
Father reached over from next to me from where he sat, grabbed the back of my shirt, and yanked me upright. He did not even stop reading his own book. “That makes three times, my daughter. Mayhap, it is time for you to take your leave for bed.”
“We’ve been reading for three days.” I used my fist to scrub at my eyes brutally. “There is barely any time left. I cannot sleep.”
Across the long, thin table from me, King Elon arched his back on his chair, his bones popping harshly. “We have to find something soon.”
“Let us go over what we know so far…once again.” Queen Mikko set her book down on the table, where she sat on the right side of the Gorgon King. “Queen Alora has told us that the original merfolk was killed because he would not use his royal aurapower to heal his people. Their rage built up, and still he did not ease their emotions. So, in their fit of fury, they hired an assassin to kill him.”
“Which has nothing to do with lovers.” Queen Alora sighed and chucked the book she was reading across the room to the “pile” we had deemed worthless. She reached in front of the Gorgon King from where she sat on the left side of him and lifted another book from the center of the table. “This book has told us that his remains were buried. But we do not know where.” She dropped it heavily back to the table.
King Athon kicked his booted feet up onto the table in front of me, sitting close to my right. He wiggled the book in his hands. “We know that the assassination failed. His lover…” The Shifter King did not say the name aloud out of respect for the two across the table. The text hadn’t said it, either, but we had read between the lines. “She decided that she could not do it in the end. She loved him too much to murder him.”
I leaned on my elbows over my book and rubbed at my forehead harshly, rumbling, “The question is, who killed him then?”
King Traevon stopped reading and snapped his head up from the pages. “Here is a thought. The original merfolk was already having an affair. Who is to say that he didn’t have another lover?”
Queen Alora groaned. “Fae, help me. I hope it is not that. I could accept their true love. They loved each other before the Fae stepped in and meddled and added a mate. But, notanotherone.”
“I do not think it is that,” I grumbled. “I think it could be other lovers. Another couple. Because I agree with you. He was in love with her. The Fae shoving a mate on them, they could agree to. There was nothing to be done about it if they wanted children.”
And my own soul mate had proven that with his ruthless thoughts for an heir.
King Elon shook his head. “I don’t agree with any of those ideas.” He tipped his head back and let his long, shamrock green braids fall almost to the floor. “It feels like we are missing something.”
Queen Mikko’s brown-mist eyes widened. “Oh, you are right, King Elon. We are forgetting one important person.”
My tired gaze snapped to hers. “Who?”
Her chuckle was incredulous, her attention flicking to each of us quickly. “The mate! We’ve been paying so much attention to the original merfolk having a criminal affair, that he was the bad man in this, that we haven’t researched her at all. Who is to say that she wasn’t worse than him? Especially, if he didn’t love her.”
A deep silence permeated the room…before we all jumped up and raced toward the “pile.”
Books flew through the air. Few were saved.
In the end, we knocked every other book we hadn’t read yet off the table and plunked our new selection down.
We stood and stared at the two lonely tomes before us.
MARIA’S DITTY
MARIA’S COOKBOOK
I picked a piece of sand off my forehead and mumbled, “It is not looking too promising for us.”
King Athon sat back down on his chair and grabbed the cookbook. “You may be unaware of this, elf, but there are some women who cook for their loved ones. Foodstuff says a lot about the person—and who they are cooking for.”
