Although, it seemed his stepmother had decided to do the talks outside the meetings, when he wasn’t present. Thankfully, he’d been walking past.
Taking a deep breath, Elias stepped into the sitting room, ready to do battle with his stepmother once more.
I need to get this right. If I fuck this up, I might be married to someone intolerable.
Empress Emmeline sat, lips pressed together, face pinched, as she stared at her stepson. Clearly, she’d not wanted him here for this conversation. Meanwhile Princess Anais gave him a blank look. Prince Beau sneered.
Elias reclined on a divan, throwing up his feet and settling amongst the cushions, as if preparing for an afternoon of reading and napping.
Somehow, the empress’s face soured further.
“I’ll have some tea, please. Milk and lots and lots of sugar,” Elias said to the servant. When he took his cup, he looked around. “I know so much sugar is not good for me, but one must savour life’s little pleasures, don’t you think? Now, we were discussing marriages, right?”
“That is correct,” Empress Emmeline said in a clipped tone.
Emperor Hugo smiled at his wife, who sat beside him. “Yes. We’ve been discussing the first marriage. King Alaric has suggested his son, the dragon warrior, Prince Gerard.”
Elias’s fingers on the cup tightened.
“He is a very esteemed and good man. A brave warrior.” Emperor Hugo paused. He cleared his throat. “Too bad about his face.”
Elias kept his expression neutral.
There is nothing wrong with his face!
He wanted to yell the words. But that would be revealing his thoughts to his stepmother.
Since he’d arrived at the assembly, he’d heard similar disparaging comments regarding Prince Gerard’s face. Every time Elias heard them, he wanted to slap the individual. Or zap them. Sometimes he did. Just a tiny electric shock. They felt it but of course didn’t realise it was him.
“Do we know who did that to Prince Gerard’s face?” Empress Emmeline asked.
“All we know is that it was one of our lightning archmages,” Emperor Hugo said.
She smiled. “And you don’t know who?”
The emperor chuckled and held a finger to his lips. “The archmages’ identities are all top secret.”
A breeze stirred the curtains. The empress’s smiled tightened. “But we are the empress and emperor, surely we should know their identities. What if we have need of them?”
“Then I will seek out Lord Laurent, and he will pass word to the archmages immediately.” Emperor Hugo lifted his chin. “That is the way it has always been.”
At least, that was the way it had been since the Zephyrians murdered half their archmages years ago.
Lord Laurent was not a lightning archmage, and he did not know Elias was one. Lord Laurent only knew the identity of a couple of archmages.
Meanwhile, only Colette, his great-uncle, and one other knew Elias’sidentity. Not knowing one another’s identities meant that if a lightning archmage was discovered, caught, and questioned, they could not give up everyone’s identity. In fact, Elias didn’t even know the exact number of lightning archmages in existence.
The empress sipped her tea, clearly dissatisfied with her husband’s unwillingness to acquiesce to her.
And not for the first time, Eliaswas glad he’d never told his father about his ability. His stepmother had asked several times about the lightning archmages. No doubt his father would have spilt everything about Elias the first time she’d asked.
Elias knew that the only reason his father didn’t give his wife the names of the archmages was because Lord Laurent would not give up the names of those he did know, not even to the emperor.
The empress looked at Beau. “I was thinking that Beau should marry the prince.”
Beau’s lip curled. “He is rather disgusting looking. But at least he is a prince.” He laughed. “I’ll just close my eyes when we fuck that one and only time, and then it’ll be over. If he comes near me again, I’ll blow him away.” He waved his fingers.
Anais laughed. “Oh! I can just picture you doing that!”
