Music—consisting mostly of drums and some trumpets—started up, cutting off any other warnings Skye might have given.
King Birch—with his wife, Consort Flora, trailing about five feet behind him—walked down the carpet.
Both Fell and Birch were wearing the terribly-inaccurate male versions of our togas—which fastened over one shoulder, though they each had these little sash things emblazoned with their royal colors and Court crest.
I boredly watched Birch hold the harvest bouquet out to Fell.
Fell stared him down, and the music kept playing as the two rulers stared at each other.
What is going on? Why aren’t they moving?
Finally, Birch ever so slightly inclined his head, and Fell snatched the bouquet from his hands.
That’s what we were waiting for? For Birch to nod to Fell?
“Did they seriously just have a little power tiff in the middle of this all-important ceremony?” I turned to Rigel since he was sitting on my other side and was probably the only one able to hear me above the pounding drums.
Rigel—who wasnotwearing one of the little togas but was still dressed in all black; everyone was probably too afraid to try to make him wear the required outfit, including King Fell—shrugged. “In order to preserve their power—or try to raise it—a monarch will take every opportunity possible to make their stake.”
“Unbelievable.” I shook my head as I looked back at the ceremony. “These people need to get hobbies.”
King Fell triumphantly carried the harvest bouquet over his head as he walked through the field and stopped at a burning torch.
He thrust the bouquet in the torch. The plants caught on fire, and he held it aloft again, like he was a torch bearer in the Olympics for Ego Maniacs.
“Autumn reigns!” he shouted.
“Autumn reigns,” the seelie and unseelie Courts said back to him with zero enthusiasm.
The whole thing felt like an elementary school play, to be honest.
I glanced at the other monarchs, wondering how they were able to keep from laughing at the sheer ridiculousness. Verdant and Solis were watching, but Queen Rime was playing a game on her cellphone—I didn’t know if that was her throwing her power around showing she didn’t have to pay attention, or if she was just that bored.
With Rime, it was hard to know for sure.
“Pst, Rigel.” I leaned closer to him again. “What do you say we skip out on the banquet and go get donuts?”
Rigel stared at me. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
I wrinkled my forehead. “Dude, we’re married. Also, if I take you with me, Skye won’t complain—she’ll be too scared to.”
Rigel shifted his gaze back to the Olympics for Ego Maniacs. “It was a joke.”
“That’s a no to the donuts, then?”
“You should be scoping out your competition,” Rigel said.
“For what, who can best wear this getup?” I slumped back in my chair, and a corn cob poked my spine. “No thank you!”
“Your competition for the hunt,” Rigel clarified.
“Hunt?”
King Fell made a little circuit with his burning bouquet, and he finished just as I asked Rigel to clarify.
The seelie and unseelie fae clapped, interrupting our conversation.
I halfheartedly clapped, too—it seemed rude not to, especially since Queen Verdant and King Solis were.
