Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
“I’m heading to the throne room anyhow. Bodahn needs to be fed. You can come with me if you like.”
Riza sighs as if I’m being difficult, then licks her finger and smooths out a lock of my hair by my temple. “If you’re heading to the throne room, let me get you a better robe. This one has wrinkles. Wait here.”
“What, do you think I’m going to start sprinting the moment you turn your back?” It’s only been a few days since I gave birth. Walking around is difficult enough.
She swats my arm and heads down the hall. I continue toward the throne room, my steps slow and steady. She’ll catch up with me anyhow. As I walk through the halls of the palace, I pass by the women and Fellians working on construction. We’re expanding the lower floors so the palace can be accessed by all that need to, and the upper rooms will only be used as storage. Everything’s a mess right now, but with all the reconstructing of the city, it gives people a focus and something to do. We’re making this a place for both human and Fellian, where no one feels like an interloper.
At least, that’s my hope.
I get to the end of the hall and eye the stairs. That sure seems like a lot of walking. Turning to the nearest Fellian, I pull out a freshly minted coin. “Can I persuade you to carry me down to the bottom floor instead of making a poor tired female that’s recently given birth walk on her own?”
He rolls his eyes but snatches the coin from my hand. “Come with me.”
“Wait, my lady,” Riza screeches, running down the hall behind me. “Your robe!”
A short time later, I’m wearing the new (and far fussier) robe, Riza at my side. My Fellian companion took a coin for Riza’s ride as well and then went back to work. I’m pleased that the coins seem to be working. Fellians get coins for giving people rides, and humans harvest the food from the fields (or cook, or build stairs, or fishing) and receive coins from Fellians for their work. So far, so good.
I move into the main hall, a bright smile on my face to hide my exhaustion (when did this hall get so far away?) and head toward the dais. On one of the twin thrones at the front of the room, my mate Nemeth sits, a bored expression on his face and our baby in his arms. He rocks the fussy child against his chest, trying to soothe him, and looks relieved when I appear. “Our son is hungry.”
“I noticed.” My breasts have been leaking ever since I woke up from my nap. I take Bodahn from his father and sit in the throne next to him. Riza immediately moves to my side, settling a blanket over my shoulder as I loosen the front of my robe and tuck Bodahn’s head inside so he can nurse. The moment he latches, I relax in my chair and eye the room. “Busy today.”
Nemeth grunts, his gaze affectionate as he regards me. “More weather reports. Still raining outside, though I suppose that’s not a surprise.”
It’s not. “It won’t stop raining until the goddess leaves the skies again.”
“You missed all the fun,” Nemeth tells me. “There was a scholar here earlier, from the Alabaster Citadel. He had an outrageous theory for the weather. You should have heard it.”
“Oh?”
“Aye. He said—listen to this—that it’s not the goddess’s wrath bringing the foul weather at all. That it’s caused by the moon in the skies. That the presence of another heavenly body changes the tides and the weather patterns, and that’s why it’s such chaos.” Nemeth snorts. “Pure dragon shite.”
I blink at my husband. “You sound just like me.”
“You’re a wise woman.” He takes my hand in his and leans over it, kissing my knuckles. “Is it so wrong that I listen to you?”
“Not in the slightest. Please, continue to praise me and my wisdom. It’s vastly flattering.”
He gives me a roguish grin and rubs my hand, then turns back to the waiting audience. I see smiles on a great deal of faces. They like Nemeth as a king, because not only is he First House, but he’s also a good listener. He’s willing to entertain new ideas and to try new things…unless they’re about the weather, of course. My presence as his Liosian (and Vestalin) wife eases human tensions, and I make sure everyone sees Nemeth with our sweet baby regularly. No one can be intimidated by a king who has a shoulder covered in milky drool and desperately trying to jiggle a baby back to sleep.
The throne room has become part of our routine lately. We eat dinners with everyone that comes to visit us, I feed Bodahn out in the open, and Nemeth and I are affectionate with each other in front of everyone. It’s a huge change from my sister’s icy politeness at Lionel’s side, or Ivornath’s secrecy. I want everyone to feel like they are part of our family, because in a way, they are. We’re starting over, all of us. For the next few years, while we wait for the goddess’s wrath to die away, we’ll live here in Darkfell, where the weather won’t soak us out of house and home.