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Chapter Sixteen
For the court, she wore red, and was mostly mute as the ceremony proceeded. Her responses were rote, spelled out on a teleprompter, where the words ran across a screen hanging from the high ceiling.
The red dress spilled down the dais steps to her left as she walked to the throne. The dais felt empty, since one throne had been removed. The marks from its legs showed in the carpet. Two brothers, two thrones.
When she looked about, lonely, wishing to be elsewhere, and her gaze fell upon Drake waiting in the wings... he stepped forward.
He came to her and stood to the right of the throne. No one said an ill word.
A few had smiled and nodded as he walked to her, others merely looked interested.
She’d sensed little ill feeling in the court.
Why?
Because they knew she was his? Or vice versa?
It would be impossible for court gossipmongers not to have noticed they were a couple. And Drake, he was the victorious conqueror of Vass, in cooperation with her sec-force general and her palace guard. Had her brothers’ reign been so inadequate?
It definitely seemed as if mauleons were not as maligned as she’d thought. Perhaps it was their time.
And so, having been crowned as queen-to be, she indicated to him that he follow. She descended the court stairs with Drake close behind. The blue carpet stretched ahead leading to the immense silver doors. The murmurs and bows to either side were no less than she would expect, no less than she recalled had greeted her brothers on their day.
It was promising.
A tour of the city was next. Drake accompanied her in the coach, even stealing a rude kiss with his hand on her ass before they left the palace grounds.
“That was good,” she said to him, waving out the window. Past the trotting ceremonial cavalry, the crowd flickered past. There were streamers, cheering, and balloons. “I think they liked you.”
“The court? Most do. Not all.”
“Oh?”
“You forget. I helped your father. I know many of the nobility personally, have performed tasks as spymaster you will never know of.” He waggled his eyebrows, patted her knee through the material.
“Hmmm. And so it begins. In a year, I will be queen.”
