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Chapter 51
5 years later
Cleopoda walked hesitantly towards the library where she knew Father would be. She never saw him, he never came to see her and whenever she requested to see him he refused to admit her to his chambers. Whenever she asked why Father never wanted to see her Mama Remin would tell her he loved her very much but was encumbered with his royal duties but he wasn’t busy this afternoon, she knew that because she had seen him come out of the Council room after the meeting with the nobles and head towards the library. She had run back to her chambers to wash her face, hands, and legs and to put on her purple tunic, the one Mama Remin made spec
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“You sent for me Your Majesty?” Garius was in the throne room with Octavius sitting on the ancient seat where generations of kings once sat to make laws and plans for the growth of the kingdom. There was a change in the king, a very unpleasant change that Garius couldn’t shake. Octavius wasn’t the young, vibrant boy he knew, the one who ran riot with his younger brother, who planned mischiefs and still managed to remain the most responsible of the Camele brothers. If he had brushed that change off after the war with the Amires it came back in full force when Octavius would not send soldiers to find the woman who he would have died for once after she ran away, not until the nobles and Garius himself had started talking did Octavius send soldiers
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Twice Cleopoda had wiped at the blood that dripped from her nose to the brown pages of the old book in front of her. She was grateful Garius wasn’t looking, sometimes the old man would be busy looking through the old books to care whether she read or not. But she read, she read because Garius asked her questions at the end of every session and he hit her cruelly and with frustration whenever she failed to answer correctly. It wasn’t easy to read the almost faded symbols and scripts from the old brown books, mouth the words which meaning she didn’t know and at the same time try to halt the voices in her head, they were so loud sometimes, they made her head ache and caused her nose to bleed but she did her best to hide it anyway. She scowled hard at the book in front of her and tried to make sense of the small letters, there weren’t any illustrations in this book like there were in the one of yesterday so she had to double her efforts to understand what was written.
Cursed by the Gods: Cleopoda CBTG Book 1 Chapter 54
It was a dark stormy day at Intavia, the streets were not as busy as people opted to stay inside their houses besides their fires with cups of warm milk. The rain was drizzling against the roof of the barn at the other side of the village. From the house beside the barn, Ira emerged with a bucket filled with water for the animal trough in the barn. She ran quickly to open the barn and stopped short when she saw Emilia there bending before one of the goats, the skirt of her apron dragged in the mud around her but she didn’t seem to care. Ira moved closer to see what she was doing. “I didn’t know you were awake so early.” Emilia was startled, she relaxed immediately when she saw it was just Ira who was coming closer with her bucket. She shifted so Ira could squat beside her. “I couldn’t sleep anymore so I thought I should make your workload lighter this morning.” She lifted the she-goat’s leg, it let out a fierce bleat and tried to scurry away bu
Cursed by the Gods: Cleopoda CBTG Book 1 Chapter 55
There was chatter among the servants, mostly the female servants. They seemed to be excited about something and Cleopoda couldn’t fathom why. They didn’t even seem to mind her walking the corridors of the palace, they seemed too distracted to care. She couldn’t ask any of them what made them all so excited so she went in search of Strukus, he had newly been given duty in the kitchen so she went there in search of him. On her way she passed by maids who hurdled close together, chuckling and giggling as they talked behind their hands, there wasn’t anything special going on in the palace as far as she knew and it has been months since Uncle Angus arrived and while everyone was still happy the excitement was already dead and to her knowledge, no one of importance was visiting. The kitchen was almost empty, there were a few servants who were cleaning the platters that had been used for breakfast that morning and Strukus was cleaning the stove. To avoid getting him into
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“You should have let me join the women at the theatre, I wanted to meet him too.” Strukus dragged her along. At first, she had been the one worrying about her safety but one look at Zenas and she lost all of her senses and wanted to be seen by him. He wanted to club her on the head with a stick but he couldn’t, not just because she was a princess but he liked her too much to cause any harm to her. “You are 11, Cleo! You can’t be seen by him or anyone else.” “Who says so?” she demanded. He stopped short abruptly almost causing her to fall back. “Garius. Your father. The list is long but I think you understand the message.” Her face fell and he regretted reminding her of just how many people were against her. No doubt the cloak with its hood reminded her of while she couldn’t be seen outside most especially not with him. She pulled her hand free of his and murmured something that sounded like ‘You’re right’ before continuing on th
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Chapter 57 With a heavy heart Octavius approached the Council Room, he dreaded having to face his court, he knew why they were here, there was no reason they would come this early if it not to talk about the rising concerns in the kingdom. For months he had tried to avoid the conversation members of the court were sure to bring up. The issue had not just started, it did not just start with Amires, it started long before that, and not even the war in which he fought succeeded in quelling it. Reports had risen soon after his coronation of banditry and killings at the edges of the village near the river, reports of razed houses and stolen animals had sprung up and were worsening over the years. While his father was alive, when he still had Emilia to die for, he cared for the welfare of the people enough to sacrifice his first child so they would have peace and so he would be the hero to both the one he loved and the people for whom he cared for but now that he had nothing to fi
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He dreaded the moments when he woke up to prepare for the council room meetings. As he slipped his royal robe on he couldn’t shake the feeling that today’s meeting would be different, it was a wariness by the daemon in him that gave him that knowledge. He looked at himself, ran a finger over the vein that thumped inhumanly slow in his wrist, the place where daemon blood mixed with his own human blood flowed and knew. The dark clouds around his head hung lower today but he squared his shoulders and opened the door of his chambers. He walked down the hallway with a raised chin, an arrogance that he would never feel as long as he was half daemon. The soldiers in the corridors bowed at his approach, he raised his hand and passed by them to the council room. There his heart dropped, his suspicions confirmed. This would not be like the previous ones, if not the feeling he had in his guts and his bones, the faces of the nobles gathered around the room confirmed it. T
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He knew something was different. He could tell that the meeting in the Council Room today would be different from the others. He could feel it in the gloom that hung in the air around him and he almost didn't want to don on his royal robe. As he walked down the hallway of the palace Octavius wished he could merge himself with the wall away from the world and his responsibilities as king of Camelorn. He had woken up sharply after dreaming of several ways to kill Ashterah and has woken up disappointed to find that he was on his bed with her brand on his neck. The guards stood at their place by the wall and when he approached the dark wood door of the Council Room one of the guards stationed there pushed it open. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the nobles standing rather than sitting. Unlike before when they would be feasting on the food the servants served for them even before he arrived, they were standing around with grim faces that didn't bode well with him. At hi
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