The Council

ROME

From behind the curtains, he could see the room already filled with members of the court and members of the royal family. He peered through the purple curtain and watched them talk to one another.

The courtroom was a large oval hall with seats that ran all the way up like steps. A large room where meetings with delegates from all around the continent could meet. Right now, all the seats weren't filled, but the noise in the room overwhelmed him.

He leaned against the wall, just beside the curtain, watching every person. In his few years as King, one of the things he had learnt quickly about people was that he could learn a lot about them by studying them.

As he looked from behind the curtain at the back entrance, he could see everyone fairly well as he observed their countenance and guessed what they were discussing.

Jace, Kate, and Henry – his half-siblings – children of the whore, as he preferred to call them, were seated beside their mother. Their Mother, Monica, was his fathe