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

  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.

  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

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

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