Edrian's POVThe banquet hall was a jeweled cage.Golden chandeliers filled the air with light and polished marble floors, courtiers in silks and velvets swirled there like peacocks in disguise. The big tables creaked with the burden of roasted meats, sugared fruit, and jeweled goblets of wine. Music was coming out of one corner where minstrels played the lute, and under the music was a continual under pitch of whispering, hungry, cruel, and always watching.And there I was in the midst of it all, bearing a golden tray like the servant they would have had me be.The palace seamstress had dressed me in better clothes than I had ever possessed, dark tunic, trousers, boots polished to a shine and yet, no matter how finely the cut, the tray itself had a way of reminding me how it was, in their eyes, that I was indeed a slave only dressed up as a man.Every whisper followed me as I moved between nobles. “That’s him,” one woman murmured, hiding her smirk behind a jeweled fan. “The stray t
Last Updated : 2025-09-04 Read more