The Last Dragon King (Kings of Avalier #1)(24)
Her mouth popped open and then shut and then opened again. “That’s surely not allowed.”
“Why not? Are they not gifts to me to do as I please?” I asked.
Excitement lit up her eyes. “You would do that? After what I said about you?”
“I would. Because I too have a little sister, and I know what it’s like to want things I can’t afford,” I told her.
A lopsided grin graced her mouth. “I guess I’m lucky I got a Cinder girl, then.”
“I guess you are.” I chuckled.
EIGHT
I spent over an hour with the seamstress begging that as well as dresses she also make me three pairs of trousers and some short tunics. She said no the first three times, saying that trousers and tunics were not for women. I then asked her if Regina was a woman, and who had made her trousers and tunics. She’d simply sighed and said she would make them. Then I further pleaded that she try to get the bloodstains out of my leather hunting suit that my mom gave me. Once she agreed to everything, I thanked her profusely and then followed Narine to the luncheon.
“The king is off dealing with matters of the realm, so he won’t be joining you for lunch,” Narine told me.
Matters of the realm. AKA the Nightfall queen attack on Gypsy Rock I was dying to know about. I could care less about having lunch with the king, I wanted to know how the attack was going.
“Do we have word from Gypsy Rock? How is the fighting going?” I asked her.
She raised one eyebrow at me. “How do you know about that?”
I waved her off. “I was there. I rode here on the dragon king’s back! Where do you think I got all that blood from?”
She nodded. “I heard. I cannot say too much, but I do have a source that said a messenger just arrived a few minutes ago.”
I stopped in the hallway. “And…?”
She looked at me with a bewildered expression. “I don’t know, I wasn’t there, and they are private messages meant only for the king and his advisors.”
I folded my arms over my chest and scowled.
Narine gestured to a large set of double doors. “This lunch will be a good time for me to assess your table manners.”
I couldn’t help the peal of laughter that escaped me. “Narine, please don’t bother. My mother fed us meat on the bone in front of the fireplace since I was a wee babe. I’m not going to be impressing anyone with my table manners.”
She sighed, and I saw the moment she gave up on me. The light died in her eyes as she gave up hope that I would be some refined Jade City queen.
I stopped in the hallway and leaned closer to her, lowering my voice. “Listen, if you really want to try to win this thing, I could ask for another maid. There’s a girl from Grim Hollow that I overheard the king’s lead guard saying was very powerful. Maybe you could be with her?”
She gave me a polite smile. “We can’t switch.”
I figured as much. “Well, then we’ll just do the dress resell thing?”
Another polite smile. “Yes, lady. Thank you. It’s a kindness I won’t forget.”
I felt better about patching things up with her and having an ally, but still felt a little guilty I wasn’t trying to marry the king and win her those one hundred jade coins.
She opened the doors and I stepped inside the room. I was instantly assaulted with the sight of over a hundred women in colored dresses and gold leather sandals.
Holy Hades.
I looked at Narine. “Are we in the right place?” I asked, although in my gut I knew that we were. I knew in that moment that the king had summoned every female of child-bearing age with an ounce of magic in them.
“We are.”She nodded.
I felt simultaneously dirty and relieved. Dirty that we were all dressed the same, given the same dress and sandals like brands on cattle, but relieved that there were so many women there was no way the king would ever pick me as his wife in a sea full of other women. I just wasn’t that special, and my magic still hadn’t even shown itself. With luck, I’d be home by the next full moon and King Valdren would have his wife with her magical baby-making womb.
“Food!” I ran over to the table Kendal was sitting at and took a seat next to her. She was chatting with some of the other girls, and in the middle of the table was a smorgasbord of various cuisine. Meats, cheeses, small fancy breads, and tiny little pies littered the table. I grabbed two of everything and piled my plate high, digging in.
Narine pulled up a chair next to me and watched me.
I moaned, dipping one of the little meat pies into some kind of spicy cheese sauce that I’d never had before. “Holy Hades,” I moaned again.
Narine smacked my shoulder lightly. “No moaning, and no cursing at the dinner table,” she chided.
Kendal snickered, as well as two of the other girls. “Oh, you won’t be teaching this one manners,” Kendal jibed, but smiled so that I knew it was playful. After seeing her faint so many times and hearing from her maid that she’d been crying, my heart felt for her. Back in Cinder I didn’t hang out with her often. I wasn’t a fan of gossip and the latest fashion, so we just didn’t have a lot in common, but here… here we were Cinder girls and we needed to stick together.
I nodded, looking to Narine. “You might as well spend my mealtimes doing something you love. There’s no saving me.” I shoved a gigantic bread roll into my mouth to make a point and Narine visibly shrunk, wincing in slight disgust.