Page 26 of Under the Lion Star

“I’ll go to the kitchens and whip us up something myself,” Atlas offered in response to my stomach growling. “It won’t be good, but it probably won’t kill you.”

“Probably?” I raised a brow.

“I’m a shit cook, Leor,” he shrugged.

I laughed. There was comfort in knowing that despite everything being piled onto my back, I had Atlas to lighten the load. After what we had been through when away at war, it often felt like he was the only one who would ever truly understand me.

Now that I was King Leor, every interaction held a potential threat. People would be willing to use my status to their benefit, and I had always assumed I’d be able to make more connections before taking the throne. Which reminded me that I was closing in on the date when I would have to select a wife. A woman who would live in my home and potentially put Orin at risk if she figured out his secret.

“I have to meet with the council,” I looked up at the ceiling, trying to abate the increasing sense of dread. “After that, I might stop in to check on Orin.”

“Find a wife who can cook,” Atlas grinned. “Or one who can catch mice. Either would make my life easier.”

“I’ll be sure to ask each woman about their rodent hunting prowess,” I deadpanned. “Remind me why we can’t just buy them from somewhere?”

“Wives?”

“Mice.”

“Right,” he smiled. “Then whoever is trying to kill you would know that we’re testing your food. They might move onto a different tactic.”

I nodded.

“I’ll keep digging,” Atlas gripped my shoulder. “We’ll figure out who wants you dead and deal with them. I promised Sanna I would take her out to get a new dress for your stupid party. Catch you later tonight?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Try to do something fun with her. Anything that might offer her a bit of a distraction for a few hours.”

“You got it,” he patted me on the back. “Let me know if you murder anyone else in the countryside trying to impress your mystery girl. Can’t cook for shit, but I can dispose of a corpse pretty well.”

I groaned. Atlas winked.

The man continued to drone on, unaware of my desire to shove my fist through his throat in a desperate bid to get him to shut the fuck up. His voice seemed to feed the pounding in my head that rarely let up anymore. I had been told I was difficult to read, but surely he should be able to tell that I was uninterested in every word that spilled from his mouth.

“You’ll have a month after the conclusion of the soiree to choose a wife,” Lord Corrin explained what I already knew. “If you’d prefer, we can come up with a list of the best choices so that you may enjoy yourself at the ball.”

“Great,” I snapped.

“My king,” Lord Gamril interjected, wiping away a piece of lint from the crimson serpent embroidered on his doublet. “I know you have far more pressing matters on your plate, but we need to create the picture of a stable Fjorn before you are to meet with the human king. A wife, and eventually an heir, will play into that.”

“I understand,” I said. “Thank you all for taking care of the arrangements. If you’ll excuse me.”

I said a few goodbyes to the other council members, the only clue to their identities being the various animals and creatures embroidered on their finery, denoting which family they were a part of. Decorum would have me wait until they had all left of their own accord, but I couldn’t tolerate another moment surrounded by old-as-fuck elves who acted as if they knew how my parents would have ruled.

It didn’t matter. They were dead.

My feet led me through the castle halls until I found myself outside Sanna’s room. She called to permit me entry after I knocked, and I opened the door to slip inside.

Her room was as bright as she was, painted in a pastel yellow, although many of the walls were blocked from view by the array of bookshelves that spanned every wall. Her gauzy curtains did little to block the sunlight from the massive windows, not that they were ever pulled closed.

“Hey,” I forced a smile, watching as my sister marked her place in a book before moving toward where I stood and throwing her arms around me in a hug.

Sanna gave the best fucking hugs. My sister was sunshine incarnate, a feature that had dimmed considerably after she’d found our parents dead inside the castle. Each time I saw her, I was reminded of all we had lost. Not only our parents, but our security, our normalcy. Everything was fucked up now.

I’d never forget the feeling of reading her letter whilst lying in my tent in the middle of rural Krannar. I’d spent the day guiding my troops to help repair the small schoolhouse in some sparsely populated town while Atlas flirted relentlessly with one of the teachers. It had been a good day.

When the courier arrived with the mail, nothing seemed off. If they knew the contents within, one would have expected his bag to ooze thick black smoke. My sister's handwriting, which had always been so flowing and beautiful, was shaken and hastily scrawled. Each word was worse than the last until I felt I was going to vomit.

That’s how I learned of my parents' death. Of how close Sanna had been to being stolen from me along with them. That my fifteen-year-old sister had been the one to find their bloodied corpses still in their bed.

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