Page 16 of Taken By the Naga King

“What are your meetings about?” she questioned him, and she really was curious.

“Well, I was gone for a while, and there are many things I need to be updated on now that I am home. Most, if not all, are very small things, but I need to know about them regardless. Some are meetings where I will be deciding things for the planet. Again, mostly small decisions, at least compared to others.”

“How do you know what the right decisions are?”

“Experience, for the most part. I sat in on my father’s meetings from the age of seven until the day he went to the goddess. That alone taught me all I needed to know. Besides, it is in my blood to know these things.”

She couldn’t help but be impressed by him. To carry such responsibility and be able to conquer that was not a small thing. She could tell he actually cared a lot about Nirum, based on everything he’d said to her so far, and she felt like the Niri were lucky to have a king like him.

Once they finished eating, he began showing her around the floor, pointing out different rooms that she was to use as she wished. There was a fitness room, a painting room, and a room that could transform to look like anything she wanted it to be—from a perfectly decorated bedroom to a jungle. She got an idea that maybe she would use that room to transform into Noxxa when she was feeling particularly homesick.

But the one room that stuck out to her the most was the library. Not because she had an interest in reading, per se, but because she was determined to learn as much as she could about the Niri. She wanted to know everything. Their culture, their politics, and anything she could find on Gravon and his family.

So when the tour was done and Gravon headed off to his meetings, the library was the first place she went. And she spent the rest of the day there.

It had been a week since Azha had arrived on Nirum, and a week since she’d gone and holed herself up in the library, spending those seven days learning everything she could. She couldn’t find much on Gravon himself, but she had come to accept something when it came to him.

Gravon was a good person—er, being. He was respected by his subjects. He was generous to them and all the people on his planet. He was fair, at least much more so than the past kings, which she had read about in the books she had found on Niri royalty.

And most of all, he was good to her. He always made sure she was well-fed, well-dressed, and that she had something to occupy her day. He knew she had been spending every day in the library, and when she had told him what exactly she was reading about, his face had lit up. It was the most expressive she had seen him since they’d arrived on Nirum.

Which was another thing she had noticed. When they had been on the Imperial Nirum, Gravon had seemed much more expressive, much freer. But the minute they had come back to his home planet, he had become very stoic.

He hadn’t even attempted to kiss her, which had confused her the most. On the ship, he seemed very interested in her in that way. But since arriving, he hadn’t tried anything.

She was still very confused about what her purpose was here in this castle and what his intentions with her were. However, she was almost positive now that those intentions were in no way nefarious.

“Azha, have you looked at these already?” Xenia asked, bringing over a stack of books.

Azha skimmed the titles, shaking her head. “No, not yet. You can leave them here. I’ll look at them next.”

Xenia nodded and sat on the couch across from her.

Azha had started forming somewhat of a friendship with Xenia and Vespira over the past couple of days. When they had learned what Azha was doing in the library, they had become determined to help her learn all the most important things.

“Are you hungry for lunch yet?” Xenia spoke up.

“No, not yet. I might skip it today. I’d like to finish this book and start another one by dinner time.”

“You seem much more comfortable here the past few days,” Xenia noted after a couple of minutes.

Azha looked up, meeting her eyes. “I think all the reading has really helped. Knowing the history of this place makes me feel more connected to it.”

“Are you still feeling homesick?” Vespira wandered over with another stack of books. She put them down on the table in front of Azha before sitting on the couch next to Xenia.

Azha thought about the question. “No, actually. I haven’t thought about Noxxa in days. My life there… wasn’t half as good as this. A huge part of me feels like I should be grateful for this new life I’ve been given.”

“I’m sure the king would love to hear something like that.”

Xenia was probably right. But she wasn’t sure if she was ready to let him know just how much she was accepting her new home just yet.

Her eyes wandered over to one of the books Vespira had just brought over, titled The Fertility Crisis of the Niri.

This piqued her interest, and she immediately set down The Forgotten Tribes of Nirum and picked it up. From page one, she was fascinated, and by the time Xenia and Vespira were leading her to the dining room for dinner, she had finished the book.

Azha was deeply saddened and alarmed by what she had read. Not to mention shocked. She wondered how news like this had not traveled to Noxxa, how she had never heard anything about the Niri’s struggles before.

At dinner, she barely spoke and barely ate, poking at her food as she let her mind go down the rabbit hole the book had placed in her mind.

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