Page 245 of The White King's Favorite

“Cessi!”

She turned around, surprised, and found Darsan running up to her. She would have been scared of her older brother’s giant figure if she wasn’t used to it. He hugged her like a gigantic bear would have, with his big arms circling her.

“Good morning, little sis!”

“Good morning,” she chuckled. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for Grandma, she wasn’t in the room Nana gave her...”

“Oh, I just had breakfast with her, she’s... chatting with Ashen.”

“Oh! It’s all good then. Come on, Nana’s sisters are making us a crazy amazing breakfast! Did you know her uncles go to fish before dawn every morning? I heard them waking up this morning and followed them, it was so much fun catching fish!”

Cessilia chuckled. She could see Darsan having fun amongst the fishermen, happy to use his strength for something other than fighting and repairing his mistakes... Grabbing her hand, he took her back to the Dorosef residence. Despite the early hour, it was already quite noisy inside, as expected. The tribe was obviously used to having guests, and right as she stepped in the courtyard, Cessilia was blessed with the delicious and now familiar smell of fresh fish beignets.

“Cessi!”

Tessandra appeared, her mouth stuffed with half a beignet, the other half she offered Cessilia, who happily took it.

“You look tired,” chuckled Cessilia.

“I didn’t sleep much,” her cousin winked at her, “but that was one of the best nights of my life, until that big idiot of your brother decided to make the worst ruckus possible and wake everyone up in the damn house...”

“What, I was getting ready to go fishing!” protested Darsan.

“Your dragon butt face probably scared all the fish away,” groaned Tessandra, still bitter about the rude awakening.

“You dragon poop,” retorted Darsan.

“Dragon fart.”

“Dragon boog–”

“Oh, can you two stop?” Naptunie sighed, appearing behind Tessandra. “That’s really disgusting and I just had breakfast too...”

“Morning, Nana.”

“Good morning! We have more beignets if you want! Although you might have to wait a bit, I think we’re going to distribute them downtown...”

“That’s nice, but I already had breakfast with Grandmother.”

“Oh, is she alright? Lady Kareen really drank a lot last night...”

“Trust me, Grandmother is a heavyweight,” sighed Tessandra. “She’s fine. ...Is she around?”

“She’s with Ashen,” explained Cessilia.

“With the King? Why?”

Cessilia shrugged. She wasn’t quite sure either, and although she did have her suspicions, she didn’t really want to imagine what they could be discussing at the moment. She’d probably hear about it all later... Tessandra grinned, but didn’t say a word.

“Well, what’s the plan for today, Nana? I am not handing out fish beignets all day again, I’m warning you.”

“Actually, I think we should go back and help with cleaning the streets,” sighed Nana. “Food isn’t really an issue, but I heard some streets are still blocked and a lot of people remain homeless and had to sleep at neighbors’ last night...”

“I don’t mind working for free,” said Tessandra, “but I doubt the neighborhood is going to remain so selfless for long. People were already struggling before the battle, it’s going to be even worse now. And two of the four bridges were destroyed too, it’s going to cause a big issue with the trading in and out of the Capital... we’re bound to have even more clogging than before.”

Suddenly, an idea came to Cessilia’s mind. Her green eyes went toward the destroyed parts of the castle, then to the Capital’s outskirts. Perhaps this battle was actually going to be the solution they had been waiting for to get the country going again...

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