Page 173 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
Shenan’s scoff felt more factual than mocking, which made Kassein frown. He had rarely seen his older brother anything but calm, quiet, and composed. It felt like he had witnessed a completely different side of him in there, and it made Kassein genuinely curious about the Emperor’s circumstances.
“How are things here?” he asked Shenan, hoping to get a straight answer from him, for once.
His brother let out a long, dramatic sigh.
“Lots and lots going on. With Father and Aunt Shareen gone, the politicians think they have a chance at pulling the Emperor’s strings. They either kiss his ass or kill his mood, or a sweet balance of both for the smartest of them. There’s a lot of unrest with the tribes in the west, as you may have heard... Kassian’s trying to continue what our aunt started with the slavery abolishment, but it is not going according to plan.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Kassein frowned.
It had been their parents’ dream to end slavery in the Empire. Their mother, a slave herself, had advocated for it as much as she could, and their aunt had already done a lot, forcingthe hands of the nobles to agree to more and more regulations until they could eradicate it completely.
“What’s wrong is that you cannot remove one of the pillars this Empire has been leaning on for centuries and not expect the economy to collapse,” Shenan replied. “Cessilia’s wedding in the east gave our economy the boost it needed to endure the first changes, but that was ten years ago. Trade has slowed, and a lot of people with very loud mouths are spreading the word that slavery would be a perfect solution to a lot of our problems, including the riots in the west.”
“And how is Kassian dealing with that?”
“In the Kassian way... and unfortunately, he is nothing like Aunt Shareen.”
“Aren’t you here to help?”
Shenan gave him an amused look as if Kassein had said something unexpectedly funny. Then, he patted his brother’s shoulder.
“Get back to the north, Kassein.”
Just like that, he was dismissed, his brother leaving him alone in the corridor. Kassein let out a faint sigh. He had only spent minutes in the palace, yet none of his siblings had stayed to ask more than needed about his life in the north. Perhaps he had come on a bad day, perhaps it was because of the terrible weather, but he still felt the sting of disappointment.
Yet, after reflecting on it for a few seconds, he realized that he missed Alezya more. He loved his family; he loved all of his siblings and his parents, and they had grown up together with a bond that would be unbreakable. However, things were different now. They had all grown up, and after living with seven siblings, most of them had felt the need to find their own aspirations, their own people, their own goals.
This was the first time Kassein genuinely felt like his life had a clear direction, and Alezya was his north star.
Kassein decided to wait for Tievin by Kiki’s side under the rain.
His sister’s dark gray dragon didn’t mind the downpour at all, and neither did he. The Capital was hot and humid, and it wasn’t like he would fall sick or anything.
While he waited, he let his thoughts drift back to the memories he had of this place. The hours he had spent by the lake, with their mother or their older sister reading to them. This was his happy place when he was young. Not just the lake, but the imaginary lands his sister’s stories would take them to. Things had never been the same after Cessilia’s abduction, and that was when Kein had turned on him and when his father had begun to restrict his dragon so he wouldn’t be able to attack Kassein. Either an older dragon was around to keep Kein from attacking him, or he would simply be bound by heavy chains.
He wondered where Kian, Kassian’s dragon, was. Kian was a magnificent silver dragon, third in size after Kein and Dran, their second-oldest brother’s dragon. But Darsan and Dran were both ridiculously oversized, even for their tall family. Kian had always been a long, tall, elegant, and majestic dragon. And it had hardly ever been seen anywhere but by its owner’s side. Kassein had expected to see it in the throne room along with Kassian; that place had been designed ridiculously large for the sole purpose of letting the dragons in, but Kian wasn’t there. Was their older brother in bigger turmoil than he had let on?
For the first time in a while, Kassein regretted that he no longer felt close enough to his older brother to lend him a helping hand. Perhaps his taking ownership of the north would do that.
It hit him then that he had gotten what he came here for: the north.
The north was now his, along with the Onyx Castle, and the chance to change things with all the Northern tribes noneof his ancestors had ever managed to submit. Perhaps he would be able to kill two birds with one stone, taking that issue off his older brother’s hands and revitalizing their childhood land.
“My lord!”
Tievin’s arrival brought Kassein back to the present, and he frowned as the Grand Intendant came back with a sour expression, new fur coats on, and a bag that looked heavier than when they’d arrived; Kiki noticed too and welcomed him with a growl.
“Already?” Kassein frowned.
“Father was awake,” Tievin snorted. “He interrupted my reunion with Mommy, who, by the way, was the only parent in the room delighted to see their child’s face after so long without, and he most rudely told me to ‘get back to my duties and not come back until I shall be done with it all’—his words, exactly.”
Kassein was hardly surprised. Tievin had been his mother’s only child, very pampered and spoiled, and his relationship with his father had always been a strange combination of jealousy and egotism.
Still, he didn’t question it, knowing Tievin could go on very, very long rants about his father, and they had a long journey ahead.
“Are we flying back straight away?” Tievin asked with a sigh.
“Yes.”
