Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51855 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51855 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
I lock the cell, enjoying Wesson’s shocked, angry glare. Then I pass the keys to Vanderburgh and stride down the corridor.
I step outside into the exercise yard. The cool wind teases my hair.
Hope. The King. My daughter.
Ensign Vanderburgh finds me twenty minutes later. “It’s true, sir. There’s been a revolution. The Chairman is dead, and the People’s Republic is over. King Anson is to sit upon the throne.”
I want to leave right away and go to my King, but there’s a proper way for these things to be done. Meanwhile, I send word to my daughter in France that she’s to come home.
It takes several days for the hastily reformed King’s Guard to process and release all the political prisoners. I insist on being the last one out the gates.
Every now and then I look down at my arms, and while they’re as strong as they always were, they’re old. I grew old in here. Late one night, in my temporary quarters at the prison, I take a long look in the mirror. My skin is rougher and crinkled around the eyes, and my hair is iron gray. I was twenty-six when I was imprisoned. Now I’m an old man, and I want to howl with rage. The best years of my life have been stolen from me.
Finally, there’s no one left to release. My titles and land have been restored. Levanter House stands in readiness to receive Archduke Devrim Levanter of Paravel.
“Your daughter has arrived, Your Grace,” one of the guards tells me. “She’s here to meet you at the gates.”
My heart clenches. My little girl, smuggled across the border into France in her mother’s belly. I think briefly of my dead wife. Moira should have seen this day, too, but she died nearly twenty years ago. My poor daughter has known neither of her parents.
The sunshine slants over my face, and I tip my chin up and close my eyes. The air is sweet. Clean. Ripe with possibility. Without opening my eyes, I roll my shoulders and flex my head from side to side.
I’m free.
I’m finally fucking free.
The King will need me to show him how the country should be run. The Court of Paravel will reopen, and it’s is going to be my domain, once more. This time, I will purge it of every unworthy rat I can get my hands on.
“Your Grace? This way, please.”
The guard stands deferentially aside, and I see her through the gate. My heart is pierced with pain and sweetness.
Aubrey. She’s just outside the prison gate, tears glimmering in her eyes and her long, dark hair shining in the sunlight.
An alarm blares, a blue light flashes, and the metal bars slide open. I take my first step into the world in twenty-seven years.
Free.
“Daddy?”
I hold out my arms to her, and she runs into my embrace. My impossible child, fathered while I was a prisoner. She smells of strawberries and the faint scent of horses and hay.
I pull back and look down her. “Welcome home to Paravel, sweetheart. There’s so much to be done and so much to fight for.”
She studies me, puzzled. “Fight? There are no more battles, Daddy. Paravel is at peace.”
I loop her arm through mine and walk her toward the waiting car, a large silver Daimler with the Levanter crest emblazoned on the door.
She doesn’t know yet. There’s no such thing as peace in the Court of Paravel.
Chapter Two
Wraye
Ivera, the Kingdom of Paravel, five weeks later
The ballgown is a fairytale vision of pink and white silk, and everything Mama’s told me I deserve since before I could talk. I’m a Rugova, one of the First Families of Paravel, but all that meant to me growing up was being called traitor, getting punched in the face and having my hair pulled out in clumps.
Pretty dresses won’t change that. I don’t even want to go to Court.
And yet…
I’m twenty-one, and I’ve lived my life in rags. I want the stupid dress.
“This one, my lady?” the plump, middle-aged woman asks, gazing indulgently at me over the top of her spectacles.
Beside me, Mama is sitting on the sofa, flicking through designs.
I gaze again at the drawing of the pink gown. “Yes, please. It’s so beaut—”
Mama takes the book from me and closes it with a thump. “No.”
She puts her own design book on the table and points to a selection of traditional Paravanian gowns. “These three,” she says to the dressmaker, pointing to a pale-yellow dress with a stiff bodice, a white gown with short sleeves, and a grey silk gown with long sleeves.
The dressmaker hesitates. “Lady Rugova, the Court of Paravel has yet to open, but there are already signs that grander fashions are being favored. Indeed, I delivered a similar dress to Archduke Levanter’s daughter not three days ago. Perhaps you know her? Lady Aubrey returned from France a few weeks ago, and—”