Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Hurley got up, and after shooting me a happy doggie look, he jogged out behind Tanyn.
I stared into my bowl, realizing I wasn’t screwed.
I’d screwed myself.
“Gods damn it,” I mumbled.
And then, with nothing for it, I finished my porridge.
Chapter 6
Lynx
I was holding on by a very slim thread.
This was because the tour of the livable parts of the citadel went very fast because there were not very many livable parts.
The lounge we’d spent time in. The dining room, ditto with the time. A small family room with a slouchy sectional and the only screen in the place. An even smaller study where Tanyn told me he’d had his lessons via holo before he’d turned sixteen and was sent off to a military academy. His bedroom and bath, his mother’s bedroom and bath. An archaic kitchen that had archaic apparatus in it that I supposed you used to cook or store food (the only things I recognized were the outmoded Cook-Companion, Chill-Cabinet, Bev-Buddy and the four-seater kitchen table in the middle).
And we didn’t tour them, but Tanyn told me Mangold and Zyra had a set of rooms where they lived.
The rest of it, and there was a lot of the rest of it, was shut off. Bone-cold. Dark. Dusty. Derelict. The furniture and paintings on the walls covered in white sheets or left standing to petrify in the deep freeze.
Tanyn had shared the structure was sound. All the rooms had been wired for electricity and tech.
But there were vast areas of this stately castle that were unused, and the areas that were, weren’t many.
I understood I was privileged to grow up in a mansion and have the means from even a young age to explore widely, not only the city, but the entire planet, on holidays with my parents, then my friends, then on my own.
I could not imagine having essentially six rooms and a frozen tundra being the extent of my world.
A prince and supposed-to-be-then-was future king?
Outrageous.
I was furious his father put him and his mother through this. His father, who lived in a palatial castle and wore the crown that owned numerous other properties, all of them opulent.
I knew their treasury was healthy, mostly because the media of Sky’s Edge made such a big deal about how Arnaud was squandering it.
And it was becoming nearly impossible not to let my demonic fury loose as Tanyn moved me through the space.
We were in a solar that fed from what used to be the king’s and queen’s bedchambers, the sun having beat back the gray of the day, so when Tanyn opened the dilapidated shutters, the room filled with light.
And I could easily see how amazing this room could be if it was cleaned up, better insulated, and furnished.
“It’s up to you,” he began. “But in order to give this place a part of you, I’d be happy if you’d take on the project of deciding on furniture and décor when the time comes. The only thing I’d ask is that you make it fit with the rest of the citadel.”
This was not my aesthetic at all.
I took after my mom in a way. I liked streamline. Uncluttered. Though I tended toward a classic style rather than an ultra-modern one.
Even so, this offer gave me a private little thrill.
And that was good, because it tamped down a little of my fury.
“Would you require approval of my choices?” I queried.
His vivid blue eyes captured mine. “Dazzle me.”
I was already dazzled, by those eyes, but I lost his attention when he pulled his Palm out of the back pocket of his jeans, looked at it, then back to me.
“Your boots have been secured. They’re sorting transport and some other things Zyra said she’d like, and all of it should be here in an hour and a half.”
I supposed they took every opportunity to top things up when a transport was going to arrive.
“Are they stuck here?” I asked.
“Sorry, what?” he asked in return, shoving his Palm back in his pocket.
“Mangold and Zyra. Do they have to wait for stuff to get here when things get low or…how does that work?”
“Mostly, they order what they need, and it’s sent to them within hours of them asking.”
What was left unsaid in that was that was how it was now that he was king.
“But there’s craft here that can get to the mainland,” he concluded.
That was good to know.
However.
“Where is it?”
“It’s under the landing platform.”
Ah.
Of course.
He closed the sun off by shutting the shutters, and we resumed our tour.
We were at the top of a tower, both of us standing side by side at a window (that was broken, by the way), staring at an amazing view, when he pulled his Palm out again.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered as he studied the display. He looked to me. “I have to deal with this. Do you want to wander the rest yourself? There’s not much left.”