The Queen's Line (Inheritance of Hunger #1) - Kathryn Moon Page 0,77
you know where the breakfast is laid out?"
"In the greenhouse, I believe," I said. I didn't believe. I knew because that was where I’d told the maid to have it ready as I tried and failed not to listen to the sweet sounds slipping through the now missing cracks in the walls. Princess Bryony liked her meals in the greenhouse, so it had seemed like a safe guess. "Should I call for the maid to come and help dress her?" I asked, all too aware of Yorley listening behind me.
"No, I think it's being managed," Wendell said, lips twitching as he glanced over his shoulder before looking back to me. "Thank you, that will be all."
Dismissed. Like a servant. When was the new steward coming? Everything was topsy turvy in the palace in the meantime.
I left the hall, moving toward the stair as Wendell shut the door. I would be waiting there, listening for their footsteps before I moved again, making my way ahead of them to the greenhouse. The newly and inexplicably repaired greenhouse.
…The princess’s head was tossed back, throat stretched and chest heaving in her dress as she pinned me to the floor.
"Either they want her to disappear up here, or she'll leave soon…"
I bit off my groan as I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of the guard's dormitory door slamming shut.
"Shhh, he's in his bunk room."
I stiffened in my bed and then released a slow and audible breath. My back was to the open doorway that led to the general dorm. I had my own space as the head of the guard, but it was a flimsy door that offered little privacy, and more often than not I elected to leave it open in case I was needed.
"He's sleeping, it's fine."
My cock was still stiff from my dream, and if it weren't for their words and the strange echo of the conversation that had bled its way into my fantasy, I might've stood and shut my door just to relieve myself of the pressure begging to be touched. Instead, I suffered on my side, waiting to see if they'd continue.
"Why send a perfectly good member of the queen's line up to this shithole province? Something's wrong with her, I'm telling you."
I knew the voice, but couldn't place it amongst the men. They were still all new to me.
"Council says she's missing the Hunger."
"She looked plenty hungry for it in the library the other day. Anyway, the Hunger's just royal bullshit. An excuse for queens to spend their lives with their legs spread."
My fist clenched in my sheets, arousal dying off the longer I listened.
"Think it's more likely that they want her away from the capital and the crown. A princess who cancels taxes? Doesn't suit the council, does it?"
"Saved my uncle from having to sell his apothecary though," the second man said, a little sullenly.
"For now. But what do you think will happen in a few months? Taxes will start up again twice as bad, and the council will claim there's no money to put to the roads to bring in doctors. They'll just hit us hardest in the worst months."
"There never was money put to roads. No, you're right. I know. It's probably just a device to win temporary favor before they do something worse."
"Exactly."
The voices hushed as I huffed and tossed over onto my other side, my eyes shut, my mouth hanging open in feigned sleep. I heard the quiet clunk of armor being removed, uniforms unbuttoned, and tried to remember who was coming off guard duty at this time of night. Slowly, slowly, I opened my eyes just the slightest bit, only enough to get a rough impression of who was in the dormitory.
One figure was medium to short height, stocky but not round. That would be Brummer, and he would've been the voice who had an uncle who was saved by Bryony's halt on taxes. I waited, and waited more, but whoever the man was urging the conversation against Bryony, he never stepped in front of my door. Brummer slunk away into his bunk, and I lay awake in my bed, running the conversation through my head.
Did they think Bryony was conspiring with the council, or was the council conspiring against the princess? I couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Either they want her to disappear up here, or she'll leave soon. The words from my dream—overheard and bleeding through fantasy—echoed again.