“Lucky to be the King, you can bed any maiden on the side.” Rowan grins.
“Yes, lucky,” I snort.
Merek’s hand claps down on my shoulder and his fingers squeeze. “You do not need to decide today. Send for several prospects, put them up in the castle, see which one you can live with.”
Nodding, I must admit that it is not a terrible idea. There are only a handful of Ladies in this part of the world that fit the criteria to become my betrothed anyway.
My father honestly should have found one decades ago, but for some misguided reason, he didn’t. Perhaps he was too busy bedding any woman that would spread her legs for him to think about the future.
Now it is up to me to forge an alliance, save my country, create an heir, and try not to be miserable as I do all of the above.
“Send a missive. I want all of them here.”
“Are you going to throw a gala?” Merek asks with clear laughter in his voice.
“Apparently,” I grumble.
All three men are unable to hide their laughter at my expense. “Bring on the Ladies’ maids,” Rowan crows.
“You bastards,” I snap.
Their laughter turns into loud howling guffaws at my expense and I can’t help but join in. It feels good, laughing with my brothers again. I’ve missed this, with all of the stress of the past four weeks, I have missed my life before. When everything was simpler. When I simply led the best knights of the land.
“Your Majesty,” a woman cries with a pounding on the door.
Rowan and Henry unsheathe their swords before they unlock and wrench the heavy wooden doors open. The woman standing before the double doors bustles into the room and I blink at the sight of her.
She’s wearing a long, faded, worn, dull-colored dress. Her white hair is in a messy wild pile on top of her head and her bright-blue eyes are focused on me and me only.
“Your Highness.” She bows.
“Who are you?” I demand.
She straightens and turns her head to the side slightly, dipping her chin, her eyes still on me. “I am Aleida, the castle’s witch.”
I curse. My father. Of course, he would have a witch under his command. “Close the doors,” I growl.
The men do not leave me as the doors close. I’m glad for it, I’ve never talked to a witch in person before and they’re on guard as much as I am.
“Speak, witch, tell me why you’ve come to my private rooms.”
She lifts her chin, her eyes looking down her nose at me. “I need you down in the dungeon. Something has happened. Something fantastical and magical, the likes of which I’ve never encountered before.”
“Explain, witch,” Merek demands.
She shakes her head once. “You must see to believe.”
“If this is a plot to cause harm to your king, you will suffer,” Merek growls.
She lowers her chin, her eyes still eerily focused on me. “Never, Your Highness. I watched over you as a child, per the request of your sweet mother. I was requested to ensure your safety into manhood. After your mother’s passing, your father sequestered me to a corner of the dungeon, but my charms have always been to protect you, Your Majesty.”
The words cause me to stand, immediately. My mother. Nobody speaks of her, they haven’t since the moment she died. I was five years old. When she passed, my father pretended as if she’d never existed. Now, this witch speaks of her as though she knew her.
“Why did you not protect her then?” I softly demand.
“She requested that I not heal her. She knew it was her time, as a woman of the crystals, she could have saved herself. Yet, she could see her fate had she lived and only desired one request from me, that you fulfill your future as the rightful heir to the country of Bunafi.”
Swallowing hard, I nod. I will demand more from her, more information on my mother, but for now, I want to know what she is so insistent that I see.
“Take us to your dungeon. Show us what you wish me to see, witch,” I demand.
SYBILLA
I roll to my back with a groan. It feels like I’m sleeping on a hard concrete floor. Inhaling a deep breath, my nose wrinkles. It smells, really bad. I mean, I didn’t take the trash out last night, but I didn’t think that it would stink so quickly.
Opening my eyes, I push up so that I’m sitting. I glance around and as soon as my vision collides with a woman, I scream. She’s wearing a big flour sack kind of dress; it looks like it’s even possibly made from burlap. Her white hair is wild, and it looks like she’s tried to contain it in a bun, but then she forgot that she even had hair and it’s all over the place now.
“Calm, child,” she whispers.
That doesn’t make me calm. I scream again, I can’t stop. Crawling backward, I slam into what feels like a stone wall, all the while screaming my head off. She shakes her head once, lifts her hands and then says something that I can’t make out.
A few seconds later, my screaming stops and my eyelids grow extremely heavy. “Help,” I whimper.
She shakes her head; walking up to me she touches my shoulder. “Rest child, I’m sure all will be revealed in due time.”
I hear voices. Men’s voices and I open my eyes, my back still against the stone wall and still I’m in the fucking crazy-assed dream that I was in earlier.
The men stop talking. They stare at me as my eyes look over them. They’re all really tall, and wearing what looks like old medieval knights’ costumes. Lifting my gaze from their costumes, my lips part when I look into their faces.
They’re hot.
Like H-O-T, hot.
All four of them.
But my gaze stops on one. He’s sexy too, but in that totally rugged way. He has a scar that starts above his eye at the top of his forehead and travels down to the middle of his cheek, as if he was cut all the way down his face, over his eye. It’s sexy as shit. As is the week-old scruff he has on his face.
Licking my dry lips, my breath hitches when I see his steel-blue eyes focus on me. They aren’t just blue, they’re so bright blue that they are almost clear. It’s the most vibrant color I’ve ever seen.
“What is your name, witch?” he demands, looking directly at me.
I blink.
“Do you not understand Bunafian, witch? Your King demands an answer,” one of the other hot guys growls.
My gaze shifts to the woman with white hair and she only holds her hands up, which isn’t helpful at all. My breath starts coming out in pants as my heart starts to pound in my chest.
Holy fuck.
I’ve been kidnapped by cosplayer renaissance people.
“Name,” the super-hot rugged guy rumbles.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I inhale a deep breath before I speak. “Sybilla,” I whisper.
“You say you know not of how she arrived? Where she hails?” Super-Hot Rugged Guy asks, his eyes leaving mine to focus on the white-haired woman beside me.
“No, Your Majesty, she just appeared.”
“She is indecent. Are you a whore?” he asks, his chin dipping to me again.
I gasp at his question. “Absolutely not,” I snap. “How dare you.”
One of the men makes a whistling sound. Super-Hot Rugged Guy tilts his head to the side, his eyes roaming over me and suddenly my little pink and gray satin pajama shorts and tank top do seem rather indecent.