Chapter 268: A Very Confused King
Chapter 268: A Very Confused King
Zorathys had fought many wars.
He was the demon king, and it had not been a smooth journey. There had been different attempts on his life — numerous ones. Some open. Some subtle. The subtle ones had been more interesting.
And so he had learned, over a very long time, to read demons and humans alike. To understand them. To anticipate them. He prided himself on this.
But even with that, he did not understand his wife.
He had not done anything to annoy her.
He was relatively certain of this. He had reviewed the events of the past few weeks with the same methodical attention he applied to everything, and he could not identify a specific offense.
They had barely seen each other — which was not new, that had happened before; there were periods when the palace simply kept them in different places, and that was the nature of things — and yet she had walked away from him in that corridor with that smile that was not a smile and told him to make himself scarce for five hundred years.
Five hundred years.
And even more annoying, she had walked away carrying two of the pests.
He did not understand what he had done that would warrant her being annoyed at him, even if she gave him a smile.
He could feel it. Not in any way he could explain to someone who hadn’t spent enough time around her to understand the particular quality of her silences — but it was there. Hostility, or rather annoyance, present in the way she had looked at him over her shoulder, in the way the smile had not reached her eyes.
It wasn’t the first time they had gone a while without seeing each other.
So why was she annoyed now when she hadn’t been annoyed before?
He did not understand.
There was also the picnic.
She had refused to go on a picnic with him. Multiple times. He had asked, reasonably, and she had declined, also reasonably, and he had accepted this as a feature of their current arrangement.
And then Ignivar’s spawn had asked for a picnic, and she had said yes immediately.
Without hesitation.
While looking at him.
Perhaps he should turn into a child.
Would that help? Would that make her less hostile? Give him the attention he was seeking?
He shook his head.
No. She would be more disgusted by that. He knew her well enough to know that much, and something in his chest did something uncomfortable at the thought of her looking at him with disgust rather than the exasperated warmth he had become accustomed to.
He could not stand her being disappointed in him.
Angry and exasperated — yes, that was normal. She liked working and he did not, and the friction between those two positions was simply a feature of their existence. That anger he understood. That anger had a logic to it.
This was different.
And then there was the snake.
He had known the children were faking the tears. He had known it the moment he saw them — those were performed tears, the kind that arrived conveniently. He had looked at them, and they had stopped, which was proof.
And yet his Firefly, who always saw things, had not seen that the children were faking.
Or she had seen it and had not cared.
He wasn’t sure which was worse.
And as she had walked away, Azerion had looked back at him over her shoulder.
And stuck his tongue out.
Zorathys’s shadows stirred at the memory.
He never should have let the snake bond with Elyn. He should have invented a reason — something about danger, something compelling and slightly technical — and removed him from the equation entirely. Instead, he had allowed it, and now the snake rode away from him on his Firefly’s shoulder, making faces.
His shadows stirred again, shifting around him with a restless energy as they shared his mood.
Zorathys was going to put a stop to all this.
The children needed to stop coming to the palace.
He had been more than patient. He had tolerated an unreasonable amount. And now he was going to address it.
---
The bedroom was dark. There was no single light in it except for two points of ruby red where Zorathys’s eyes caught nothing because there was nothing to catch.
And the faint glint of his earrings when he moved.
Before him stood every duke and duchess of the demon realm.
Caleth was sweating profusely as he did when he was nervous, and he could not control the little pool he was making at his feet.
Ignivar’s fire had dimmed considerably.
The warmth that usually preceded him by several feet had contracted until it was barely present — a faint heat close to his skin that was less confidence and more survival instinct telling everything unnecessary to make itself small.
Aurelixa’s ears were turned down.
Both of them. Flat against her white hair, the crimson tips invisible, nine tails low and still in a way they never were when she was composed.
Xaleron’s ears matched. His bead earrings hung motionless.
Ysera’s ears too.
Draeven was stone, his already considerable stillness deepening into something geological. Faelyra was no better.
Seraphielle and Guilidern stood at full attention.
There was no movement nor any suggestion of anything that could be interpreted as allure or invitation or the particular quality they carried everywhere.
All of them had the same thought.
What had they done to require this summons, and to the king’s bedroom, no less?
Zorathys sipped his wine.
The sound was very quiet in the dark.
Then he spoke.
"Why," he said, his voice carrying that calm that had nothing reassuring in it, "are your children still showing up in the palace?"
No one answered immediately.
The dukes and duchesses looked at each other.
It was a very discreet look.
Then they looked back at Zorathys.
But no one answered his question.
His earrings tilted.
Just slightly. Just enough to suggest his head had moved, though in the dark the movement itself was invisible.
"Ignivar."
Ignivar’s fire contracted further.
"Yes, Your Majesty." The voice was small. Notably small for a demon of his stature.
"Do you remember," Zorathys said, "what I told you?"
Ignivar swallowed audibly.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Good," Zorathys said pleasantly. "Because your son asked my Firefly for a picnic." He paused. "While I was standing there." Another pause. "And she said yes." He let that sit for a moment. "While I was still standing there." One more pause. "Ignoring me."
No one said anything.
"That was not the agreement," Zorathys continued. "Was it."
It was not a question.
Ignivar swallowed again. "No, Your Majesty."
"No," Zorathys agreed.
The wine glass moved — caught by the faint glint of his earrings tracking downward as he set it somewhere.
"Ysera."
Ysera’s ears pressed flatter.
"Yes, Your Majesty." Also small. Also notably small.
"Why," Zorathys asked, with the patient calm of someone who had all the time that had ever existed and intended to use it, "does your son like my Firefly?"
Ysera opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Then opened it again.
"The Queen," she said, in a voice that had been reduced to something very close to a whisper, "is quite likeable, Your Majesty."
And immediately she said it, the temperature in the room dropped.