Chapter 66: Danger & Elegance
Stefan’s POV
I gritted my teeth the second I saw Dove’s face in the doorway. Of course it was her. At first glance, I could tell the woman would have a talent for showing up exactly when things were about to get interesting, like she had some sixth sense wired specifically to ruin my mornings.
Jonquil spoke before I could even open my mouth to complain.
"Go. No one keeps the Queen waiting." she said, flatly.
I frowned at her, at Kara still standing there half-convinced by everything that had almost happened, and let out a long breath through my nose. Jonquil wasn’t wrong, though. Whatever Kara and I still had left to explore would keep. A queen’s patience wouldn’t.
I followed Dove out.
~~~~~~~~~
The court room was smaller than I had expected, though everything in this palace kept resetting my expectations for what small even meant on this planet.
Saffron sat upright on a throne carved from more gold than I had seen in my entire life combined, draped in layers of fine cloth that fell heavy from her shoulders to the floor, modest in cut but doing absolutely nothing to hide the shape underneath it. Every time she shifted, even slightly, the fabric pulled taut across the swell of her chest, over the curve of her hips, and I found my eyes dragging there more than once before I caught myself and dragged them back up to her face, where they belonged if I wanted to keep it attached to my neck.
She watched me approach the way she watched everything, cool, unbothered, like nothing I could possibly say had any real chance of surprising her.
"I cracked it," I said, straightening my back, letting some of my usual confidence bleed back into my voice. "Your missing lady-in-waiting. And the honor."
Saffron said nothing, waiting, one eyebrow arching just slightly, the only concession she made to actual curiosity.
"I won’t get into the details," I went on, keeping it smooth, keeping it vague enough that I sounded like I was protecting her dignity rather than covering for my own thin evidence.
"I don’t need to be tangled up in whatever politics run through this Queendom. But she didn’t vanish on her own. She had an arrangement. A deal, struck with her clan sister, one of your Flowers currently serving in the Bloomhold."
"You are certain of this." Her voice carried that same effortless authority it always did, low and even, the kind of voice that had clearly never once needed to be raised to get exactly what it wanted. But underneath it, plain as day if you knew to look for it, sat disbelief, sharp and sound, like she had expected me to walk in here with nothing but excuses and empty charm.
"Very sure," I said, holding her gaze, refusing to let it waver even as some small, honest part of me wasn’t half as certain as I sounded.
She turned her head slightly toward Dove instead of answering me directly, unhurried, regal even in that small motion, and Dove gave a single, small nod. Saffron said nothing to confirm or deny it out loud, but something in her posture shifted, some private calculation clicking into place behind those cold, sharp eyes, and for just a moment I could see exactly why an entire Queendom bent itself around this woman without question.
The system chimed in the corner of my vision, announcing;
[MISSION COMPLETE.]
Rewards dropped, numbers scrolling past faster than I bothered reading properly, and I let out a slow breath of relief I had been holding since I first stepped through that archway this morning.
I saw the MA now sitting at 78/100 and I exhaled with relief. I was almost there
Then the beast mood insight flickered up beside it.
[QUEEN SAFFRON — CURRENT MOOD: Neither angry nor pleased.]
I huffed out a dry laugh under my breath. Of course. Even her relief came wrapped in something unreadable.
Still, I had take it. At least her recruitment difficulty hadn’t doubled on me.
Then the notification dinged announcing that her recruitment interface had been unlocked.
[QUEEN SAFFRON — INTERFACE UPDATE]
Desire: -0% | Loyalty: -0% | Trust: -1% | Affection: -0%
I stared at that for a solid second, genuinely baffled. Negative one percent trust. Not even a full point lost, and yet somehow still moving in the wrong direction entirely. I wondered, with a kind of morbid curiosity, what her stats would even look like if her recruitment progress difficulty increased by 100% should I failed the mission.
Probably something that involved my head separated from my shoulders.
I decided to ride the wave anyway, however small it was.
"Since I’ve proven useful, perhaps you will consider keeping me close. Somewhere you can use that usefulness properly." I paused, letting the words settle before adding, "And you still have two Flowers back at the Bloomhold who need healing. That hasn’t changed."
Saffron didn’t answer right away. She studied me the way she might study a blade she wasn’t sure was sharp enough yet to trust in a real fight, one hand resting easy against the arm of her throne, the picture of complete composure even as the cloth across her chest rose and fell with each unhurried breath.
There was something maddening about how effortlessly she carried that combination, danger and elegance both at once, like she had never once had to choose between the two.
"You may stay," she began talking, finally.
"Just until the Flowers are healed. You should do whatever you needed within two sunset. In that time, you will prove your usefulness to me. Then I will decide whether you remain or you will be banished."
"That’s how merciful I would go." She said. The elegance in her voice nearly made me lose concentration in what exactly she meant by that how merciful she could go.
"Very well," I said, dipping my head just enough to look respectful without actually feeling it.
"But for me to be at my peak... I mean, to be effective at being useful, I need some basics. I will need a room, then. Food. Something decent to wear." I said gently.
She sized me up once more, head to foot, then called out a name without looking away from me. "Eagle."
A lady-in-waiting stepped forward from somewhere near the edge of the room, one I hadn’t noticed until that exact moment.
"See to his needs," Saffron said.
Eagle walked out, and I followed her, glancing back once over my shoulder as we passed through the doorway to see whether I had sparked a level of curiosity in her, even if it was -0. She had turned her head to something else in the room.
"She’s a whole lot of work." I grunted with a resigned sigh and walked out.
Dove was walking in the opposite direction, leading a Flower I had never laid eyes on before, someone with the same set of the jaw I had seen on the missing lady-in-waiting’s belongings, the same look in her eyes that told me exactly who she was without needing an introduction.
"The Queen will handle the rest," I muttered, mostly to myself, and kept walking.
I turned to Eagle once we had put some distance between us and the court room, testing the waters, curious whether the authority and charm still simmering under my skin from earlier had any pull left in them.
"I’m to be treated as a guest of the Queen," I told her, easy, certain, like the words had already been agreed upon somewhere I hadn’t been present for. "Treated well. You understand?"
Eagle’s mouth opened, some argument already forming behind her teeth but she closed it again without saying a word.