Gatherdusk: MM Fantasy Romance: Luminia Duet Volume II (Luminia Romances) by Lee Colgin

Author:Lee Colgin [Colgin, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Colgin Enterprise
Published: 2024-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Zenith

Queen Aurielle’s arrival gives me no time to think.

By the time I posted guards at Anash’s door—not Nola and Rolan but new guards who he hasn’t spent weeks making friends with—a commotion among the queen's troops in the courtyard alerts me to her imminent presence.

Holding on to my anger to shield me from the hurt of being betrayed by my love, I wait for her. An eerie purple light flares to life. It starts small, the size of an apple, but surges to an oval big enough for Queen Aurielle to step through.

The portal snaps closed behind her.

From my vantage point on the second-floor landing, I have a bird’s-eye view. Her soldiers avert their gazes, bowing low while she scans the courtyard. Her pink hair is braided back. Rubies glisten from where they dot the braid. She wears a gold dress, belted at the waist and hanging to her ankles.

Lord Warner greets her with a dainty kiss on her manicured fingers. They don’t speak. Aurielle glances at him as if he’s below her, and I suppose, as consort, he is, but it’s an odd look. Not one I’d expect between lovers.

Anash. His gaze always falls on me with adoration dancing in his eyes despite my lower station. Or at least it did. Before.

My heart hurts.

I shake my head and cast thoughts of him aside. Can’t afford them now. I don’t know when I’ll get the time and space I need to sort out my mind, but this isn’t it.

“Rise,” says the queen, and her troops stand stiffly at attention. More rigid than the soldiers under my command, almost as if they’re afraid.

Lord Warner whispers something to her, and she smiles.

“Oh really?” The gleam in her eyes hints at malice. “Have Hup bring a few of them to me, and someone fetch me Zenith and Randal.”

People scurry to do her bidding.

I descend the stairs. “No need to have anyone look for me. I’m at your service, Your Majesty.”

“Ah, High General, excellent. I heard you brought me prisoners for execution.”

My jaw clenches, followed by my gut. If I’d known she’d execute them, I would have released them myself rather than march them to their doom.

Perhaps if Anash had spoken to me sooner, we could’ve…

“Come.” She beckons me closer, flicks her wrist, fingers twirling, and a brown leather whip appears in her tiny claw-like hand. “You may do the honors.”

She couldn’t possibly mean…

“Let’s see if we can get some useful information out of them, shall we?”

She does. Torture. Talus considered torture to be a war crime. He’d never tolerate such treatment, and I agree. “I’m not very good with a whip.”

“Precision isn’t required, but if you’d rather watch”—she lifts a shoulder in a nonchalant half shrug—“I’m sure I can find another.”

“That would probably be best.” I won’t whip helpless men. I’d rather not even watch, but I don’t see a way out that won’t reveal my horror.

My mind reels as ten men are brought up from the dungeon and thrown at the queen’s feet.

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