Sighing I pulled away from her, calmed by her presence.

"Sorry about that," I said, knowing I wasn't angry with her, rather myself.

For this morning, for today, for overlooking the problem Ior was going to be, hell, I was even angry about Vail and his ridiculous antics.

Shaking my head I looked over at Liv, waiting for her to say something.

She was watching me thoughtfully, her muscle toned arms crossed, gilded black tattoo gleaming on her forearm in the midmorning light.

"It's fine Orilis, the last few days have been unforgiving for the both of us." her golden eyes darkened for a split second, news I most likely would not like.

"Liv, what is it?"

Liv pursed her lip and said, my father...he came to the guild last night, you know, Guild Virzas..."

I did know, I had made myself a lifelong enemy of theirs by helping Liv.

Originally, Liv had been an apprentice there, that is, until she decided she had no interest in being a puppet of the guild and left...with my help. I sighed warily, Liv was by every means a prodigy in her profession, the guild was not pleased to loose her. Almost as displeased as her drunk bastard of a father.

"Do I even want to know?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"My father...wants the guild to bring you to him..." Liv said in a livid tone.

"Could this week be more of a shitshow?" I muttered for no one in particular to hear.

Liv shrugged, she had been through worse, we both had, on the grand scale of shitshow weeks, this one ranked number four out of ten and all things considered.

"I suppose we should prepare for our guests then," I said pointedly.

Liv chuckled "With pleasure," and with the monstrous smile on her face as she turned and left the room, I was sure she meant it. Shaking my head as Liv's infectious anticipation spread across my body, my muscles tense with excitement. Tonight was going to be fun.

The next few hours went by quickly, Liv returned with a few tools she deemed necessary to our little surprise party and I went through a compiled list of the guild's members to try and narrow down our guest possibilities.

To anyone walking by or spying, it would seem that I simply favored a maid and was using her to help me get my extensive list of duties as a member of the royal family done for the day. Which was partially true, considering dealing with a group of highly trained, dangerous assassins was well within the range of the spymaster and one of three Diplomatic envoys in the kingdom of Heliva. In short I was well placed to have access to such information without raising suspicion. But at the same time, if I did anything wrong, the whole palace would know, Aliv and Zedian were openly agianst my position as spymaster and the fact they couldn't sway father drove them insane. So their coping methods involved watching my actions as spymaster...essentially watching me on the chance they would catch me screwing up. Not that they would.

By the time the sun was well above the castle we were already finished and I was dressing for court.

Liv wordlessly rose as I finished putting on my formal attire, "I'll follow," she said firmly, as if she knew I was planning on insisting she stay and rest today. I sighed, another one of the reasons I had fallen for Liv, she wasn't one to just blindly follow orders, she was always the first to question the why and how behind them. And When Liv wanted to do something, she would. Whether you begged her not too or told her to take a break. Liv did what Liv wanted and that was that. Frankly, arguing with an assassin wasn't the best idea to begin with, much less one with a reputation for backstabbing family members...literally.

So the only response I could offer to her was "Please take it easy Liv, you're just as tired as I am," which earned me a gentle smack on the back of the head and an audible, exasperated, "men." With that, Liv left to slip into the shadows of the castle to watch me as I played the perfect royal for three hours of my life.

I entered court as quietly as possible, hoping to remain unnoticed but my formal attire made me damningly hard to miss and I was immediately swarmed by the ladies of court. Mentally I made a note to remind Liv that I only loved her and that this was all an act...just in case. My eyes roamed over the heads of the crowd and up to the etched ceiling, golden carvings of Heliva's history painting the interior of the glorious room. The three archs inside of the long angular room made the structure seem far more imperial than the other parts of the palace I frequented. I would neveer forget my first time entering this room...back when my mother was alive.

I exchanged pleasantries with the ladies who had surounded me and quickly excused myself from their presence. The last time I had been to polite to excuse myself I had spent three hours listening to childish stories they seemed to think I enjoyed. Groaning inwardly at the memory I surveyed the room's inhabitents for someone sane to speak to and spotted Aliv and Calv speaking idly with their inner circle of supporters and Zedian alone holding a glass of wine, watching the crowd, face expressionless. The rest of breakfast must not have gone well for him, Aliv must have garnered fathers support through some means. Chuckling in amusment at my brothers obvious discontent I turned to look at the opposite fast corner and blinked in surprise, standing there, garbed in traditional Vixin clothing, was the diplomatic envoy of Vix, Count Veron. 

I had been sent as diplomatic envoy to Vix a couple years ago to help form trading routes between the two kingdoms. During that time Count Veron and I had become quite good acquaintances, when I returned to Heliva we had kept in touch, he, like me, had a knack for getting what he wanted, making our friendship an enjoyable thing indeed. Especially since he disliked my brothers...well, save for Lorcs but there was a very specific reason for that, not to mention forbidden but I saw nothing wrong with it.

The rest of my family on the other hand...they wouldn't see it that way. Though it was risky for the Count to come here, Lorcs excuse for this morning made sense, all things considered he normally stayed throughout those hellish meals out of respect for our father, how anyone could respect the buffoon, I doubt I'll ever know. 

Huh, I thought as I looked for Lorcs in the crowd, I guess he isn't here, that's surprising all things considered. Deciding to say hello to my old friend I crossed the large, ornately decorated room raising a hand in greeting.

"Fancy seeing you here," I said, once I was in earshot, smiling.

Veron rolled his eyes knowing full and well that I knew exactly why he was here, "Hello old friend, long time no see..by any chance have you seen Lorcs anywhere?"

That question surprised me, I had thought that Veron would know the answer to that better than anyone, "I saw him this morning, mandatory family breakfast."

At this, Veron snorted, "Ah yes the legendary 'mandatory breakfast', I've heard all about this." he said with dark amusement. During my days in Vix we had broached the "family bonding" topic more than once and it amused Veron to no end.

I sighed, "This is a poor place to discuss...personal topics, how long will you be staying here? And why was I not notified?" I kepy my voice calm but annoynance coiled around the happiness at seeing my friend, squashing it like a bothersome bug.

"Apologies for keeping it on the down low, I had to make sure to keep my arrival quiet until..." He trialed off, eyeing the crowd around us, "well, you know."

Nodding curtly I asked why he was looking for Lorcs.

Verons eyes flickered and he said "I said something about his father that upset him this morning during our...meeting, he stormed out and I can't exaclty go aorund asking for him..."

I sighed irritably, I knew all to well how much Lorcs respected our father, and I also knew how easy it was to insult the king, because regardless of how one looks at it, he's lacking in literally everything. And Veron being as observant as he is, picked up on our family dynamics quite quickly.

I trusted Veron quite a bit, like Liv, he knew more about me than anyone else and still didn't run away...and he trusts me enough to offer his resources and support. The three of us were eachothers greatest assets for many reasons...all cut from the same cloth, we wanted what we wanted and didn't stop until we got it. Reguardless of the cost.

"I'll be here for a few weeks," Veron muttered for only me to hear, "we should probably catch up during that time."

"L will be happy the gang's back together," I said smiling.

That made Veron chuckle, he and Liv had also become close during my time in Vix.

"Anway," I said, "Lorcs is probably at the training ground near his barracks, he likes to train his problems away" I offered him instructions and bid Veron farewell telling him Lorcs would get over it if nothing else.

With the aspect of having my two favorite people in the same room at once after more than a year this week might not be so bad after all. 

Settling down in the shadowed corner I grabbed a glass filled with red whine from a passing maid and smiled slightly, bringing the glass to my lips, Liv was standing beside me, she normally hid her emotions while in public but they shown brightly across her face, she was just as excited by the prospect of the three of us having a little get together as I was.

Smirking, I leaned against the cold, stone wall and watched the rest of the court with a look of interest plastered on my face.