For saving Cas’s life, Monarch Angelus Augustus II invited them to dinner as thanks. The dining hall was a grand gold hall with a gold table in the middle of the large room. The walls held Dolent’s castle winged-sword insignia, and the room was filled with guards and decorative foreign colored plants. The guests sat in gold bar stools and different assortments of food, from fresh fruits to meat sat upon gold trays.

Keisha stared at a dish on the table that looked similar to a pig but had a torso shaped like a bird. She tilted her head to the side and squinted her nose, trying to figure out what the animal was until Monarch Angelus called her name.

“Lady Keisha, was it?”

Verona sat beside her, and Celra on the other side elbowed her in the gut.

“Huh? Oh, uh, sorry, your majesty…I mean, Monarch Angelus Augustus.”

The Monarch smiled. His dark hair fell into his silver eyes, nothing at all like his son. “Please, Monarch Angelus will do. We are all but allies, thanks to you. Tell me, my son— Castelbeitro; you have given him a…What did you say it was called?” The Monarch turned his head to his right, where Cas sat beside his papà.

“A nickname, pater, it’s a shorter version of a person’s full name. Keisha came up with it,” he said, beaming in her direction.

“Ah, yes…nickname. It is a peculiar thing. Where did you say that you were from? I do not recall a swearing-in of another Legacy. Who is your parent line again?”

From Keisha’s peripheral, she looked in Verona’s direction then back at the Monarch.

“Erm, forgive me, Monarch Augustus, I am a Legacy by blood because I am the Daughter of Dante Alighieri.”

Gasps and mumbled whispered filled the room as the words that Keisha could pick up were ‘traitor’ and ‘Shikari’ until Monarch Angelus raised his hand to silence the hall.

“I see…and what is the Daughter of Dante Alighieri doing in the Illicit?”