Page 35 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Why are you so fond of her?”

It gnawed at him ever since he saw their interaction on the palace steps that afternoon, but even more so now. Not that his mother wasn’t a warm person, but this was the sort of overbearing protectiveness she usually reserved for family and not her first day meeting someone.

She opened her mouth but sighed. A sad sort of smile crept onto her lips. “A story for another day, Mika. Go to the barracks, have your fun.”

Despite the precisely nothing his mother did to quell his unease, Mikael did not need to be told twice. He drained his glass, kissed his mother on the cheek, and he was gone.

Chapter 9

Morning didn’t end up arriving anytime soon for Cyril. But when it did, its arrival was abrupt, driven by blistering sunlight and an all-too-familiar growl.

“Cyril, get your gods damned ass out of bed right now.”

Dion flung open her drapes and stomped around her room, cursing to himself.

She tugged a pillow over her face, whining, as he ripped back her covers.

“Oh, for fuck’s—”

The covers flew back over her with remarkable speed.

After stripping down to just her underthings last night, Cyril never put on the nightclothes Rika left out for her. Why would she? She was too damn tired and frustrated, and hadn’t expected her morning to start like this.

“What is your problem?” she groaned.

“My problem?” Dion’s tone dripped with frustration. “Cyril, you missed breakfast and lunch, and our briefing was supposed to start ten fucking minutes ago.”

Oh shit.

Shitshitshitshitshitshit—

Cyril tossed her pillow and nearly fell as she tried to untangle herself and get out of bed.

“I’m so sorry Dion,” she whined, stumbling over to the wardrobe and ripping open doors and drawers. Dion at least had the decency to turn his back to her as she tried to remember where in the fuck her things were.

“I just—I was so damn tired and I—”

Blouse. Pants. Socks.

“—I did not think the drapes would block out that much of the light—”

She awkwardly hopped into her pants and towards the bathroom.

“—and I—”

“Cyr, it’s fine,” Dion sighed, his voice closer than before. “Just hurry, please. They’re waiting for us downstairs.”

He leaned in the doorframe, watching her through the mirror.

She grimaced at him, flinging open a few drawers before she finally found a brush and a tie for her hair. No time for braiding, so she brushed it quickly and swept it all up into the neatest ponytail she could manage. It was a wavy and kinked mess from her braid yesterday, but it would have to do.

A quick splash of water on her face and a half-assed brush of her teeth, and they were out the door.

Dion said they were going to the royal offices, down in some partial basement of the palace, but the area he led her to felt more like a decrepit war room than a damn office. Swords and axes adorned the walls of the gloomy, vast space, alongside almost illegible maps. Besides a solitary rack housing logbooks buried under a thick layer of dust, there was no trace of anything office-like.

Well, there was a table.

Imposing and rectangular, it spanned the length of the room with wildly mismatched chairs. An ornate piece in a past life, she was sure, with a faint inlay of whirling ivory she could see along its edge. But time and use hadn’t been kind to it, its surface dulled with scratches and brutal gouges.