Chapter 34

• I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes my head filled with so many things, I should have had a complete breakdown from it all. Getting dressed, I wandered through the palace. It was hauntingly silent. I paused and looked down at the floor and smirked. No creaking floors here.
• My mind took me through the last while: back to the island, to the beginning of my guard training, and even my mother popped into my head. If that didn’t make for an uneasy night, nothing did. I loved my mother, despite how hard she made it, but I couldn’t make her beliefs my own. I was proud of what I’d done with my life, my father was as well. I had days where I hoped, even prayed, for my mother to birth another daughter. To have a child that would fill all her ideals of what a daughter should have to be.
• Then my stupid brain would toss Emil in the mix, just to cover all areas of my emotional bouncing ball. Emil was my mate, half the realm knew that now, including him. If I’d been in any other position, I would have shouted it from the rooftop. I glanced up the stairs and mentally nodded, even this rooftop. He was, aside from his hot-headed emotional outbursts, a noble man. He’d survived trials I couldn’t even begin to fathom. He was loyal and committed to family, that was very clear. Even though he hadn’t known about this realm and his birthright for the first three centuries of his life, he still stepped up and took on the war his brothers faced. I don’t know if I’d do such a thing, but it spoke volumes about his character that he had. I turned and went to the stairs that led to the third floor.