Book 5: Racing for the Throne

Amval

“I swear by every star, it’s not usually like this,” Tek grumbles to me a few days later.

I can only nod in agreement. To actually open my mouth and speak would expend valuable energy that I need to be able to lift the massive Snowcrest Canyon harnesses off their towering, shaggy horses.

For two days, dignitaries have been arriving. More than a few of them, working under the general assumption that staff aren’t people in the same way they are, have complained about returning to Lightning Cape so soon after their last visit. In addition to the physical strain, the emotional strain of not hitting them weighs on me.

If they cannot be polite about fucking funerals, the second and third in barely a month, I would rather start the sort of political incident that sends them home than endure their presence.

Someone laughs, and I whirl, searching for Ingrid. Instead, I find another head of blonde hair that takes a moment to place—Candace,