Chapter 44

Sael sat grim-faced before a mirror sitting atop his desk, narrowing his eyes to stare at his own reflection. He paused, listening to the quiet grow as his eyes grew darker and darker.

A short knock rapped across the room, breaking Sael from his empty quiet. He blinked a few times, but the black still remained.

“Enter.” Sael rubbed his forehead and sighed heavily as a simpering man stood in the doorway. His stooped posture leaned lanky and thin beneath heavy black robes. Sael couldn’t remember a time ever having seen his wings. His dusty grey eyes peered out from a mess of thin black silken locks. Sael and this man were second cousins somehow, via his grandfather’s philandering ways.

“I have… what you asked for.”

“Good. Thank you, Serfrit,” Sael spoke kindly to the man as he ushered in with a few sheets of paper and averted eyes. Sael scanned the pages, looking at lists of wing color, eye color, fires, and disposition—all women. His lips twisted before he peered up at the visitor.

“None of them,” Sael said before pushing the papers away with a rustling curl of pages.

“But Afryth, they’re all beautiful and—”

“I said none of them.” Sael lifted his chin, his dark eyes flashing.

“What displeased you about them?” The man twiddled his thumbs, but Sael could only think of a certain halfbreed girl.

“Give me a girl with as light of a wing as possible,” Sael demanded, taking a deep breath.

“But sir… only lowborn have light wings….”

“Then find me a strong woman with kind eyes, a pleasant aura, and light wings who is lowborn. Perhaps I might be far more intrigued if they had color to their hair, maybe phoenix… I don’t care for status as much as you do, as long as they’re Acerrai.” Sael chuffed and swept his hands over the pushed papers, sending them fluttering to the floor. “It would please both sides of my nature, you understand.”

“Y-yes, my liege,” Serfrit simpered before backing out of the room with his head held low, picking up the papers as he left.

Sael leaned back in his chair and turned the mirror face-down, the soft wooden-framed oval making a sharp ‘click’ against the wood as he did so. His fingers trailed the back of the mirror, then, as if on cue, a soft little green moth slipped into his field of vision to flutter onto his outstretched hand.

“Hello…” Sael spoke to the moth with a soft smile as its mana sent familiar tingles into him. Immediately, he knew to whom this particular moth belonged.

He held it to his ear and listened, a fond smile stretching across his lips.

“Kael wants you to come visit. We’re doing tatsuli and drinking,” The voice said, and an image flickered in his mind of Kael three sheets to the wind trying to tatsuli her soft pale skin. It made him bristle, but then again, an opportunity to unwind sounded good.

He stood and walked to his chamber doors, calling out for his servant, “Serfrit. I’m heading out again.”

He blustered in protest. “My Afryth!”

Sael shut his office door and walked across the room with a soft, cleansing breath before going back into his desk and digging to find a few dusty glass bottles.

“Here’s to bad decisions and inconveniencing everyone else!” Sael laughed and took coarselight.