Since Esmera was abandoned on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, the only person who has looked out for her is herself.
Until a lark starts visiting her, leaving behind exotic flowers and iridescent pebbles that the internet doesn't recognise.
Esmera...
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Tauram's hand tightened around Esmera's, warm in the coolness of the night, burning out the shivers running through her. She had only seen King Ruagu twice, but she would recognise his shadow anywhere, with the sharp edges of his face, the flimsy lines of the robe he had been wearing when he left Princess Kerani's room, with the way even the heavens stilled in fear of him.
When the bronze rings on his fingers glimmered in the starlight as he raised his hand to run it through his hair, she knew she was right. Tauram's sharp intake of breath confirmed it.
"Don't move," the prince breathed.
Like the stars, Esmera froze in position. The crunch of her footsteps on the uneven ground would only draw the usurper's viper's slitted eyes to her and Tauram's invisible forms. Even the slightest motion might startle the enormous moth on the woman's shoulder, betraying their presence.
King Ruagu drew the woman beside him to him. Her body was stiff against him even when he ran a bronze-ringed hand down her arm.
Queen Ghallia was more goddess than mortal under the stars, her blue sari falling regally from her frame, the fabric glimmering like gold ore within the darkness. Esmera had almost forgotten the extent of her beauty, but she wouldn't allow herself to admire her for a moment longer, not when she knew what Ghallia had done to the Morghis princesses, what she had allowed to be done to them.
She turned, smiling faintly up at her husband and giving Esmera her first glimpse of the infant in her arms and the yellow-spotted dragonfly on his shoulder. The child cooed and reached his arms out to King Ruagu.
Could he not see what Esmera could, that the hands that reached for him were stained with blood, that the eyes smiling down at him had watched people die by his hand?
Princess Kerani had mentioned that King Ruagu was good to their daughter. Esmera would've never imagined a thief, a liar, a villain to be a kind father.
Maybe King Ruagu wasn't evil right down to the core as she had thought. It almost made her feel bad to destroy him, knowing that she'd leave his children without a father as she had been, but he'd shown no pity when he ripped Tauram's family apart. He didn't deserve any mercy, only retribution.
Queen Ghallia's shoulders were still stiff even as she gazed up at King Ruagu and her son. Whether it was the proper posture of a queen or a wife stifling her anger at her husband, Esmera couldn't tell. The moonlight turned the soft curves of Queen Ghallia's face harsh, or maybe it wasn't the celestial light distorting her at all but the tightness in her expression.
"Another beautiful night in Milatanur." Still cradling his son in one arm, King Ruagu kissed Queen Ghallia's neck.
Esmera shuddered. To think that those lips had been kissing another woman just earlier that night, had likely murmured the same venomous seductions masked with romantic gentleness.
