Dark Prince & the Doe

Chapter Twenty: A Meeting of Caves

Chapter Twenty: A Meeting of Caves

Calden

Kiren and Prusen would not stop fussing with his wet hair, yanking combs through it with ferocious hostility. Calden swore under his breath and tried to escape their meticulous ministrations but Prusen smacked him with the comb's carved bone handle.

"Stop moving," Prusen barked.

"When was the last time you properly combed this rat's nest?" Kiren asked. "It's so knotted in the back."

"I haven't exactly had the time," Calden protested. The past two weeks had been chaos. This whole peace treaty thing was being touted as his project and his brothers were dragging him from one meeting to the next so fast he had whiplash.

Father wasn't fully convinced the Overlanders would follow through on their end, but none the less, he'd let them proceed. Afterall, perfect Prusen had everything under control. Father's one demand was that Calden speak at today's Meeting of Caves.

The lords had been alerted last week and representatives had been arriving nonstop since yesterday. None of the lords were going to voice support of this plan. But since Larken was backing it, no one would dare raise any true dissent – one of the many benefits of having a berserk older brother with a well-deserved reputation of being a bloodthirsty beast.

Calden glanced over at his supposedly vicious eldest brother, who was chuckling and throwing shirts to Gale so quickly he couldn't catch them all. Most of Calden's clothes were now tossed haphazardly all over the floor and they still hadn't come to any agreement on what Calden should wear tonight.

"Calden," Kiren muttered as if his name was a curse and yanked at another knot.

"Ow!"

"Quit your crying or I'll go get Kiren some scissors!" Gale said, wading through a pile of clothing. He held up two shirts. "Pick a color. White or maroon." He emphasized the short-sleeved white shirt as the better choice by shoving it in his face.

"Maroon?"

"An excellent choice," Larken said.

"No, no, he can't wear either of those!" Prusen yelled. "What are you two thinking!"

Larken made a face and Gale rolled his eyes. "Why don't you pick one then if you're so smart," Gale said, gesturing with his thumb back at the mess they'd left in their wake.

Prusen sighed loudly, waving the comb about as if he wanted to club everyone over the head with. "Just pick a normal dress shirt. The white one is for Summer Invocation. And the maroon one is for the Fall Harvest Festival. Where is the grey one?"

"I think Lenor spilled soup on that one," Calden muttered poisonously. So far, only Nocturn hadn't joined in on this demented torture and was directing where people would sit in the King's Hall for this afternoon's event. Normally, Prusen would be pompously ordering everyone about, but apparently, he thought Calden's appearance was a more pressing issue that couldn't be solved by anyone but himself.

"I still don't understand why he can't just wear this one?" Gale said and picked up a black formal shirt with carved shell buttons down the front.

"Because he's already worn that one twice this week. Do you want everyone to think the Azure are destitute!" Prusen snapped.

"No one's going to notice," Larken grunted and Prusen narrowed his eyes. Larken held up his hands in defeat. "Fine, then. Can I just lend him one of my formal shirts?"