COBALT: The Sovereign's Stratagem (Book Two)

Chapter 2: Stella (Part 1/3)

          Káel heaved Puff into the air, his wings madly flapping for some lift to his pudgy body. After a few painful seconds, he managed a glide two heads higher than Káel, his entire body flipping back to do a flip.

          Like the last five times his form broke as he was perfectly upside down, landing him on the plump white pillows covering half of Vera's bed.

          Káel smiled as he heard a muffled snort. "Wow, almost had it."

          "I'm serious, don't break anything."

          He glanced at the wooden door Vera's voice had come from, A walk-in wardrobe on the other side that he'd assumed she'd simply gotten lost in for the last ten minutes.

          "Pretty sure the party already started."

          "Yeah, just give me a minute."

          Káel scooped Puff into his arms again, tossing him with and extra hard heave so he went into an immediate glide. Instead of watching another failed attempt, he turned to perusing Vera's room. Tidy and nearly trinketless, with a delicate rouge theme that screamed the opposite of his friend. 

          He turned his attention to a smaller bookshelf that sided her bed, skimming the titles of thin fairytale books that likely fed at a child's imagination by the line of dust coating them. All except for one, where the dust greying the shelf was cut into by its cover sliding out multiple times.

          He read the twisted gold lettering, muttering it under his breath. "The Heroic Tales of Locke Lanbrellhande." With a curious hum he pulled it out, cracking the cover for a slip of parchment to flutter out. With a cut gasp he quickly picked it up, checking the door Vera was still behind in case she could somehow sense his snooping.

          He stared at the slip of paper, a kitten scratched out with charcoal black lines covering the sheet. Admiring its details for a few seconds, a hint of shame was quick to slap at the back of his mind. This was probably something personal.

          He carefully placed it back in the book, hoping he'd gotten the right page as he deftly slid the book back on the shelf. 

          Opting to avoid opening anything else, his eyes rested on a little black cat doll. It was tucked right next to the book, with small blue gems for eyes and a drooping face. Hand-stitched by a cutesy attempt at depression, limp as a ragdoll, and clearly done by unprofessional hands. He poked it, playfully pinching it's little triangular ear.

          "What are you doing?"

          Káel shot around, staring at Vera tentatively as she peeked through the door. "Nothing!" He chuckled nervously. "You make that weird cat doll?"

          She narrowed her eyes. "It's not weird. A friend made it."

          "Friend? What's her name?"

          "His name."

          Káel glanced at the doll, the grin on his face belittling his age by a couple years. "Horus?"

          Before Vera could pop out a spell to light him on fire, three curt knocks rattled the second door in her room. Even Káel could remember that three knocks meant a guard was at the door, which usually meant the one making them knock was of some royal position.

          Vera pulled out of the wardrobe, still fiddling with a gold ribbon in her hair as the ones on her back fluttered about undone. "Who is it?"