Her little sister had defected. Her mother was a puppet. And she had missed all of it because she'd been underground killing liches.
"Father," Elisabeth began without looking away from Felicity. Her voice had gone flat in the way that voices go flat when the alternative is screaming. "Why is Felicity standing over there?"
Alexios did not answer.
Felicity did it for him.
"Where do I even begin?" She held up her hand and started counting on her fingers. "Mother is a raving lunatic, a mad bitch who cares more about her elements than her own children. The kingdom is rotten from the inside out. The three nations have been slaughtering each other for ages over scraps of territory that don't even matter. Instead of treating elves and beastkin like people we could actually work with, we enslave them and call it diplomacy." A fifth finger went up. "And you want to know the main reason why I'm standing over here instead of over there?"
