Instead, Quinlan tenderly smiled. "Long live Queen Felicity Primrose Amabelle Valorian."
But he did not bow to her.
Then his whole family was up and cheering with zero royal decorum, a blonde tail wagging madly over the rail, and the noise they made rode clean over six hundred nobles.
"Long live Queen Felicity Primrose Amabelle Valorian!"
Felicity, queen of Vraven, holding her crown off her nose with both hands, went scarlet to the ears and beamed through her tears at all of them, and for one moment the seat of the nation was warm.
Alexios let the roar crest and settle.
Then the old man, bareheaded, turned back to the center of the floor, where the Duke of Ravenshade stood alone in the wreckage of his last card. The hall went quiet behind him like a blade going back to a sheath.
"Now then," said Alexios. "Where were we... ah. Yes."
...
Tharion Ravenshade had been many things across eight hundred years, and every one of them had fought to its last breath.
