The days after Amaru's coronation passed without catastrophe, which Dean began to regard as suspiciously generous.
Draxil had apparently decided that crowning a new king and queen was insufficient celebration on its own, so the remaining schedule expanded into diplomatic receptions, ceremonial lunches, military presentations, charity appearances, formal photographs, and dinners that began late enough to make everyone involved question whether royal protocol had ever encountered the concept of sleep.
Dean and Arion attended what duty required.
Theo attended considerably less.
That decision proved wise by the first afternoon.
While Dean stood beside Arion beneath the glass roof of the royal conservatory listening to a trade minister explain Draxil's revised northern transport strategy, their son was somewhere in the private wing with Matthias, two nannies, a box of building blocks, and the wooden dragon he now carried almost everywhere.
Dean occasionally received photographs.
