King Aeron Valdamar possessed the military might to crush a rebellion and the absolute, unyielding authority to silence a room of three hundred aristocrats with a single glance.
He did not, however, possess the ability to ignore his younger brother when he was actively weeping through the oak doors of the royal bedchamber.
"Aeron, I am begging you!" Prince Beckett's muffled, frantic voice drifted through the heavy wood. "She sent a second raven! It says if the four percent discrepancy is not rectified by noon, she is going to embargo our sheep! She can't embargo sheep, can she? Silas says she can't, but Victoria defies all known laws of nature!"
Aeron lay on his back in the center of the massive, rumpled charcoal-velvet bed. He stared at the vaulted ceiling, his jaw ticking in a slow, rhythmic expression of profound irritation.
