IHOTGK Book 3: The Last Royal Mistress, Chapter 12 excerpt - Uncertain Futures by Meilin Miranda

Luncheon presented Temmin with a study in contrasts. On the one side, there sat his mother and father. Ansella’s pale, blotchy face, red eyes and slightly trembling hands concerned him, and she was pretending to eat, picking at her food and rearranging it on the plate. Perhaps she really was sick, though since she’d started riding again she’d put on weight and a healthy color had come back to her face. Harsin himself had noticed her appearance today; Temmin noted that he was paying close attention to his nervous wife, but kept himself aloof, preferring to watch rather than to question.

On the other side of the table, Brinnid and Sedra were noticing little outside themselves; they kept up an absorbed, animated, two-sided conversation. Temmin couldn’t follow it, as it had something to do with the political intricacies among the member nations of the Vakalele Confederacy. What he could follow was the way his sister looked at Brinnid, and the way the Sairish king looked back at her. That settles it, thought Temmin; off she goes. He’d never really doubted she would leave with Brinnid, no matter what Brinnid said about it being her choice--their father would see to the marriage one way or another. But on the whole, Temmin liked Brinnid, and if he had to say goodbye to his sister, he at least wanted Sedra to be happy in her new life in Sairland.

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