39
Reine
I traced the border of the Gray Zone on the map spread out over the table in my grandmother's—no, my—"war room," as she’d liked to call it. She'd held meetings of her closest advisers in the circular space off the throne room, and I followed her tradition.
Today the room held four of us. We'd come there after the funeral for my grandmother, and the cold from the catacombs still clung to me. I rubbed the chill bumps along my arms left bare by my navy-blue mourning gown and stopped when I caught Troubadour, also known as Prince Basil Emerald Gloriag the Fourth, watching me. If anything, he'd made less of a secret of his attraction to me, and he'd never been subtle about it to begin with.
One of the castle servants appeared with a delicate white shawl, which proved to have been h
