The Crown's Entrapment

Funnily enough, dinner had become slightly awkward with Gideon and Bartos still somewhat miffed that they hadn’t recognized Darius under his disguise. While it was comedic to see the two like that for the first few minutes, the next few after that only made it more annoying.

Frankly, if Xenia knew this would happen, she wouldn’t have suggested what they did in the first place.

“Say, how long do you think they’ll keep sulking?” she whispered to Jayra, who was seated right next to her.

“Can’t say,” her friend sighed. “I’m half tempted to just kick Bartos in the shins and get him to stop.”

“I’d say,” Xenia nodded. “Even the Queen Mother’s getting rather antsy.”

True enough, the tense atmosphere was more in the lines of annoying awkwardness as the two Lords kept on muttering about what they could’ve done better. Darius had already told them that they should consider them getting to sneak into the castle as some kind of defensive test, and that they should take it as a lesson in order to avoid such a thing happening again.

“So what? Should we just let them sulk like this?” Freya got in on the conversation, scooting over in an attempt to look covert. “The whole atmosphere’s going down. And we’re supposed to be happy right now.”

Xenia awkwardly chuckled at the highly irregular situation they found themselves in. It was wholly avoidable. Hell, it was born from something so insignificant that they shouldn’t even be worrying about it in the first place. They’ve afforded the two some time to sulk. Now, it was just annoying.

Shooting Darius a knowing look, Xenia hoped that it was enough for her mate to finally break this awkward atmosphere.

“Eherm…” Darius cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of everybody on the table. “I had thought that this was a time for celebration. I won’t have the mood going down just because of a joke Xen and I pulled.”

“But Your Majesty, the defenses of the castle shouldn’t have been this open,” Gideon reasoned, Bartos also nodding in his own chair. “Clearly, there’s been a breach somewhere.”

“I agree,” Bartos followed. “If such a thing happened once, then it could happen again. Who knows what-“

“Enough!” Darius declared. “If you two must know, the defenses are more than adequate. While I said that it should act as a lesson, it’s more along the lines of what to do when an intruder did manage to get inside the castle. I ordered the guards that caught us to not say a word of our infiltration, myself having decided to see what the reaction would be to our appearance.”

Xenia couldn’t help but stare in awe at Darius’s explanation. She was pretty sure he just made that up right then and there, and yet it still somehow made sense despite the short notice. Beside her, Jayra and Freya couldn’t help but chuckle as the two men promptly deflated both in spirit and in tension. It didn’t look like it, but it seemed that Darius’s words had actually worked.

“I suppose we managed to do that decently,” Gideon scratched the back of his head in an awkward smile. “But that’s just common sense at work.”

“Right,” Bartos nodded. “It’s always the first priority for the actual combatants to take the front.”

“Exactly,” Darius nodded. “You two did a remarkable job earlier.”

Xenia almost let out a laugh as the atmosphere around the table suddenly flipped. All of a sudden, it was as if nothing had even happened as Gideon and Bartos began to act as if they weren’t just busy muttering about defenses and such. And to her surprise, Jayra and Freya had suddenly left her side, having taken their respective places beside Bartos and Gideon respectively.

Looking at Jayra, however, she felt like she was missing something important.

“So, Xenia, how was your journey and training?”

Xenia blinked upon hearing the Queen Mother’s question. “It went fine, Queen Mother.”

“Good,” the older woman hummed in satisfaction. “I will assume that a bit more than training happened while you two were together. Can I expect grandchildren in the near future?”

Xenia almost choked on her water the moment she heard the Queen Mother’s teasing tone. While it wasn’t the usual way that Jayra or even Freya used on her, the older woman was definitely having fun with her reactions.

“I-We’ve made sure not to… well, have those yet,” Xenia weakly replied.

“Oh? Then how will you be a good Queen without having sired heirs yet?”

Xenia couldn’t help but blush as she bore the onslaught of the Queen Mother’s words. Looking around, she hoped that somebody would save her from the older woman’s teasing, only for her hopes to get dashed as she saw that practically everybody on the table was enjoying her awkward misery.

“I-It’s not time for such things yet,” Xenia stuttered as she did her best to defend herself. “I should at least be queen before thinking about such things?”

“Are you that confident that you’ll pass the trials then,” the Queen Mother musingly smiled at her. “I would hope so, seeing as you obviously trained much with my son.”

Xenia blushed even further. With the older woman stressing on the fact that she had ‘trained’ with Darius extensively, the innuendos were practically flying around the table as the atmosphere shifted once more. Looking at Darius, her mate was more than happy to let her stew under his mother’s grasp. There was just no escaping for her, it seemed.

“S-Shouldn’t we be talking about the fact that Jayra and Bartos are going to be married soon?” Xenia bravely tried to change the subject, picking up on the fact that her friend already completed the Mate Bond with Bartos according to the report sent to Darius during their training.

“Oh that…” Jayra blushed hard in confirmation. “It just happened, I guess. I’m happy that it did though.”.

“Well that was fast. I’m very happy to hear that good news,” Xenia’s eyes sparkled with excitement as she continued, “I also heard Bartos wanted to follow our customs and do a wedding ceremony, correct?”

“That was… kind of the plan at the moment,” Jayra shared. “We were planning to have our ceremony as soon as you and His Majesty’s returned.”

“That can be easily arranged,” Darius hummed.

Xenia couldn’t help the swell of joy building deep in her chest as she began to talk to her precious family in earnest. This was… This was great…

With her life already this great, the only thing left for her to do to make it perfect was to become queen.

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