Riding Into the Break of Dawn

The ride back to the manor was filled with tension. Most of it coming from Aleksander glaring at the window as he watched the castle fade away in the distance.

"You need to work on your temper, husband," Elys stated the obvious. "You were lucky your father hadn't ordered you head served at the banquet the instant you opened your mouth back there."

"He knew what was coming to him," came Aleksander's reply. "Even before he casted his magic on me, he already knew what was on my mind just by looking at me."

"Still," Elys insisted, "you can't expect to win over people with such an attitude. If you were as charming as you had pretended you were at the beginning of the party, we would have been able to stay and burn other nobles with their dirty secrets like we did with the Ravinias."