With the mods and MHT's Approval, I am starting thread for each of the chapters so people can remain spoiler free if they wish!
“The pharaoh,” Bade said.
“Of Orina Anoris,” Vade said.
A few minutes passed in baffled silence.
“The pharaoh,” Vade said.
“Of Orina Anoris,” Bade said.
A bug crawled across the granite step beneath their feet, taking its time in traveling behind Vade’s boots.
In search of a reassuring point, Bade offered, “He’s very wealthy.”
“And very powerful,” Vade said somewhat dubiously, not sounding comforted at all.
“Immensely powerful,” Bade agreed. He wanted to consider that to be a good thing, a selling point, but in his gut, it made him uneasy. Nosupolis was small and rather poor, all things considered, while Orina Anoris was the oldest, wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world. Bade would only reach the throne if his older brother, Tiko, met with an unfortunate and sudden end, while Anosukinom, the pharaoh of Orina Anoris, was the most powerful man alive.
“Especially if he really can raise the sun,” Vade said.
“That can’t possibly be true.” Everyone knew that only a god could move the sun.
“To them, it’s reality,” Vade argued. “Do you want to live in a country where all of the citizens believe that their pharaoh makes the sun rise and set? They believe that their pharaoh is a god, that their pharaoh’s siblings are children of gods, that-”
“People here believe that stepping on three spiders before midnight is good luck,” Bade said. “All it’s ever given me is a mess to clean up.”
“They think that he sets fires with his mind and breathes underwater,” Vade continued, ignoring his comments. “They say that when he cries, it rains.”
“He’s powerful, wealthy, and beloved,” Bade said. He might as well defend the pharaoh now; he had to get used to the idea. Besides, Vade was only bringing up Orina Anoris’s eccentricities to be irritating; normally, they both found what they knew of that country to be fascinating, if mysterious. “I imagine that he’s intelligent and well-educated. His brother is charming and very handsome.”
“Prince Orinakin?” Vade asked. “He has purple hair. Purple hair, Bade, he has purple hair. And purple eyes. Have you ever seen anyone with purple hair? Have you ever heard of anyone having purple hair?”
No, but it was a captivating sight.
