Lord Kaelen stumbled backward, his expensive silk robes dragging across the rough stone of the docks. His face, usually flushed with arrogance, was drained of all color. The sheer, suffocating gravity of Revista's presence had broken his pride in an instant.
"Get me up! Get me back to the ship!" Kaelen shrieked, his voice cracking as his terrified guards scrambled to pull him to his feet.
They practically dragged their lord up the velvet-lined ramp, abandoning any semblance of the dignified entrance they had planned just minutes before. The moment Kaelen's boots hit the wooden deck of his massive red-sailed ship, his fear rapidly twisted into humiliated rage.
He was a high lord of the Eastern Empire. He had never been brought to his knees by anyone other than the Emperor himself, let alone a banished princess and her pet monster in a kingdom he considered beneath him.
Kaelen leaned over the wooden railing of his ship, his face twisted in fury.
