Chapter 66

“I’d like to know more about your father, Pelly. What was the late Emperor Kosh like?” Lucianne asked after she and Pellethia sat down on a wooden bench facing a large pond with a few papilionibus (singular: papilio) - small, blue-colored animals that each had the body of a bee and the wings of spring azure butterflies.

“Father was…strict and protective, like most fathers, I suppose. We lost mom when I was three and my governess brought me up after that. Father was often busy with royal duties,” her emerald eyes met Lucianne’s orbs. 

She continued, “He really liked you, Rosalie I mean, not as an intimate partner, but as a friend or, in his words, a trusted ally. He used to say that Rosalie was someone one could turn to for the cold, hard truth. She was the one who…made him