Chapter 289: Topnotchers
Before long, Mineah arrived at Valcrez along with Nikolai. There was still a lot to be done, but she sincerely hoped that she had some time to try and relax before she had to leave for one of her many visitations again.
"Back to work, huh," she chuckled as she casually leaned on Nikolai’s sturdy frame. "If I knew being your queen would mean this much trouble, I probably would’ve just run away."
"You don’t mean that," Nikolai hummed as he stroked her hair. "You enjoy a bit of a challenge, right?"
"Unfortunately," Mineah sighed as she smiled at him. "Still, the moment we get some time to ourselves, we should get another vacation or something."
"I’ll agree to that," he chuckled back as he gave her a quick peck on her lips. "If it’ll get me away from those officials constantly whining about Zoran’s current stay in the palace, then maybe I’ll just take you up on that offer of running away."
Mineah laughed at that as they casually lounged in their shared office. She had heard of the many officials still complaining about how letting Zoran stay in the palace was a massive security risk for their kingdom. And while she agreed on some level, that wasn’t the case if they knew exactly what was going on. They were sure to only talk about redundant information whenever they were around the man, and even if they did talk openly in public, so long as the man was around, they would quickly talk about outdated information. That way, they’d be able to control the flow of information out of the palace to their advantage.
"They do know that we’re keeping Zoran under strict supervision, right?" Mineah scoffed.
"They know, but they still don’t like it," Nikolai shrugged. "Then again, I couldn’t really blame them. The man’s a known traitor. No matter how much he would try to convince them otherwise, it won’t be for a long while until some of them would even try to trust him."
Mineah shrugged as well before resting her head on her husband’s shoulder again. Some things never changed, she supposed. Trust was hard to regain after breaking it, and she could only hope that Zoran actually managed to do exactly that... assuming that he was sincere with his motives, of course.