Chapter 126: The Palace Life
Zane~
The walls of the palace were too clean. Too polished. Too... sterile. Like a glass coffin lined in gold, all luxury and no life. It had only been four days since I arrived, but each minute stretched like a taut string, threatening to snap. The hallways echoed my steps too loudly, the stares burned into my back, and the silence screamed louder than any roar.
I was used to boardrooms, private jets, and sharp suits. Not ceremonial robes, long corridors that smelled of polished mahogany, and guards who looked at me like I’d crawled out of the sewer. They didn’t see Zane Anderson Moor, heir to the throne. They saw Cole Lucky—the billionaire CEO who had no business walking the king’s halls. And those who didn’t know me as either? They saw a stranger. A nobody. A threat.
Even the guards murmured when they thought I couldn’t hear. "Why him?" "Who is that?" "He doesn’t even bow to the king." I wanted to punch a few of them. Red wanted to tear a few apart.
"Let me out. Just for five minutes," Red growled in my mind more than once.
"You’ll rip someone’s face off."
"Exactly."
"Not helpful, Red."
The king, my father—though I was still adjusting to using the word—was no help. He made things worse.
"Zane," he said on my second day, while I was trying to disappear behind a column, "you’ll accompany me to every meeting from now on."
I blinked at him. "Why?"