"Five days?!" I shrieked.
I didn't even have time to process the words before a wave of pure, hormonal panic crashed over me. I burst into tears, the kind of messy, ugly sobbing that makes your nose turn bright red and your chest heave.
"I haven't finished the drainage blueprints!" I wailed into my hands. "The marketplace is a construction zone! The palace still smells like wet limestone! And I look like... like a sick whale!"
Thalor looked absolutely terrified. He hovered over me, his hands fluttering as he tried to figure out where to touch without making it worse. "No, no, Arinya! My father doesn't care about the stone! He's coming because he's ecstatic! He thinks you're a goddess for carrying a sea-heir on land!"
"I don't feel like a goddess!" I barked through a sob, then immediately gagged because the smell of the forest breeze coming through the window suddenly felt 'too green'. "I feel like a science experiment gone wrong!"
