Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
I felt my lips part.
I wouldn’t?
“There are forces at work,” he carried on. “And you will not be unguarded. Even in sleep. After we best those, you will be my wife. So naturally you will not be alone in sleep for you’ll sleep at my side.”
“But…now?”
“Yes, now.”
“It is not very…Dellish of you to lay with the woman who is to be your wife before she’s your wife, is it?”
“I know many a Dellish man who, in understanding their women, wives or no, are under threat, they would be abed with them too.”
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“Have you slept too much today and so you’re awake now without hope of sleep?” he asked.
“I…well, I don’t know. I’ve been feeling too sorry for myself to think what else I might be feeling,” I admitted.
He tucked my face back into his chest and murmured, “Then try, for I’m weary. If you find you cannot sleep, don’t descend into maudlin thoughts. Wake me. We will go find food, or wine, or both. Or simply talk until you’re sleepy.”
“I couldn’t wake you,” I muttered in return.
“If you do not, and I wake in the morn, and you are haggard from spending a sleepless night, I will be cross.”
I continued to mutter. “I wouldn’t wish to make you cross.”
“Then don’t.”
I closed my eyes.
Peace and joy and family in the royal quarters of Birchlire Castle.
My mother would never see that. Never know it. Never meet my children.
And True wanted that, wanted it from me. Not as his love, his life, a woman he had chosen for his own to be at his side the rest of his days.
Instead, as friends. As partners.
He wished us to love our family and support each other through whatever befell us.
Through this, however, I would never belong to him. With my mother gone, I would never belong to anyone.
But in thinking on it, I decided this wouldn’t be so bad.
It could be worse.
And I knew one thing, if True could, he’d always try to make it better.
It just would never be…everything.
“Farah?” True called as if he knew the turn of my thoughts.
“I’ll wake you if I can’t sleep, True.”
“All right, love,” he murmured, rounding me with both arms and holding me to his body.
True did not fall asleep quickly.
I did not either.
But he fell asleep.
And when he did, his presence, his warmth, the steadiness of his breath…
Meant I did too.
King Aramus
Guest Suite, Second Floor, East Corridor, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
Aramus approached the bed his wife lay in, her back to his side of the mattress, the lamp at her nightstand blown out.
He did not sigh with discouragement.
He also did not hesitate.
He blew out his lamp and slid in beside his wife.
He then turned to his side and slid toward his wife, for the first time touching her in their bed by taking her in his arms. He then forced her rigid body into the curve of his.
“I was upset earlier,” he said into her curls when he settled with his arm holding her close.
She made no reply.
“I spoke in hurt and anger,” he admitted.
Ha-Lah said nothing.
“I said things, many of them I regret,” he told her.
His queen remained silent.
“Deeply,” he stressed.
She still had nothing to say.
“And the things I regret, deeply, are the things I said that hurt you.”
She still had no reply.
He pressed closer to her. “Wife, speak to me. Shout at me. Curse at me. Scratch at my eyes. Something.”
There was nothing but a stiff form in his arm, and in his nose, the scent of the oil in her hair.
“We began to bridge the chasm separating us,” he murmured. “Do not let pride force it to spread between us again.”
“I was taken from my home,” she said softly.
Thank Medusa.
She was speaking.
She’d said not a word to him since that morning.
Aramus pushed ever closer to her, at the same time pulling her closer to him.
“I was taken from my family, my friends, my village, all that I knew,” she continued.
And now, if her tone was aught to go by, he was learning how she felt about that.
Not the optimal time, considering. Especially with the words she was saying and how she was saying them.
But he would be glad to know it.
“My wife,” he whispered.
“I was not asked if this was something I wished. I was given no choice. I was then wed to a man. A king. The ultimate power in our realm. I was made queen. But I held no power. I had no voice.”
It was Aramus who was quiet then.
“But even without it, I used it,” she carried on. “I used my voice. I told you my thoughts. I told you what was important to me. You did not listen.”
“Ha-Lah—”
“You railed at me and left me to sleep alone on my wedding night. I should not have minded. It was not my choice to be in that marital chamber. But it was the only wedding night I would have. And I slept alone.”