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 didn’t want him to beg.
I wanted what I could not have.
I wanted to go back to how we were when we first met when he was but a beautiful man who made me feel beautiful too for the first time in my life and the promise of us was and always would be just…us.
“Now,” he kept speaking, “I must consider my options. In considering these, I’ve realized those options are limited, which is something I do not like. But I will need to select one, and as matters as they are between us are vexing, I’ll need to do that in short order. In the meantime, I’ll protect you as best I can, by limiting your time with your father. And I’ll protect our marriage, such as it is, by limiting your time with Kyril.”
“Kyril is just a friend,” I shared.
“Kyril is not your friend,” he retorted. “He is a Trusted One. His life is yours. But more, his life is mine. Do not misconstrue who he is to you, Silence. He is your guard and I’ll allow a rapport. If I do not like where that goes, he will cease being one of the premier soldiers of his realm and will spend the rest of his enlistment cleaning latrines.”
I gasped.
Mars had one response to my stunned surprise.
He turned his back to me, slapped the tent open and strode out.
I stood, watching the flap settle into place, feeling a heat in my eyes and a prickle in my throat.
Now, in a way, my husband was taking my father from me and I felt not a vague sense of alarm for my father had made mention Mars intended to do just that.
And Kyril, who I felt was becoming a friend, was for all intents and purposes lost to me too.
I had few friends and Mars knew that.
It just seemed now, in a kingly pique, he did not care.
On our wedding night, he had told me he wanted to fill my life with laughter.
He was failing spectacularly at that and doing so without much of an effort to succeed.
And for all those reasons, and a number more, I felt like weeping.
However, I could not do that.
I was queen.
Queens did not weep.
Queens carried on.
And sadly, this made me need to weep all the more.
I did not do that.
I went to the tent flap, peeked out and saw Basil there.
I asked him to send for Tril.
I needed to prepare for bed in order to attempt to sleep in preparation for taking on another day as wife of Mars Laches.
But mostly as Queen of Firenze.
I had left the lamps glowing on the squat tables on either side of our bed for Mars’s return.
But I was abed, in my nightgown, one that Tril brought with a stubbornness that was disquieting, which meant it was one Tril refused to go back to my trunk in her tent to exchange for another that was more to my liking.
Not that I didn’t like it. It was beautiful.
A bodice made entirely of lace (and thus you could see through it, not completely, but you didn’t have to look hard get a clear-ish picture) with a skirt that fell to my knees, was somewhat sheer, but provided full coverage. That was, it did in the sense of material. The slits at the front of either leg went all the way up to some satin bows at the edge of the lace at either hip, and they exposed a good deal.
If I moved, that good deal was everything.
It was mauve.
The color complimented my skin.
It was nothing of the like I’d ever worn before I was married.
The lace was a bit scratchy so it wasn’t all that comfortable.
And it was an invitation I did not want to give.
Tril, who was less patient with the distance growing between Mars and I than Kyril was, essentially demanded her queen wear it.
However, for Tril, I was not queen.
I was instead, and always would be, Silence. Tril was my only true friend and had been the only one I could faithfully count on my entire life.
Thus, half fearing Mars would return before we were done, and half not wanting to have an argument with another being who meant something to me, I’d donned it.
And wearing it, I had one more obstacle to climb before being able to go to sleep so I could be refreshed to take on whatever came on the morrow.
That obstacle had arrived, I knew, when I heard the tent flap open.
I lay in bed, my back to Mars’s side, and I did it with my entire body tense.
I heard him moving about. I heard his leathers drop to the rugs. I heard the swish of him pulling on the silks he slept in. And finally, I felt the mattress shift as he laid his great bulk on it.