Mars could see that, but he had no taste for it.
He would like his Silence in somewhat this same position, but without the posts and chains.
“What will your Go’Ella share with us when we find them, priest?” he asked quietly.
The man said nothing.
Mars did not share in the silence.
“I have always been most curious, how these women come to you, doing it when their circumstances are dire, and you offer them succor in return for using them as you see fit,” Mars remarked. “Thus, to me, it is not a surprise, this offshoot of the Go’Doan. You all have it in you to feel you have the right to take what you will from people in need. I suspect it will be illuminating, when we have the opportunity to speak with them, what they will share.”
Weakly, the man mumbled, “Long live The Rising.”
“Hmm,” Mars hummed as he straightened and strode away.
The servant came quickly to him as he reined in his mount, Hephaestus, at the steps of the palace.
He threw his leg over his horse’s rump, patted the steed’s neck, and handed the straps to the servant before he strolled up the steps toward the doors.
The palace overseer came directly to him as he entered.
“I have placed the barons in the throne room, my king,” the man said in Firenzii.
These clan barons, five of them, had journeyed to Fire City upon hearing all that was happening, and demanded an audience with their king at his earliest convenience upon his return.
Which Mars had deemed was now.
He nodded, strode through the vestibule, turning left to head to his throne room.
He took but two steps before he stopped short and saw nothing but red.
This was because, at the far end of the hall, at the opened doors to his throne room, stood his wife peering around the doorjamb, a hazy shimmer all about her.
She’d pulled her shadow over her.
And she was spying.
His blood coursing hot through his veins, he stalked down the hall. The sounds of his boots hitting the floor were stifled by the thick rugs, and his queen was so involved in her occupation, she did not sense him until the last minute.
When she did, she turned, looked up at him, began to smile, but halted in offering that to him when she caught a look at his face.
“Go to our chambers, now,” he whispered.
“Mars, I—”
“You will go, or I will find a man to escort you, and I will instruct him to lock you in.”
Her head jerked in surprise and her expression began to shift again but he did not have the patience to deal with whatever it would become.
“Do not try me, Silence. Go.” He drew in a deep breath and finished, “Now.”
She took in his face, hers settled to impassive, before she moved around him.
The shimmer remained about her as there were guards stationed down that hall and it might be strange to see their king appearing to be conversing with nothing, but it would be far stranger, watching their queen form out of thin air.
As such, Silence hurried down the hall.
He watched her, still controlling his breathing, before he moved into the room where the barons awaited him.
Mars took his throne. He shared news they needed to hear regarding what had happened in Wodell and what was happening in Firenze. He answered questions, including ones put to him about the state of Farah, for the baron of her clan was there.
The man seemed concerned but was mollified at hearing Mars report she was not only now the Queen of Wodell, but also the Dellish were most enamored of her, though not nearly as much as her new king.
He then cut the meeting short and left the men in the room as he walked out, his strides long but unhurried, his deep inward and outward breaths his main focus.
However, he took the steps of the staircase three at a time and wasted no more of it as he moved down the hall to his and his queen’s chambers.
He entered them, their large bath before him, and he looked right to their bedchamber.
He then looked left to their sitting room and saw her standing at the side of his desk on the far end.
He walked into the room, distractedly noting that she and her maid Tril had concocted yet another remarkable gown that was not the bejeweled brassiere and waistband above sheers that fell over her legs that was worn by the female Firenz.
Instead, it was a filmy creation in a shade of apricot that covered only one shoulder in an elegant gathering of material, leaving the other bare, and it had a deep slit up one side of the hem that would expose her leg as she walked.
Her hair was caught up in a graceful bunch of curls at the back, the front adorned with thin braids across her crown.
This was not Firenz.
It was not Dellish.
It was Silence.
And it was stunning.
He had no mind to that. He would pay mind to it later.
Now, he had his mind on one thing.
He stopped five feet from her and asked, “What did you think you were doing?”
She opened her mouth but shut it when he lifted his hand, palm her way and shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I do not care. Don’t do it again.”
“But, Mars—” she began, and at her sweet, quiet voice, one of the myriad things he loved about her, one of the myriad things he would miss unrelentingly if she was taken from him, he lost the control he had been carefully holding when red again covered his vision as his blood scoured through his veins.
Thus, he leaned her way and thundered, “Do not ever do it again!”
She stood motionless before him, her eyes locked to his.
“I cannot even begin to entertain how fucking, bloody foolish that was,” he bit. “What if one of them could see through your shadow?”
“They could not,” she said quietly.
“And you know this?”
She lifted her chin. “I tested it.”
He fisted his hands at these words, not about to entertain thoughts on how she’d done that either.
“Do not do it again,” he growled.
His wife did not speak.
“Did you hear me, Silence?” he demanded.
“It would be hard not to, my king, for you shouted it at me,” she returned.
“I did indeed, for I had been kind earlier. It wasn’t foolish, Silence, it was stupid. And it was stupid because it was dangerous, and it was unnecessary. There is naught those men would say to each other in that chamber that I would need to know.”
“Not that you know of,” she retorted.
“Silence,” he gritted between his teeth.
“You told me yourself they are not all allies, and in times such as these, we need allies,” she shared. “But more, we need to understand who are not allies.”
“And it will be I, the fucking king, who will establish alliances, Silence. And it will be I, the fucking king, who will determine who is not.”
“Right,” she whispered.
“And if you were found out,” he kept at her, “spying on my barons, it would be detrimental to me making such alliances.”
“I have been using my shadow for many years, my king.”
“And you will not use it again for reasons I do not permit, my queen.”
At this, she blinked.
“Right,” she again whispered. “Are we finished?”
“Silence—”
“We are finished,” she decreed.
She then moved to him only to walk by him, but he was not in accord that they were finished, thus he reached out and caught her arm.
She tugged at it viciously at the same time she snapped, “Take your hand from me.”
He instantly yielded, letting her go, a pit forming in his stomach for she had not shirked his touch. Not once since they had learned to communicate, and shortly after, shared their love for one another.
She took three steps from him, placing herself out of his reach.
She then said, “In hearing these barons were in the city, awaiting an audience with you, one you granted them this day, I asked a special meal to be prepared. Thus, I intended to invite them and their wives to dine with us this eve. As you did not know these were my plans, I can only assume you did not extend this invitation.”
His mother would extend the same invitation, for even if he and his wife had been back in their home not a full day, and thus might (and did) wish time alone, it was not only the right thing to do, it was the strategic thing to do.
“I did not but I will have my secretary send a messenger to them and share I was remiss in this and rectify that mistake,” he replied.
She nodded, before she turned, continuing to move away, saying, “Elpis’s secretary shared I have much correspondence to catch up on. Now, I shall see about doing that.”
“Bellezza,” he called.
She stopped at the doorway to their bathing room but spoke no words as she turned and caught his gaze.
“You must understand the strength of my desire to protect you,” he stated.
“I do, for I would assume it is much the same as the strength of my desire to offer the same to you,” she returned.
And with these parting words, his queen swept from their chambers.
It would seem his Silence was intent on doing what she had shared was her most fervent wish, outside being a good wife, and when that time came, a good mother.
This being a good queen.
For during dinner that eve with his barons and their wives, although she was not effusively chatty, for she was not this naturally, she was attentive to all, including him.
Her lips often curved in smiles that appeared genuine, even aimed toward him. And she allowed him to hold her hand, and she held his in return. Indeed, she did not move away from his touch in the slightest, at her elbow, at the small of her back.
And she launched her brand of charm offensive by calling for their pet monkey after dinner and allowing Piccola to scamper and entertain. But mostly she did this as she openly shared her affection for the animal, which would win over even Mars’s most staunch detractor, or at least it would win them over to Silence, for Firenz had a deep affinity for all animals. Indeed, they considered those taken as pets to be as important to a family as children.
No, it was after the men and women separated—the men to take in smoke or taibac and consume cognac and whiskey, the women to do the same, but with sherry or brandy in another room—when he escorted the men to their wives to take their leave, that he was told that Silence’s maid had called her away on a matter of some import and she had said her farewells earlier.
She had not been called away on a matter of import.
She was escaping him.
Mars detested when she did as such, but he had had some hours to consider his reaction to what she had done earlier. And although he did not think he was wrong in his concerns, he perhaps had not shared them as he should have done.
Thus, he bid his own farewells, and for the second time that day, he wasted none of it going to the chambers he shared with his wife in order to explain he had come to this conclusion in an effort to work through their quarrel.
When he arrived, he saw the lights were dimmed in all but their bedchamber, and thus, he headed there.
Silence was not abed, but hearing him arrive, Piccola scurried out of her dressing room, found a piece of furniture to climb and launched herself at him.
He caught the wee monkey and allowed her to scuttle up his shirt in order to hang onto the side of his neck as he moved to his wife’s dressing room.
He pushed aside the sheers that covered the doorway.
His queen was seated with her back to him, wearing a nightgown he had a feeling he would like very much, for he already did only seeing one side of it, and Tril was at work, brushing her gleaming hair.
Tril gave him wide eyes.
Mars shook his head to her and cast his gaze to the back of his wife’s head.
“The barons have left,” he announced.
“All right,” Silence replied tonelessly, not turning to look at him.
Tril kept brushing, now averting her eyes and biting her lip.
Mars fought back a sigh and shared, “I shall meet you in bed.”
“Yes,” was all Silence said.
He turned, taking Piccola with him to his own dressing room where their pet had to release him so Mars could disrobe and put on his silk sleeping pants.
This he did, and then he entered their bedchamber, fell to his back on their bed, his shoulders and head against the headboard.
He folded his hands behind his head but took one away to stroke Piccola’s back when she curled in a ball on his stomach just above his navel.
She was tired out, their baby, from all the activity and attention of the night.
He thought this, aiming his eyes to Silence’s dressing room.
No murmur of conversation came from there, but it took a frustrating amount of time for his queen to emerge from behind the sheers with Tril following her.
And at one sight of his wife, Mars’s body turned to stone.
This was not because her nightgown wasn’t fetching.
It very much was.
It was because her marital chain was gone.
Tril swiftly made her way about the room, blowing out lamps, though she did not approach the bed to blow out the ones glowing at each side.
And when she started to make her way back to the dressing room, through which was a door to her room, she called Piccola, who did not want to leave her papa. But animals had instincts and the mood in the room was far from lost on their wee one.
Thus, the monkey scuttled away.
Through this, Silence had made the journey slowly to her side of the bed. She’d thrown back the silks and had sat her arse on the side in preparation to fully enter it.
“You will not lie down in our bed.”
It did not elude Mars’s notice, the rumbling quality of his voice.
It did not elude his wife’s either, for she turned to look over her shoulder at him.
“Come around to this side,” he ordered.
“My king, I am tired.”
It struck him then that, even in company, from the moment he’d shouted at her, she had not addressed him as anything but “my king.”
“Come around to this side,” he repeated.
“Perhaps we can—”
“Do it.”
In the now, his tone brooked no argument, and although she appeared for a moment as if she would disagree with that notion, she did not.
She stood and walked to his side of the bed.
As she did, he sat up and twisted so he was seated with his legs splayed wide.
When she was before him, he commanded, “Come here,” explaining “here” by pointing at the floor between his feet.
Silence hesitated but moved there.
He did not touch her.
What he did was tilt his head to look at her.
“It was not so long ago, no? Not so long ago when I removed my wedding chain even though we had promised always to remove one another’s before sleep,” he reminded her.
“It was not so long ago,” she replied. “No.”
That was all she said.
Mars felt that pit that had developed in his stomach earlier start to burn.
“Therefore, it was not so long ago you felt what I am feeling right now,” he continued.
“You’re right. It was not so long ago.”
And again, that was all she said.
He did not have vast reserves in this situation, but he gathered what patience he could muster. And he did this primarily because of what he said next.
“It was much I shared with you this morning,” he told her softly. “It was bad timing. Not my timing, I will remind you. But bad, for we had both been away long, and there was much to see to, and due to that, I could not see to you after sharing what had to be confusing and upsetti
ng news.”
“I have had time to think on it during the day, my king.”
My king.
Mars clenched his teeth.
“And I will admit to a bevy of emotion felt throughout this day,” she carried on. “Including upset and concern, that mostly for my mother, and anger, that mostly for my father. But in the end, I found you were right. It explains a great many things in my life as pertains to my place in the house where I was raised. So, although I am not unaware that these emotions will likely careen for some time, I feel strong in saying that I will settle on simply being relieved that I was unloved not because I was unlovable, but my father is the man he is.”
Her words made the burn in his stomach dim and a tightness form in his chest.
“You are definitely not unlovable, my Silence,” he murmured.
“No, I am not. For Tril loves me and always has. Nearly from the moment we met, we have been friends. And True loves me and has shown that to me for as far back as I can remember. And even though you were also right, not only about the ugly nature of my father, but the weak one of my mother, she loved me as well, as much as he would let her.”
She missed somebody.
“And I love you too,” he reminded her.
“Yes,” she replied without conviction.
He clenched his teeth, reached out and took her hands in his.
She tugged slightly, but he held strong, feeling a vein pulse in his temple at her attempted retreat.
“Much has happened in the time we have been together, but we are still new, amore,” he stated as patiently as he could. “We must not lose sight of that as we navigate these early times in our marriage.”
“Agreed.”
At least she granted that.
Mars endeavored to take heart in it and carried on.
“Thus, I will admit to perhaps not communicating my concerns earlier as I should have done.”
“Perhaps,” she replied, a bite to that word not sharing she concurred with what he’d said, instead disliking he’d used that word.
“Silence—”
“You treated me like him,” she accused, and Mars again went stone still. “You called me stupid. You have no use for me, my king, except one. His was to marry me to the husband that best suited his stature. Yours is in this bed.”
The Dawn of the End Page 25
