“I think that would be good,” she murmured, then began to look uncertain. “Do we, erm, need to host an orgy in the garden?”
Mars started to chuckle as he pulled her up so they were face to face, doing this still holding her closely.
“For Miet, there will be a number of them throughout the city, the largest in the Heden District, and yes. It is tradition that Catrame Palace has one in the royal garden.”
“Oh faith,” she muttered.
“If you do not wish to do this, you are queen, Silence. This can be your decision. We can offer food and drink, and if they must, people can fuck behind the hedges.”
A giggle burst from her.
Mars stroked her back and smiled through her amusement, and only when it had waned, did he suggest, “How about we proceed with that plan, and if you change your mind, so be it.”
“That would be fine.”
“Mm,” he murmured.
“Mars?” she called.
“I am right here, piccolina,” he stated, again smiling at her.
“I love you very much.”
He was, indeed, right there.
But at her words, he was right there.
He could, of course, return her words.
However, Mars preferred to show it.
105
The Friends
Princess Serena
The Shanty, Notting Thicket
WODELL
She heard the noises outside the door, and thus had awakened on the pallet and was reaching for her steel star when the knock came.
There were seven knocks Brix and Gal had made her memorize, for they did not know who might be watching and did not want it to appear as if they had a secret code.
Thus, instead, they had seven secret codes.
They were most cautious, Brix and Gal, and she had to admit, good teachers.
Perhaps Chu would have gotten into such if they had taken on this task together.
But she would never know.
She took no chances regardless she knew it was the gnomes outside and had pushed off the blankets to sit up on her arse, had her star in her throwing hand, her dagger in her other for a quick switch if it was needed, when the door opened.
A human came in.
She tensed, until Brix called out, “It is fine. It is us.”
Only when she saw Brix and Gal both walk in around the tall man’s boots did she set aside her star in order to strike a match to put to the candle on the floor by her pallet.
Once she did that, the door closed.
The candle did not do much to dispel the murk in the room, but fortunately Brix and Gal wasted no time lighting those at the mantle and on the table.
And thus, Serena saw King Noctorno of Hawkvale standing there, now with the hood of his long, tatty cloak pushed back.
She had only been around him a few times.
However, even if he was dressed much like her (though he was cleaner, then again, she had now not bathed in weeks), his raw magnetism, his big body, the fierce expression on his handsome face made the dingy room they were in seem small.
Cassius Laird had that magnetism, that frame, that fierceness.
And he was Elena’s.
Chu had all the same, except his demeanor was cool and haughty and tremendously attractive.
She would never have said she was a female who had use for a male outside his cock.
In fact, she would laugh in the face of anyone who would suggest it.
She had been wrong.
She had been wrong before she even met Chu and learned how it felt to sleep in the arms of a man you felt affection for. Learned how it was to go about your business with the skills ingrained in you and the intelligence granted to you by the goddess and have a man look upon you with respect.
Learned how it was to have a partner and not be alone.
She now knew in some part of her, although she denied it, even fought it, she had always desired this.
But a man like King Noctorno would not be for her.
A man like Cassius Laird.
A man like Chu.
She shoved up to her feet, wishing she did not have a mind to her state, her smell, but she did.
“You need to eat,” Tor’s deep voice came her way.
“I am in disguise.”
“You still need to eat.”
“I need to embody my disguise.”
“No longer, True wants that building taken.”
She looked to Gal standing on the mantel, then to Brix on the table.
Both nodded.
She then returned her attention to Tor.
“It’s my understanding True has only one man covert in The Rising, and he is but a newly recruited soldier,” she said.
“We now have three, but they may not be needed. Because we also have names.”
They had names.
Bloody brilliant.
“True is positioning throughout his land and has sent word to Mars and Cassius for them to do the same,” Tor continued. “The best scenario would be that all strike at around the same time. As that would take some weeks to arrange, and we do not know what they are up to, True and Alfie have decided that we will move now. You need to eat and garner strength, for True wants you to command the taking of that building.”
True wanted her to do it.
Serena, the harridan of the Nadirii.
She did not want that to feel good.
But she could not deny it felt good.
“How many names?” Serena asked.
“We think enough that taking them, along with seizing that building and what we hope lies within, will be a blow from which it will be difficult for them to recover. Especially if Mars and Cassius move just as swiftly to disable other agents of this organization.”
“It could also serve to press them into action peremptorily,” she pointed out.
“Perhaps, but it is difficult for an army to act without its generals.”
This made sense.
Serena looked between Gal and Brix.
“Are you both in accordance with this strategy?” she asked.
They shot each other glances, seemingly surprised she asked, before Brix said to her, “It is the will of our king.”
Serena nodded and turned her eyes to Tor.
“When?” she queried.
“Three days hence,” Tor told her. “These priests are located throughout this realm. True has sent word, and now awaits birds and riders. But True needs to hold for confirmation all are in place to make arrests before we seize that building. Therefore, be advised, it might be longer.”
Serena nodded.
“In the meantime, keep watch and eat,” Tor ordered.
It was odd it did not chafe when, at his order, she nodded again.
“You’ll get the go ahead from Gal or Brix,” he said.
“Right,” she replied.
“Not long, Serena, and you can be away home.”
Home.
Why did the sun and green no longer appeal to her?
“Right,” she repeated.
“Until it’s over, be careful,” Tor warned.
“You as well,” she said.
He tipped up his chin her way then dipped it to Gal and Brix.
Pulling the hood over his handsome visage, he then moved to and through the door.
When it closed behind him, Gal asked, “What do you wish to break your fast?”
She had no appetite whatsoever.
“Whatever you can lay your hands on,” she mumbled, falling to her arse on the pallet and wondering, even on the somewhat thick mattress and under the definitely warm blankets Gal and Brix had provided, thus getting a sound sleep, why she still felt exhausted.
Brix dropped down from the table and walked to stand by where she sat, putting his fists to his hips.
“If all happens as True wishes, you will have time to make Airen for your sister’s wedding,” he informed her.
Elena wanted her nowhere n
ear at all, much less attending her wedding.
“That’d be good,” she said.
Gal had swung down from the mantel, and now he stood on the floor opposite Brix, her feet separating the two gnomes.
“She needs food,” Gal told Brix. “She’s been existing on grog for weeks.”
“She needs a kick in the arse and to open her mouth to share what is bothering her,” Brix returned.
“Nothing bothers me,” she lied.
“You lie,” Brix accused.
She fell fully to the pallet on a sigh, turning her back to them and muttering, “I just need more sleep. Then I will go back to my post.”
“Her arse is right there for me to kick,” Brix noted.
“You kick my arse, I’ll wring your gnome neck,” she told the wall.
“At least there’s some rise in her,” Brix said, not to her.
“Leave her be,” Gal retorted.
She closed her eyes.
“I will not. She is in pain. A pain that can be muted with words spoken, releasing some of it.”
She opened her eyes, partly in surprise he sensed this about her, partly in surprise he wished to do something about it, but mostly in disbelief that his assertion was correct.
“It can also be muted with time, my brother, give her more,” Gal said quietly.
“A friend does not let another friend wallow in pain, Galbdor.”
A friend?
“A friend does not push a friend further than they are willing to go either, Welbrix,” Gal retorted.
They thought they were…
Her friends?
She allowed herself to feel the warmth in her belly that brought.
And then she ignored it.
“I will note, you two here, arguing about me like I am not, no one guards that building,” she shared.
“Oh, right,” Brix muttered.
“You go, I’ll get Serena some food,” Gal said.
“A juicy steak,” Brix ordered for her.
“Nadirii do not eat meat,” Gal reminded him.
“Shite. I forgot.”
Serena ate meat.
And for the first time in days, her stomach rumbled.
She rolled toward them.
“Rare, with biscuits and butter,” she demanded.
“That’s more like it,” Brix stated tetchily, arms crossed on his little, but for his frame, wide chest.
“Don’t you have a troll to watch?” she asked.
He sent a glower her way before he turned on his boot and marched to the door. He swung up a rope attached to the wall beside the door for the purpose of allowing the gnomes to turn the handle, something he did.
And then he was gone.
“Steak, biscuits and butter,” Gal said, and she looked to him.
He was grinning.
“Coming right up,” he declared.
And then he was gone too.
106
The Missives
Queen Farah
Outside the Bedchamber of Sir Alfie, Birchlire Castle, Notting Thicket
WODELL
“I do not wish to speak of it.”
“Well, I wish to speak of it.”
“You need to be at your sticks, sir. And if you are too weary, then you need to be abed.”
“I am abed. I’ve been bloody abed for weeks.”
“You are not abed. You are sitting on the side of it.”
“For I am about to take up my sticks and move to that chair and sit in that and you will be here to make certain I manage this feat. But before the attempt, you’ll answer my question.”
“I am your nurse. My duties are seeing to your health, not enduring an interrogation.”
“It’s hardly an interrogation, asking you why you have not given up on me when I have been so unkind to you.”
“Again, I am a nurse.”
“That is not all it is.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is.”
“It is not.”
“It is.”
“Bronagh, answer me.”
“Fine! I do not give up because you are a hero!”
I listened very hard.
But there was only silence from Alfie.
Not from Bronagh.
“You gave so much in order to save the queen and you did it without thinking all that you’d give,” Bronagh stated. “And it could have been much worse. All over Wodell, people talk about the former king diving behind the pew. But not you. Not you. And they all talk about you too and what they say is that you are a hero. And they say it because it is true.”
More silence from Alfie.
“And…and…you’re annoyingly handsome,” Bronagh went on.
I smiled at the door I had my ear to.
“And I like your eyes and you have the most attractive hands I have ever seen,” she finished. “So there. You know why I have not given up on you. Now will you either lie abed or get on your sticks?”
Alfie finally spoke.
“Come here, Bronagh.”
My smile got bigger.
“I don’t…don’t think it would be proper if I did so, considering that look upon your face.”
I almost didn’t hear it when Alfie said quietly, “Please, Bronagh, come here.”
“My queen.”
I jumped in shock, my hand going to my leaping heart, and whirled at those two whispered words said behind me.
Helga stood there.
She looked to the door, then to me, the door and then she asked me, “My queen, are you…eavesdropping?”
Swiftly, I moved to her, hooked my elbow in hers and drew her down the hall.
“I just…” I searched for a lie. “Was making certain Sir Alfie was all right.”
Helga glanced over her shoulder worriedly. “Has he taken a turn?”
I hoped he was taking a turn.
“Not for the worse, no.”
“Good,” she murmured.
“Now, did you need me?” I asked.
“I do not know. I was…”
She stopped at the end of the hall and turned to me, thus I unhooked our arms.
“Well, I was clearing some things away of…of…Queen Mercy’s,” she shared.
I reached a hand to her arm and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry, Helga. It needn’t be you who does that. Would you like me—?”
“No, you see, I found these.” She reached into the pocket of her skirts and pulled out a set of folded missives tied in a green satin ribbon. “I have not read them.” She proffered them to me. “And it likely matters not now, as he is gone and good riddance. But they are letters she had intercepted. As I have not read them, I know not what they say. But she kept them, so I thought it best to give them to you and you can decide.”
I nodded again and took them from her. “Thank you, Helga. I’ll get them to True. If Queen Mercy did nothing with them, they probably are not of import. But we’ll let True decide, no?”
She nodded in return and bobbed a slight curtsy, gave me a smile, and started to move away.
I was going to make my trek to my study, which would take half the day in this big castle, but I did not move when Helga turned back.
“I am glad you and our king did not give up on him, Your Grace,” she said, jerking her chin down the hall toward Alfie’s room. “This world needs men like Sir Alfie.”
Wodell’s hero, indeed.
I smiled at her and agreed, “It absolutely does.”
Another bobbed curtsy and she scurried away.
I then decided to give Bronagh and Alfie some privacy considering what I hoped was happening in that room, and thus began the journey to my study.
In order to have something to do as I did this, I untied the ribbon on the letters and folded open the first parchment.
I skimmed it, and then opened the next.
I skimmed that, and on to the next.
It was on the fifth that I stopped dead in the hall.
But only for a moment.
Then I raced to find True.
107
The Healing
The People of Airen
Highgate (Eastern Gate into Sky Bay)
AIREN
Their arrival caused a stir.
No one in Sky Bay, indeed Airen, had seen such things.
And as such, and what it might mean, a soldier had been sent to the Sky Citadel with haste to share the news with the Prince Regent.
They did not get very far into the city, what with the crowds that gathered, and how very hostile the female was.
Although at first some tried to get close, eventually her aggression was such they had no choice but to give them a wide berth and wait for word from the Regent as to what to do with things so fantastical wandering into the Bay.
They had to have something to do with the Nadirii being amongst them.
Nothing that magical ever touched the soil of Airen before the Nadirii came.
It was with great surprise that anyone along the route to Highgate watched the Regent himself riding his steed Caelus like an angry troll dogged his heels, the prince’s black mantle billowing at his back.
His intended, the golden-haired Princess of Nadirii chased behind him, her cloak of purple floating out behind her, its brilliant color stark against the drab colors all around her.
Seeing it, some decided to paint the doors to their homes purple.
And others decided to buy their wives purple cloaks much like that.
Still others desired to rip it from the Nadirii’s neck and burn it.
And behind the Nadirii princess, Cassius’s lieutenants, and hers, and a cadre of others, all went clattering over the cobbles at breakneck speed.
The crowd that had gathered around the volatile female and the timid male was great.
But it parted instantly when the Regent, his intended and their band approached
But all of them reined in abruptly at what they saw in the opening of the center of the crowd.
The female unicorn brayed her warning at their approach and went up on her hind legs, flashing out with her front hooves threateningly.
The male sniggered and dipped its once proud head, sidestepping away from the wheeling horses.
The Dawn of the End Page 33
