I pulled back the silks, slid in, stretched to blow out the lamp beside the bed, casting the room dark, and then wiggled, at length and hopefully irritatingly, into the mattress and pillows to find the best comfort.
Cassius’s deep voice sounded into the dark.
“Your movements, along with the smell of you, the vision of you in your brief nightgown and your proximity, are making me hard.”
I ceased moving immediately.
“Just so you will not be surprised in future,” he went on, “we shall be sleeping together from now on.”
That made me turn his way.
“What?” I cried. “For the goddess’s sake, why?”
“Peace of mind.”
“It won’t give me peace of mind.”
“You’ll get used to it,” he muttered.
I clenched my teeth.
“Go to sleep, Elena,” he ordered.
“The only reason I’m not throwing you out bodily right now is because I, too, am fatigued. But after tonight, I won’t be sleeping with you, Cassius.”
“We’ll discuss this in the morning.”
“We won’t.”
“We will. Now sleep.”
“You cannot order me to sleep. And we won’t!”
Suddenly his hand was wrapped around the back of my neck, I was across the silks and pressed to the length of his frame, his hand still at my neck, his other arm wrapped tight around me.
“I would have you safe,” he gritted.
Oh heavens.
We were here again.
I’d brought him here again.
Regrettably.
I held my breath as he carried on.
“And I will keep you safe how I see fit, woman, no matter how you argue, if you fight. I will not lose you. Dora will not lose you. When she meets you and becomes attached to you, Aelia will not lose you. I’ll see to it. Is this understood?”
“Cassius,” I started cautiously, “I think we need to talk.”
“In the morning and along the bloody trek to Notting Thicket. We’ll have fucking weeks to come to some accord, my princess. And this we’ll fucking do. And not only to have an accord, but for there to be a time, hopefully very soon, where I’ll do a variety of other vastly more enjoyable things with you when we’re abed. But now…sleep.”
I felt it prudent at that moment to give in.
So I did and I did it saying, “All right. Now, will you let me go?”
“No.”
I stared at his shadowed jaw. “No?”
That jaw tipped down and I caught his eyes through the darkness.
“No,” he confirmed.
“Cassius—”
“Elena, you feel good and you feel alive. Give me that without a bloody argument. Especially tonight. I beg you, please.”
I felt alive.
Unlike, very obviously, his dead wife.
I closed my mouth.
Thoughts tumbled through my head, the most imperative of which was what happened between us that morning.
Therefore, I opened my mouth.
“I should have thought things through…er, this morning,” I declared. “Discussed those issues with a clearer head and without anger.”
“Yes, you should have,” he agreed.
Hmm.
“Though I’ll state now we should discuss those eventually and have an understanding.”
His chin tipped back but his hand at my neck moved so he could wrap his arm around my shoulders, and both arms squeezed as he muttered to the headboard, “Oh for the gods’ sakes.”
“I’m simply saying—”
His chin tipped down again. “I heard you. Now bloody sleep.”
“But tomorrow, are we going to—?”
“Elena, you can be quiet and sleep or I’ll kiss you quiet then I’ll kiss you elsewhere in a way you will not be quiet, but you won’t be speaking words, at least not lucidly, and after, we’ll both sleep. My guess, most thoroughly.”
I fell quiet.
It was then, it occurred to me I’d never lain in the arms of a man.
Well, I had, after Cassius and my activities at the fountain.
But not in a bed.
He felt good too. Solid. Warm.
Good goddess.
I was quite certain there was no way I’d find slumber, but I’d had very little of it the night before, a full day, and he was warm.
His arms were also strong, even lying abed.
I’d relaxed into him after sliding an arm around his waist (for comfort only) when he muttered, “Too bloody good.”
“Sorry?” I mumbled.
“You feel.”
I blinked repeatedly at his chest.
He stroked my back and I could not deny it, it felt marvelous.
“Go to sleep, my princess,” he murmured.
“You’re very annoying,” I told him.
“As are you. The perfect match,” he returned.
I sighed.
But within minutes, I fell asleep.
Not long after, Cassius followed me.
And not long after that, four lovers abed in each other’s arms, the earth trembled.
41
The Reinforcements
Dax Lahn
Residence of the Dax, Korwahn
KORWAHK, THE SOUTHLANDS
“We have to cross the Green Sea,” Circe, his beloved Dahksahna, was informing him.
“We will not be crossing the Green Sea,” he returned.
“We really should cross the Green Sea,” Queen Cora of the country of Hawkvale in The Northlands mumbled.
Lahn heard a deep sigh and turned his eyes to King Noctorno, Cora’s husband, Lahn’s friend, who was standing, leaning his shoulders against the wall and looking what Lahn felt.
Beleaguered.
The sun shining through the windows, they were in what Circe called their “family room.”
None of them had taken a cushion on the floor. All of them were standing.
Mostly because their conversation was annoying, and it was clear the women did not intend to give in.
Which made their conversation all the more annoying.
“I’m having visions, Lahn,” Circe told him something she’d told him a number of times before, once the tremors of the earth started a few months ago, getting stronger each time.
Though Circe had told him she’d felt them even before, when he had not.
However, he did not hold magic, and his wife did.
“We are not crossing the Green Sea,” he reiterated, staring directly into the eyes of his queen.
“I have a bad feeling, Tor,” Cora said to her husband.
“You have mentioned that, my love,” Tor muttered, and when Lahn looked his way, he saw Tor spear his wife with a glance. “Repeatedly.”
“Well?” Cora threw up both her hands.
“I thought bringing you down here for a visit with our friends would take your mind off things,” Tor returned. “Apparently, it has not.”
“Did you feel the quake this morning?” she demanded.
Tor had. They all had.
It meant nothing.
Or Lahn hoped to his Tiger god it meant nothing.
“And anyway, you didn’t come down here just so I could hang with Circe,” Cora continued, using the kind of vernacular Lahn’s queen did, something none of the women from that other world had lost, even after the years slid by where they remained where they were meant to be.
In this world with the men who loved them.
“You came to trade Valerian steel for Korwahkian jewels,” Cora finished.
“There was also that,” Tor muttered, his lips twitching.
“Lahn,” Circe said quietly, and his gaze went to his wife.
Not a single measure of beauty had she lost in all these years.
In truth, his golden queen was more beautiful today than she’d ever been.
And tomorrow, as he knew from experience, she’d be even more beautiful.
&
nbsp; “Circe,” he said quietly as well, “that voyage is treacherous, and we will not be taking it. I am sorry, kah rahna fauna, I simply cannot allow either of us to risk it.”
“But—” she tried.
“No.”
“You can’t—”
He took a chance, one that rarely to never worked, and stated resolutely, “I have spoken.”
It wasn’t going to work this time. He knew it when her face grew hard.
“I—” she began.
She said no more as they all turned their attention when Jacanda, Circe’s closest maid, came rushing in and skidded to a halt.
“I can’t…you don’t…you won’t believe…it’s fantastical…” She drew in a deep breath and cried, “The roof!” and then she rushed out.
All moved after her.
Lahn’s and Tor’s legs were longer, but that didn’t mean there was not some jostling as the men tried to keep their women belowstairs while they made their way to the roof.
But when Lahn alighted at the top, he saw all of Circe’s servants standing there, gaping toward the Majestic Rim of Korwahn.
He turned and looked that way as well.
Then he felt his frame grow solid and his jaw get tight.
Tor stopped beside him and muttered, “Bloody hell.”
“Holy crap,” Cora breathed.
“See?” Circe asked, and Lahn knew this was addressed to him.
Dax Lahn, the warrior king of Korwahk, drew a sharp breath into his nose as he stared at the enormous dragon sitting on the grand, rocky ledge of the Majestic Rim, its powerful tail drifting idly, its forked tongue could be seen lolling even from their distance, its scales and wings glistening in the sun.
Its message clear.
Fucking Frey.
As if noting they’d made the roof and saw it, the dragon’s mighty haunches bunched, and it soared gracefully into the air, great rocks falling from the rim at the power of that beast taking flight.
With only a few flaps of its wings, it was gone from sight.
“I suppose we sail the Green Sea,” he said to Tor under his breath.
“Bloody hell,” Tor repeated.
Frey Drakkar
Aboard The Finnie, 300 Miles East of Mar-el
THE GREEN SEA
Frey, standing on the deck of his galleon, his head tipped back, took his eyes from the dragon’s approach, the beast naturally falling into formation with all the others that soared above the ship.
He turned his gaze to the man who had come to stand beside him.
“I take it that means the message has been delivered,” Apollo noted, also gazing at the night sky.
“Yes,” Frey confirmed.
Apollo looked to him.
“Bloody things can fly fast,” he said. “Too bad we can’t put Tor and Lahn on the back of one. They’d be here now.”
Viktor had tried riding one of their dragons once.
Once.
“They’re not fond of passengers,” Frey replied.
“How much chance do you think Lahn and Tor have of convincing Circe and Cora to remain behind?”
“Are Finnie and Maddie right now in my quarters, drinking ale and playing tuble with my men?” he asked as answer.
Apollo sighed.
“None,” Frey finally answered him. “None at all. The queens will be in attendance.” His voice lowered. “All the women will.”
The men fell silent.
Apollo broke it.
“I do not have good feelings, Frey,” he said quietly.
Frey didn’t either.
The Finnie had survived the swell that had caught them late last night, but barely. They’d almost capsized and took on so much water, the men had been bailing it from belowdecks all day.
He’d have his dragons, Apollo’s tactical skills, Tor’s significant talents with a horse and a blade and Lahn’s sheer brute strength, not to mention the combined women’s magic.
But he would not have the elves. They did not leave the realm of Lunwyn.
And they faced an unknown enemy that, if myth proved true, was unstoppable.
“Let’s get past this first obstacle,” he muttered. “We enter pirate waters.”
“Fantastic,” Apollo replied.
“The flag of the Drakkar holds some power, even here, and especially with the beasts above us. We’ll sail past Mar-el and make Airen.”
“At least there’s that,” Apollo said.
Yes.
At least there was that.
Frey tipped his head back to study the bulk of the beasts that flew above, blotting out the moon, the strong flapping of their wings having been the constant accompaniment of their journey.
And at least they had them.
“We were not beaten before, we will not be beaten this time,” Frey declared.
“I hope you’re right, Frey,” Apollo returned. “I very much hope you’re right.”
The Finnie sailed through the waves.
The dragons flapped overhead.
And as they did, Frey hoped he was right as well.
42
The Vision
Marian
Lesser Thicket Forest
WODELL
As with the times before, it took no effort to talk her Go’En, G’Ry, into allowing Marian to “visit her sick mother.”
Marian’s mother was indeed sick.
In the head.
And she was thus in a way Marian never wished to see her again.
She did not even know if the woman was still alive.
Though, she hoped she was not.
Ry didn’t need to know any of that, and even if she shared it, he probably wouldn’t listen.
Her Go’En was a Go’Nis, a Keeper of the Records. He was elderly. Stooped. Quite bald. Spotted all over with age. And he spent his days bent over tomes, carefully recording news about Triton so that it was beautifully calligraphied (and later would be sent to a Go’Nis who drew in illustrations or ornamentation around chapters and subheadings).
He was thoughtful and quiet and preferred solitude.
He expected his Go’Ella to draw his baths, clean his clothes, tidy his cell, cook and bring him food, remove the tray after, and sometimes sit and listen when he told stories of the history of Triton or spoke the latest news he was recording.
She liked doing this. It was perfect before finding her pallet of an eve. After Ry did this, she went right to sleep.
He wasn’t like her former Go’En, a Go’Tec who thought his shite smelled of gardenias.
It did not, and she knew this because she oft found herself with the duty of cleaning his privy.
This if she did not suck his cock precisely to his liking. Or did not moan as he desired and share how virile and handsome he was (he was neither) while he pumped away at her.
Not terribly sadly, her former Go’En had come to an untimely demise. The other Go’En were still scratching their heads about it. A thirty-nine-year-old high priest simply slumping over his breakfast one morning, dead.
For Marian, it had taken months of poisoning his wine, small doses of concentrated taibac that she steadily increased so he’d get used to the flavor, and then finally, his heart stopped.
That had been a good day.
Not simply because he was gone, a fact that was good enough on its own, but because she, as with her fellow Go’Ella who served him, went to the cloisters for three months of solitude to “grieve.”
That had been the best three months of her life.
Serving Ry was not terrible.
It was just that her time was not her own. Her actions hers to decide. When she would sleep, eat, bathe, what she would read, having time to teach herself the things she needed to know instead of catching snatches to herself and away from her fellow Go’Ella to perform her rituals and test her instincts.
Idyllic.
So much so, she considered killing Ry as well.
However, she suspected questions would be asked as she was
his only Go’Ella who’d also served the other one.
Regardless, G’Ry was seventy-two years old. Time would do that duty, and likely not take much of it.
There was also the fact she’d grown rather fond of him.
Though, none of that mattered any longer.
The quakes were occurring and Ry had been decidedly loquacious about those.
And as he was dedicated to the act of recording history, he had an active interest in the subject. So when Marian asked questions, no matter how many, he answered.
At length.
And when Marian asked to read the tomes about the Beast, he’d been surprised, but he’d readily, even giddily procured them for her.
Often, he’d have to wait, as others were poring over them to try to understand the tremors.
But as Ry shared he would be doing that too, they’d handed them over with little complaint, and she, and he, had pored over them as well, spending quite some time doing this and discussing what they thought about it.
So she knew.
She knew everything.
Which meant many months ago, her mother suddenly became most poorly, necessitating Marian request a leave of absence to go visit her in order to tend her.
These visits happened regularly.
After the quakes.
Ry did not put this together.
G’Fenn, who was too clever for his own good, and too prying, as well as far too interfering, had asked some questions when he’d been visiting Ry on an eve that was an eve after a similar eve G’Fenn had been visiting, which was prior to her leaving in the morn to visit her mother.
Directly after a quake.
But Ry had shooed off his queries and did so with rather an unusual vigor.
Then again, no Go’Doan priest liked when another questioned what he did with his Go’Ella.
Apparently, Ry was no different.
It was actually unusual for any priest that he let her go without an escort…or at all.
In one of the very few fortunate occurrences in her entire life, Marian had a Go’En who did not question her request. He simply granted it.
It was even more fortunate now.
In this time of greatness.
Marian read this as what the visions she was seeing in her meditations and bowl readings and colorful dreams were telling her.
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