Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Wishes to be done with me. I can hear Maraline’s voice in my head, telling me to walk out the door. Maraline was always very staunch about not allowing men to waste her time, when they attempted to court her when we were teenagers. It was allowed because the Artifice considered it important for young people to develop social skills. If a young man was so much as two minutes late, she would decline to receive him.
She would be furious if this was to be her welcome to her new life. She would expect a banner of some sort, and a coterie of new friends, servants, and nobles. She would expect her husband to have met her at the airport. Gosh, she would be so disappointed.
I have grown up looking up to Maraline. She has always been my template for what a girl and then a woman should be. I hear her voice now, strident and irritated, telling me I should make the man pay for this absolute indignity. I am being treated like a courier with an unwanted parcel.
Having been left to my own devices, I decide to explore my new home. There are several doors and archways leading off the foyer. I take my first left and find my way into a sitting room of sorts. There’s a lot of black leather and polished black granite here. It’s a sitting room for people you do not want to sit down at all. We have one of those at our home too. My mother had a specific list of people who were always to be shown into that space.
I pass through the sitting room and find myself in a little back corridor, not accessible from the main foyer, but leading to a bathroom. I go into the bathroom. It, like everything else, is sleek and black and low-lit. There is a large mirror, however, full length with an ornate floral carved frame that seems just a hair out of place for this house. I reach out and touch it with the instinct of someone who has grown up in a fine old mansion, pressing one of the rosettes that is just slightly out of place. There is a satisfying click and the mirror swings open.
I forget all about being married, being in another country, waiting to meet my husband. I’ve just found a secret passage. Short steps lead up at a sharp vertical angle. I go up them quietly, shutting the mirror behind me. I am cast in darkness, but I know that nobody puts a good secret staircase in without providing a little in the way of ambient lighting.
I can hear voices, and I can see a little light coming from further up. There is a standing platform just off the staircase, and two little holes to look through. Oh, I know what this is. My great-great-uncle Norton used to love putting these into the house. In Addle Manor there are dozens of these.
I can’t quite see much of anything. Whoever installed this must have put it in as an amusement, or perhaps the room was laid out differently before. I can hear though, the voice of a man speaking in a broad State accent. His voice is deep and full of irritated gravitas.
“They are advancing on the front again. I should be deployed. I should have been deployed six months ago.”
Someone replies. I can’t tell if they’re in the room, or speaking through some kind of distance device.
“The Artifice hasn’t allowed it. You are matched. You need to mate with your new bride, bond with her. At some point, you have to allow the others to do the work of war, Arthur.”
At that moment, there is a tap at the door.
“Come!” the first voice barks.
Lydia enters the room. I can see her standing inside the doorway, which she has left open.
“Your bride is waiting to meet you, Archon-General.”
That gravelly voice growls in surprise. “She’s here? Already? I thought she was coming next week.”
“It is next week, sir. At least with regards to her arrival. She is waiting for you in the foyer. It might be best to attend to her; she is rather timid and overwhelmed.”
I know I am timid and overwhelmed, but there is something that feels very different about having someone else say it about you when you are not in the room.
“Eh… eh…”
Oh, no. I’m going to sneeze.
The worst thing about sneezing is that you get almost no notice that it is going to happen before it happens.
I slap my hand over my face, but the urge to sneeze is stronger and faster than I am.
“Ehhhhh-choo!”
I sneeze a spectacular sneeze, the largest sneeze of my life, and possibly the noisiest sneeze of all time.
Their reactions are incredibly fast, and an absolute credit to them. The portrait I am standing behind is whipped open like a door. I must have been leaning against it, using it to balance, because the moment it swings open, I tumble out, head over heels, my skirts getting tangled up over my head for a brief moment.