Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
A passageway that was taking us to what his father, King Ares, but mostly his mother, Queen Elpis, had fashioned into state rooms.
Before Ares, there were few affairs of state.
There was war.
And there were clan clashes.
When those weren’t happening, there were celebrations, feasts, executions, games, parades and orgies.
There was still all of that, just not in the same abundance.
Save the celebrations, feasts, games, parades and orgies.
I heard my mother gasp, and I, too, was surprised when the servant didn’t take us all the way to the end of the hall, where the throne room was, but turned right, where the informal receiving room was.
“Mio re,” the servant muttered, bowing low at the waist.
I fell into a deep curtsy instantly, the side of my back leg flush to the floor, the knee of my forward leg tight to my stomach, my chin in my neck, my hands one over the other at my chest.
This was because Mars was lounging on the cushions of one of the divans under the burnished gold and vermilion, rich cream and olive-green drapings coming from a large, intricately carved chitai lamp hanging from the ceiling, crossing the room, and swathing the back wall.
“Salir, Farah, Sofia,” Mars murmured.
We gained our feet.
After just a glance from the king’s black eyes, the servant vanished.
Those eyes came to us.
“Come forward, my sisters,” he said.
My mother took my hand and we moved forward.
“None of that, little mother,” Mars said low, his attention to my mama. “I have passed my judgment. I learned at the foot of Ares. You spent much time with my father. You know better, no?”
“You did indeed, Your Grace, pass your judgment,” I said to take his attention from my mother, who I could now feel was trembling. “Which was exile. So I do hope you understand why we’re anxious as we thought never to see you or our Fire City or this great palace again.”
He dipped the long point of beard at his chin into his neck and I tried not to look farther, even if there was much to look at.
It was known throughout the land that Mars Laches, King of Firenze, was the finest warrior specimen in the realm.
His father had been that before him.
His grandfather had not.
Well-chosen wives mated to seasoned warrior kings over centuries was what lounged before me in a pair of cream silk, paneled ante pants and nothing else. His feet bare. His wide, heavily muscled chest on display. His shoulders so broad and developed, the sinews overtook his neck. His stomach defined to such an extent, you could pour a river of wine in the indentations and it would run without crawling up the swells.
Long black hair cut in layers from crown to falling down his back.
A small gold hoop piercing his left brow. Little gold balls on either side of the bridge of his nose. An upside-down arch of diminutive Firenz rubies between his nostrils. A tiny asscher cut ruby in the indent of the flesh above his lips. Stout gold hoops in his ears. And a narrow gold hoop in his upper ear, his right nostril and just above the right side at the corner of his top lip, waiting for his wedding chain.
“I can understand this confusion,” he said. “It is an important secret to keep, why you were summoned. And it will continue to be, for a time. But in that time, you must prepare.” He dipped his chin, this time to two stacks of long, colorful cushions set beyond the low rectangular table inset with an intricate design of mother of pearl that sat before his divan. “Sit.”
I led my mother to her cushions, and as she sunk to them, I let her go.
I then moved to mine and did the same.
“I forgot Your Grace, beautiful Farah,” Mars murmured.
I put my hand to my chest and bent my head. “Your kindness warms me, my king.”
At that, he roared with laughter.
My head shot up, I felt my eyes grow round, and I was too stunned by this response even to turn to my mother to assess hers.
Then again, Mars was always quick to laugh. He had a rousing sense of humor, both making you laugh (and laughing with you when he did) and finding a multitude of things amusing.
He was the easiest male I’d known in my life to be around. That laughter. The seriousness that would fall over his severe, but handsome face when you had something to say and he was listening. The tenderness that would invade his entire mammoth frame if he knew you were hurting.
It had been thus when he’d shared our sentence of exile, almost appearing as if it pained him more than it did us to strip us of all we had and all we knew, leaving us only with our names, before sending us away.