Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
He shook his head. “I would need to heal, which would mean I would need to not make love to you and I’d wish a few days in our home, in our bed, before I am forced to abstain from that.”
“Agreed,” she stated immediately.
Mars exploded with laughter.
He felt her body shake beneath him with her giggles as he did so.
Unfortunately, when they were done, this interlude needed to be the same.
Thus, he kissed the giggles still at her lips, and then he pulled them both from the bed.
She went to her dressing room.
He went to his.
And Mars decided to tear down the wall between these two chambers.
But that would be for another day.
This day needed to be for something else.
“They’re unbreakable,” Lorenz said, standing at his side in the musty, torchlit chamber below the earth in the necropolis.
“Hmm,” Mars hummed, staring at the prone men chained to the stone floor before him.
“News of the loss of Mercy has traveled wide, Mars,” Lorenz carried on. “We have heard word of three Go’Doan temples in our realm that have been overrun. Looted. One burned.”
Mars kept his gaze steady on one of the men restrained on the floor, seeing a twitch in his cheek as he heard Lorenz’s words.
“The priests are scattered,” Lorenz continued. “We know not where. Rumor has it they are using tithes and trading relics to pay tribesmen for safe passage back to the Dome City.”
Mars raised his brows but did not shift his gaze. “You tell me this because you wish me to secure their temples?”
“I do not care about their temples. I tell you this because it might be Rising priests who are escaping our borders.”
“Hmm,” Mars hummed again.
“If we were to question them, I feel certain we’ll get useful information from the Go’Ella,” Lorenz went on.
Another twitch from the prisoner on the floor.
“Gather them,” Mars ordered.
The eyes of the man on the floor closed.
“Pardon?” Lorenz asked.
“Gather them for interrogation. All of them.”
“The Go’Ella?” Lorenz inquired.
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. If you can, find the ones that belonged to these men.” He swept an arm out to indicate the men on the floor, but he turned his attention to his captain. “Talk to your friend. If he knows, discover who they are, names, descriptions, and seek them. In the meantime, bring the ones that are currently serving priests in Fire City.”
“The Go’Doan will not like this,” Lorenz warned.
“They worship on my soil at my consent, but this gives them no rights. They are not Firenz. If they give you trouble, they have a choice. They either forfeit their Go’Ella for questioning, or they leave this land under guard, and they take nothing with them but the amount of coin that it would take to feed them and their mounts on their journey. No negotiation. One, or the other. See to it, my brother.”
Lorenz nodded and moved away.
Mars stood for a moment in contemplation of the prisoner of note.
He then walked to him where he rested, not terribly comfortably, chest down, legs bent, with a post behind knees that were spread wide, that post tied to his knees and his wrists, meaning his cheek rested against the stone. He could not move for his neck was collared, and it was there he was chained to the floor.
Basil had shared this was a favored position for him when he played in the Heden District.
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.