Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
I opened my eyes.
“That was very kind,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
“You will have more friends,” he decreed. “You will have a fuller life. You will be revered by our people. You will be cherished in our home. But she will always be yours, the only thing of worth you brought from your country of birth. And thus, she earned where she stood this eve.”
Without me willing it to do so, my body pushed back into his.
When it did, his arm again tightened, and he leaned into me so he was partially covering me.
He was so big. So warm.
Another hundred men could come surging through the windows, and in that moment, I felt not a one of them would get near me.
That was lovely too.
“Now sleep,” he urged.
“You are very…skilled with your sword,” I noted. “This being so, how did you get those scars on your face?”
“Silence?”
“Yes?”
“My queen.” He squeezed me again, this time hard. “Sleep.”
Oh dear.
Was that a sensitive subject?
Had I mucked things up?
“Do you not want to, erm…talk about that?”
“No. I will share anything with you. I will tell you all you wish to know about me. You but need to ask, and it’s yours. Though in the now, I want you to sleep, and I do it hoping you do not move much while in slumber, as if you do, we’ll both be hopelessly caught up in satin and I’ll likely have to call for my sword to slice through it to extricate us.”
I giggled.
“Thank the gods,” he whispered in a manner that I did not think he was referring to gratitude he’d made me laugh.
Therefore, I asked, “What?”
“This morning you were not yourself,” he answered. “It troubled me. All day, you were withdrawn. And it was not simply that you were weary, grieving Sofia, or times were trying. It seemed your light was out.” He fell deeper into me so I was nearly buried under him. “But your light is not out. And for that, I thank the gods.”
I’d tried but knew I had not fully hidden where my mind was all day, this being everywhere and none of it was good.
I did not know I had “a light.”
I found it both promising and disconcerting that he was as attuned to me as he was.
And simply lovely he thought I had “a light.”
“You’re not sleeping,” Mars noted.
“Well—”
“Your arse is in my groin. Your perfume in my nostrils. Our time in this bed last night fresh in my mind.” He gave me yet another squeeze, this time with a warning. “You need to sleep, Silence.”
Yes.
One could say with that warning I did, indeed, need to find sleep.
“All right, Mars,” I muttered, sighed, and closed my eyes.
I tried to even my breathing.
I tried to still my mind.
I thought I accomplished the first, but I did not accomplish the last.
So I focused on the Mars who made sure Tril was seen to during the most important occasion in my life. I focused on how very proud he was to claim me as his queen. I focused on the fact he did not like shadows under my eyes and wanted to devote himself to a lifetime of making me laugh. I focused on him telling me I would have a full life and be cherished. I focused on the fact that we were in our marital bed hours after I’d been made his wife, and he was holding me and admonishing me to sleep because he wanted me to have rest.
And doing that, being in the arms of that Mars, I fell asleep.
40
The Trembling
Farah
Guest Suite, Second Floor, East Corridor, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
I was not asleep when True came back.
Again.
He had returned repeatedly that day.
However, since the morning, he had not spoken to me except, after he returned from the necropolis, he asked if I’d had some luncheon.
I had not and told him this.
He’d looked disapproving, but he didn’t press the matter.
Mars had come as well, after True had left.
His visit was brief, and he’d said only two things while standing by my bed looking down at me.
“Do not get up.”
And.
“Sofia will be avenged, my little sister.”
The red was in his eyes, but it warred with the heartache on his face.
Even seeing that, I felt no better.
It was not that I wanted him to hurt. Obviously, I did not for I didn’t want anyone to hurt, especially Mars and especially why he was hurting.
It was just that a curious cold had stolen over me and I was beginning to feel like I would never feel anything.
Not ever again.
I had heard the cheers floating to the palace from the city. I’d heard the revelry at the palace after Mars and Silence returned.
But I had no interest even to rouse myself to open a window and look down in hopes of catching my king and my new queen celebrating their marriage.