Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
He opened his eyes and cupped her cheek with his hand, settling into the gift he’d just received that his father had seen his wife.
And could share that Mars had earned his pride.
She smiled tremulously up at him.
“Aramus,” Medusa called. “Mars. One more thing. Please approach.”
He dropped his hand from Silence and looked to the goddess.
He then moved her way as Aramus came from the other end to do the same.
Medusa stood.
Triton sighed with what sounded like displeasure.
Medusa shot him a look that was definitely displeasure.
She then turned her beatific gaze to the two kings.
“You love mermaids,” she stated.
“Indeed,” Aramus replied.
“Yes,” Mars stated.
“Very much,” Medusa said quietly, watching them closely.
“Indeed,” Aramus replied.
“Yes,” Mars stated.
“So be it,” she said, then swept her hand in a line up her front before she regained her seat.
But she did this as Mars felt an odd sensation occurring under his jaw on either side of his neck.
“You will not transform,” Medusa informed them. “You love a Mer, but you are not Mer. But you do not have to hold your tridents or another Mer to join your loves as they swim in The Deep.”
Mars’s body locked.
If this was true, when she frolicked in her (other) home, he would not have to wait for Silence’s return.
And he would not have to worry.
“We can breathe on our own under the sea?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “And please, my Fire King, take her to see her brother often. They will miss each other if you don’t.”
“This I will do,” he rumbled.
“You can go back to your wives,” she murmured.
When he turned, he saw Silence was beaming.
He grinned at her as he moved over the sand.
She flung herself in his arms the instant he got close.
He wrapped his arms about her and lifted her off her feet.
“Can we be done with this now?” Triton’s voice boomed low, and bored.
“I wasn’t threatening and forbidding, making my kings and queens, princes and princess avoid keeping me company,” Medusa returned as Mars set Silence on her feet and they returned their attention to the gods, Mars now holding his wife’s hand. “I enjoy visitors,” she finished.
“You always did,” he muttered.
“Yes, I always did,” she snapped.
“Perhaps we can argue without an audience,” Triton suggested.
“And you make this suggestion to rid us of our audience,” she retorted.
Triton sighed.
Medusa shifted her gaze about the women, declaring, “Marriage is difficult, my queens. Stay hearty.”
Mars heard female laughter along with Silence’s giggle.
He, however, was not thinking good thoughts about quarreling gods.
They’d learned that lesson surely enough.
“And I suppose you should go. We are grateful for your visit, even if one of us is very bad at showing it and…” Medusa’s voice dropped, “I hope you now see we are most grateful for other things besides.”
With this, Jorie, who was standing off to the side, jerked his chin up to them and led the way back down the velvety beach.
He entered the water.
His mighty tail formed.
Silence and Mars entered the water behind him.
Her beautiful tail formed.
But, holding tight to his trident in one hand, Silence’s hand in his other, as Mars ducked under and kicked toward the tunnel, he felt the difference.
Before, it was as if his breath was suspended.
Now, however it occurred, after an odd ripple at his neck, he breathed freely.
He felt Silence’s attention and turned his head toward her.
Through the water he saw her smiling happily.
And thus, Mars swum toward the depths at his wife’s side.
Doing this contentedly.
Johan Mattson, Former Lord of the Arbor
The Shanty, Notting Thicket
WODELL
“I wuz…” he slurred, “I wuz landed and my daughter is a queen.”
The man shoved at his head which made Johan tumble from his chair.
“Bugger off, arsehole,” he said, pushing his own chair back, walking away, and in the doing, kicking Johan’s face, accidentally, or on purpose, Johan did not know.
And as he forgot it happened but moments after it did, it did not matter.
“I wuz landed,” he drunkenly told the floor. “And my daughter is a queen.”
No one heard because no one was listening.
Johan didn’t say it again.
Because he’d passed out.
Eventually, the pub owner, checking his pockets and finding nothing in them, even if the man had totted up a hefty tab at the bar, took his boots and cloak as payment, and tossed him out the back.
By morning, in an alley in the Shanty, Johan of the Arbor had frozen to death.
One of the city guard who did the pickup in the Shanty that now, at King True’s order, sent the mugs to the city morgue whereupon their descriptions were printed in the paper for three days before they were given a pauper’s pyre, if they went unclaimed, recognized the dead man.
He’d seen him outside the Temple of Wohden on his great king’s wedding day, all dressed up in a lord’s finery.
He informed Birchlire Castle of his finding.