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)
Mars said nothing.
“They should have bitched…to their fires…and got drunk…in their taverns,” Nero said through his teeth. “For Cassius Laird unleashed about something he gives a shite about, they will curse for eternity their decision to force his hand this day.”
Mars continued to say nothing, for he knew this to be true.
“Before,” Nero carried on, “he was fighting for what was right, but mostly he was fighting because Ellie believed in it, and he’d shift the stars for her. But now…”
Mars nodded.
Nero continued to release it.
“Otho was his brother. Tone was his brother. And she was a pain in his arse, but he loved Jazz. But that is not what makes Cassius. For Cassius, it is not about what he wants or needs or feels. Thus, it is not that her loss hurt him. It is that her loss hurt Mac. It hurt Elena. And they will know how he feels about that.”
“You’ve lost today as well, Nero,” Mars noted cautiously.
“They’re going to know how I feel about it, too,” Nero bit, turned and strode away.
Mars watched him go even after he disappeared from sight.
Not long later, Cassius came out of the tent, but Mac did not.
“I am uncertain, mio amico, it is good you leave him in there with Tone,” Mars noted.
“He asked to stay. He will not be at Tone’s burial. He wants to take Jazz soon. He will wait for the brothers who shroud so I can go about my business and talk to Ellie. And then he will seek Hera and prepare to transport Jasmine and Rose.”
Mars nodded and fell in step with Cassius as his friend began to move down the line of tents.
He’d forgotten about their shrouding ritual. How only some, who had been trained in the proper procedure of soaking the dressings in herbal liniments, before cleansing and wrapping their dead in them as soon as possible after death, could prepare a body for burial.
It was a process of caring that Mars always found surprising, considering Airen was not known as a caring land.
He felt, if there was care, it should be shown while the one you cared about was breathing.
He also felt it was somehow apropos, that the Airenzian only showed this after death.
“The Nadirii lost twenty-two, eighty injured. Thirty-eight Airenzian fell, fifty-four injured. The Zees are still assessing amongst tribes. Fern’s women—”
“You do not have to report to me now,” Mars interrupted him, though he did it thinking something Cassius never would.
From what he had seen, that number of losses for his side in that conflict were actually very low.
“I’m abolishing our feudal system,” Cass decreed of a sudden.
Mars was so stunned at his words, he stopped them walking.
“Lords stripped of titles and lands,” Cassius went on. “Castles will be claimed by the Regency and given to the citizens of my kingdom. They will be made into schools, hospitals, orphanages or colleges at my behest. Peasants will be awarded ownership of the land they work. If you eat, you earn the food you put in your mouth. You don’t take it off another’s back. If you own a home or a plot, you pay for that too. You don’t languish in the spoils your forebears earned taking up arms for a king four hundred bloody years ago.”
Nero was right.
They would regret, for generations to come—indeed until what once was, was lost to history—they would regret causing anyone Cassius loved to feel pain.
“This is great change, Cass,” Mars murmured.
“This will be, Mars. They had to pay women a decent wage, keep their bloody hands off them, and let them go to school. None of this is asking much, except for them to be decent human beings. They will see that decision would have been the wise one to take. But they will see it too late.”
“You will have our swords,” Mars told him something he already knew.
And because it was, Cassius did not address that.
He asked, “How did you get here so quickly?”
“We had help from your unicorn, Sky. And True had help from his mare.”
“Star,” Cass said.
Mars beat back a smile, for this name was unsurprising, as named by Cass.
“Star,” he said.
“And they…what?” Cassius queried.
“They took us through an ether, Cass. I do not know. I was in bloody Wodell this morning, and now I am here.”
Cassius had no response to that, indeed, it seemed to take him far away, and Mars let him go there until he felt it necessary to bring him back.
“You did not use Frey’s dragons,” he noted.
“I did not wish to incinerate twelve thousand men I did not know, some who may be confused, or easily persuaded, or coerced, or caught up in the frenzy at the beginning of dissension, so they know not, truly, what they are fighting for.”
Mars would not have made the same decision, but he did not share that. Cass’s heart had always been softer than Mars’s, even if he was adept at hiding it was.