And it was then I noticed he was no longer wearing his.
“I—”
“This I like,” he decreed. “Of a night, every night, if we retire together, and even if we don’t, I shall come up with you and take your chain and you shall take mine.”
I was surprised.
“You don’t wear them to bed?”
He smiled tenderly at me. “No, my Silence. They would catch on pillows and might cause harm. We will wear them when we make love. We will remove them after.”
As this was the thornier subject I had intended to broach, the fact I didn’t wish to do that tonight, I felt my heart start beating harder, and Mars surely felt it too, as I was lying atop him. But, with some expertise, he unhooked the chain at my lip and upper ear and carefully unthreaded it from the hoops.
He then set it aside on his nightstand, and I gasped when he immediately rolled me—and rolled over me—but he did this to blow out the lamp on the other side of the bed. He rolled us again and he blew the lamp out there.
Directly after, he pulled the hides and silks out from under us. He drew them over us and arranged our bodies so mine was in the curve of his, my bottom in his lap, my back pressed to his chest, the backs of my legs riding the fronts of his thighs.
He held me close at the waist and I felt his breath stir the hair on the top of my head.
I had never—in my life—slept thus with anyone.
And it was…
It felt…
Lovely.
I stared into the dark and heard a lone female laugh drifting up from the gardens below.
Someone was dallying.
“Sleep, Silence,” Mars said into my hair.
But I was no longer sleepy.
“Did you see to it that Tril had a special place to watch our ceremony?” I asked in order to confirm my earlier thought.
He squeezed me with his arm lightly and then it relaxed.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes tight.
And saw the inside of the necropolis and all that had happened there in a grisly flash.
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.
Therefore, I did not get up.
I laid in bed and let my mind float on the chilly numbness that had overtaken me.
And this was my state when True came again just now, likely to check on me before bidding me goodnight.
I did not care he was there. I did not care that the celebrations were over for the noise outside was abating. I did not care that my country had a new queen. I did not care that in but days, we would be leaving my land to travel to a place I’d never been, never wanted to go, this so I could wed its future king, a man who did not want me, but had no choice but to have me.
I simply did not care.
About anything.
As these thoughts drifted through my mind, I realized that True had entered my room some minutes ago, but he had not approached the bed.
But I did not care enough to lift my head to see where he was.
I just stared at nothing as the lamplight danced in the room.
And I continued to do so when it started to dim as True moved about the room, extinguishing it.
Though something stirred in me when I felt the bedcovers behind me move.
And something else stirred when I felt the sensation of a body hitting the mattress.
Last, I felt my own body grow taut when my intended fitted himself to my back and snaked an arm around my belly.
This was highly unlike True.
I knew he wished to comfort me.
However…
“True—”
“Quiet.”
I blinked into the dark at his word and the tone he’d used to utter it.
He pulled me tighter to his warmth. Warmth that was, first, very warm, and second, I could tell he did not have his usual clothing on. Shirt. Trousers. Waistcoat. Obviously no boots as he was under the silks with me.
I didn’t know what he wore for I had my nightgown on.
But I could feel skin against skin at my shoulders.
He was silent for a long time and I thought he was going to sleep.
I was surprised he intended to sleep with me.
But apparently, he did.
Though, I was wrong about him being asleep for he spoke again.
“Tomorrow, you will eat. You may lie in bed. You may keep others away, except me. But you will eat, is this understood, Farah?”
Now I was surprised he was being domineering.
He’d never been domineering.
His arm gave me a shake.
“Farah?”
“Tomorrow, I will eat,” I said simply to say what he wished to hear.
“Elpis is making arrangements for your mother’s death ceremony. If you wish to be involved in that, you’ll need to say so and I will make certain that your wishes are adhered to.”
“What is Elpis planning?” I asked.
“I’ve no idea. Do you wish to know?”
I felt a flare of anger at such an offensive question and snapped, “Of course I do.”
“Then I shall bring Elpis to you tomorrow, you will share how we’ll say our final goodbyes to Sofia, and I’ll see to it that your wishes are seen to.”
“Thank you.”
“After that,” he went on as if I didn’t speak, “after tomorrow, you must get up. You must take fresh air. You must have activity. You will, of course, continue to grieve. But it is not healthy hiding in the dark, lying abed.”
I had no reply to that.
“After your father’s actions, your mother carried on,” he remarked, and my anger flared again, hotter this time. “She continued to live. She looked after you.”
“It is not your right to say such things,” I retorted. “Things you know nothing about. She did not endure that and what came after then lose her daughter.”
“I did not know her well, this is true, but can you say with a hint of honesty that she would be fine with her daughter lying abed and feeling sorry for herself?”
I twisted my neck to look at him, and as I did, his head came up to look down at me through the shadows.
“If it pleases you, Your Grace, she’s been dead only a day,” I began sarcastically. “May I feel sorry for myself for a day without having to endure a prince’s lecture?”
“Farah,” he growled, and at his tone, one I’d never heard from him, I stared in shock through the dark as his face got closer to mine and the timbre of his voice remained just as aggravated, “if you call me ‘Your Grace’ one more time…”
He let that trail.
“What?” I snapped.
“It will hurt me, and it will harm us. I am not that to you. It did not start that way between us and it will never be that way between us, unless you make it so.”
I shut my mouth.
I opened it again to state, “You have no idea how this feels. Until, and may the gods make this time long, you lose your own mother, as far as I’m concerned, you have nothing to say on the matter of how I grieve my own.”
“Even when Queen Mercy dies, I will not feel the same as you,” he retorted. “I have great love for my mother, and she me, but we never shared warmth. She is queen and I am to be king and for as long as I remember, she treated me entirely in the manner she saw fitted the rearing of the next king. It was not my father who saw to my schooling, the depth of it, the breadth of it, the concentration of it, and the expectation I should excel at it. It was my mother. It was not my father who saw to my military training, it was my mother. It was not my father who demanded from when I was age nine that I attend tribunals, disputes, and when my father sat as magistrate. It was my mother. And it was my mother, after, who whispered in my ear what decisions she felt were right, or those that were wrong, and eventually asked me how I felt and made me defend my positions.”
I lay there, still, staring into his face, astonished by this.
Also fascinated.
And lastly, saddened.
“If I were sent into exile, and my mother went with me,” True continued, “she would not help me to build the new life we would need to build and then set about living it. She would plot and she would connive to find a way that we were both, especially me, put back in our rightful place. Even if it meant her, or my, death. So I do not know warmth and smiles and understanding from my mother. When she dies, I will miss her. I will mourn her. I will forever be grateful that she spent so much energy crafting me into the honorable and just king I hope to become. I did not have what I saw you had from your mother. Though if I did, one thing I know, I would miss it more.”
“True,” I whispered.
His arm around me disappeared in order that he could wrap his fingers around the side of my neck.
“And you will not be the queen my mother is,” True whispered back harshly. “I will see to it there will be no need for that to become you. You will provide our children with smiles and warmth and understanding. You will be the mother your mother was. And that way, she will live on through you. There will be peace and joy and family in the royal quarters of Birchlire Castle. That will be my gift to you. And that will be your gift to Sofia. But I cannot give it, and you will not have it, if I am Your Grace. I am your betrothed, Farah. I’ll be your husband. The father of your children. Those come first. And the last will always be your king.”
I was lying beside him in the dark, unmoving, and yet breathing as if I was running.
“You must feel your sorrow, sweets, of course,” he said in a softer tone. “It is an honor to your mother. But I do not know what we face. We’ve barely left this palace and we’ve had two casualties—”
“Two?” I interrupted him to ask.
“Aramus lost a man.”
I didn’t know that.
“Oh no,” I said quietly.
“Yes, Farah,” he replied, now stroking my throat with his thumb. “There will be times when you will need to be weak, and I will be strong. There will be times when that’s the other way around. But we have no idea what we’re going to face. So when you are weak, I will persist in helping you to find your strength. And I will need you to do the same for me.”
“I miss her,” I blurted.
“Farah,” he whispered, his hand coming up to cup my jaw.
My voice was getting thicker. “I ca-cannot believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, like it did today, and I-I will not s-see her.”
“Darling,” he murmured.
“I-I d-do not wish to c-cry again,” I stated before a sob forced its way up my throat.
True turned me in his arms and pulled me close, gliding his fingers through my hair as I wept into his bare chest.
“I’m angry,” I sobbed into his skin.
“Of course you are.”
“At Elpis. At my father. At whoever sent those snakes. At everyone.”
“You’ve the right.”
“And…and, my chest…it burns,
True. The pain is…if I allow myself to think on it, it’s unbearable.”
“Weep, sweets, that may help put out the fire,” he urged.
“I hate the world,” I told him.
“As you should, the world is behaving like it hates you.”
At these words, I let out a snagged laugh and tipped my head back to look at him.
His hand came to my cheek and he ran a thumb over the wet.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Because you need me.”
“In bed?” I pushed.
“Farah, you will not sleep alone for the rest of your days.”
I felt my lips part.
I wouldn’t?
“There are forces at work,” he carried on. “And you will not be unguarded. Even in sleep. After we best those, you will be my wife. So naturally you will not be alone in sleep for you’ll sleep at my side.”
“But…now?”
“Yes, now.”
“It is not very…Dellish of you to lay with the woman who is to be your wife before she’s your wife, is it?”
“I know many a Dellish man who, in understanding their women, wives or no, are under threat, they would be abed with them too.”
“Oh,” I mumbled.
“Have you slept too much today and so you’re awake now without hope of sleep?” he asked.
“I…well, I don’t know. I’ve been feeling too sorry for myself to think what else I might be feeling,” I admitted.
He tucked my face back into his chest and murmured, “Then try, for I’m weary. If you find you cannot sleep, don’t descend into maudlin thoughts. Wake me. We will go find food, or wine, or both. Or simply talk until you’re sleepy.”
“I couldn’t wake you,” I muttered in return.
“If you do not, and I wake in the morn, and you are haggard from spending a sleepless night, I will be cross.”
I continued to mutter. “I wouldn’t wish to make you cross.”
“Then don’t.”
I closed my eyes.
Peace and joy and family in the royal quarters of Birchlire Castle.
My mother would never see that. Never know it. Never meet my children.
And True wanted that, wanted it from me. Not as his love, his life, a woman he had chosen for his own to be at his side the rest of his days.
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