“I don’t understand.”
“Faunus has called for you. You have declined.”
Tedrey looked back to the street.
“Tedrey, I will have your eyes,” Lorenz demanded.
He looked again to the warrior.
“You are healed and it’s my understanding that this is the fourth time Faunus has called on you and you have refused,” Lorenz stated.
Tedrey straightened in his seat. “If you wish to use me—”
“Stop speaking.”
At the annoyed disappointment Tedrey heard in his voice, he went quiet.
“Do you still have pain?” Lorenz asked.
Tedrey shook his head.
“Do you concern yourself with the appearance of your scars?”
Tedrey again looked to the road.
“Tedrey.”
His name came closer and it was said lower, with sadness, and warmth, thus Tedrey turned his head yet again, tipped it back, and saw Lorenz but a foot from him, gazing down upon him, his expression gentle.
“Faunus knows of your injuries, and he still asks for you,” Lorenz reminded him.
“It’s insignificant,” Tedrey replied.
He watched Lorenz’s brows draw together. “How so?”
“In all ways. It’s insignificant. Everything.” He lifted his hand and indicated the street in front of the manor. “All of it.”
Lorenz turned his attention to the window, then back to Tedrey.
“I sense we are no longer speaking of Faunus wishing to take you to the Heden District to get you inebriated and fuck you until you lose consciousness,” Lorenz surmised.
“There is nothing to speak of. We get up. We exist. It means nothing what we do, who we meet, what we say. We go to sleep. And repeat this until we die.”
“Nyx has decided she wishes me to give her a child.”
Tedrey stared up at Lorenz.
Lorenz carried on speaking.
“Zosime will give Guard a child any day now, and as it happens with women, she sees the beauty Zosime has become, the love that has grown between two lovers that were devoted to one another before, but this has bloomed beyond all imagining as her belly grows with proof of that love, and she wishes the same for her. For us. And I shall give this to her.”
“I-I’m most happy for you, my lord.”
“I am Lorenz unless I command you, in play, to call me otherwise,” Lorenz said shortly. “And if I have to say that to you again, Tedrey, you will no longer enjoy the warmth of my home.”
Tedrey felt fear bolt through him.
Lorenz did not belabor that.
He returned to his earlier subject.
“I will give my wife as many children as she feels she needs. And we will spend our days until they leave their home teaching them to do upon the world naught but what they feel is good and right. And that will be what we share with them is good and right. So it will be good and right. We will leave this world giving it something good and right. We will leave it knowing they will teach their children the same. And so on. And that is not insignificant.”
“I do not lie with women. I will not give the world that.”
“It does not have to be your seed to give it that. Did you not teach when you were with the Go’Doan? Did you not understand the impression you could leave on the children in your care? And I know of men who do not lie with women. I also know of children who are born into this world or find themselves without parents who need them. Men who take only men, who love only men, take these children and give them what Nyx and I will give flesh of our flesh. And what they give is no less significant.”
“The palace was attacked, and no one cares,” Tedrey returned. “Men lost lives. Your king was under threat. And they just go about,” he flicked his hand to the window again, “with their baskets and their children or on their horses, and it is like it did not happen.”
“Do you think if King Mars was harmed or killed, do you think if his queen was harmed or killed that what is outside that window would be the same?”
“And how would it be different, except perhaps a different queen some months or years in the future would be taken by your ruler? Or a different king would sit the throne? Regardless, the baskets would still be carried.”
“You were not here when Ares was murdered. The city knew mourning. Windows shrouded. Heads draped in black. Horses trailing blankets of it over their rumps. Children did not play. If music rang, it was melancholy.”
“And now that is over,” Tedrey noted.
“Look at my face, look closely at my face,” Lorenz demanded.
Tedrey did just that.
“My king, Ares, was murdered,” he stated.
“You said that.”
“Look at my face, Tedrey.”
Tedrey watched closer.
“My king, Ares, was murdered,” Lorenz repeated.
And Tedrey saw it.
Sadness.
“I mourn him still,” Lorenz said quietly. “My sire is dead and has been for longer than my king. I mourn him still. My children will know of both of them and they will speak of them to their children. This is not insignificant.”
“But there will come a generation when those names aren’t spoken.”
“This is true, but they will be of their ancestors. They will be of those who came before them. Even if the names are forgotten, the legacy of each being on this planet never disappears. It is simply the way. There is no escaping it.”
Tedrey looked to Lorenz’s feet, muttering, “Maybe it is only me who is insignificant.”
After saying that, he watched Lorenz’s sandals turn and he lifted his eyes and kept watching as the big man walked out of the room.
And that signaled to Tedrey that he was correct.
He was no king.
He would be no father.
He was part of a great collaboration that was to change the rule of all Triton, he left it and they did not care he was gone. They moved forward in their plans, which were thwarted, and it mattered not. He had brothers, ones he belonged to, and a lover, one he thought had great feeling for him. It had been weeks since he had “disappeared,” and his brothers, his lover, did not care enough to search for him.
Life went on.
He started when Lorenz returned, a purpose to his gate, a leather-bound book in one hand, his fist closed over something else in his other, but there was a silver pen poking between his fingers.
“I bought these for you some days past, but my wife did not wish me to give them to you,” Lorenz declared, stopping close to Tedrey in his seat. “You do not talk to her. Not of anything of import. You are gentle with her and seem to enjoy her attention, presence and prattling, but you give her nothing in return. Until now, you have not talked to me. I felt you should talk to someone, even if that someone was the pages of a book. She did not wish for you to have the opportunity to put your thoughts in a book, for it might mean you would not share with her and therefore she could not take what you give her and help you bear its burden.”
He held out the book as well as his other hand, which he opened to reveal a pot of ink with that pen, which, being nearer to it, Tedrey could see was elegantly engraved all over with swirls and loops.
The book, its binding, the stamped leather, was expensive.
But that pen had to cost…
“And now I give these to you,” Lorenz interrupted his thoughts and shook his hands. “Take them. Put your thoughts in these pages. Let this book bear your burdens. Then give the rest of you to your family.”
Tedrey’s head snapped back so fast to catch Lorenz’s eyes, he felt pain at his neck.
“My family?” he asked.
“I have a vast and beautiful family, Tedrey. My wife, and the children she will one day give me. My mother still lives, and both of Nyx’s parents live, as do her two sisters, and mine. My brothers, who are soldiers. My king, who is my closest brother. My lovers, Persephone, and you. If we live them right, our whole live
s are filled with family and that means you will one day be uncle to my children. Does that feel insignificant?”
Tedrey’s heart was beating ever faster.
Uncle?
He would be uncle?
“Take these things, Tedrey,” Lorenz ordered.
“The book is leather-bound. It is costly. And the pen—”
“If these things mattered to me, I would not have handed over the coin or I would keep them for myself. They don’t. You matter. Please pay attention. This is my point, amico.” He shook his hands again. “And take them.”
Tedrey felt his throat close.
“Tedrey…”
“They are too much and I…I do not…I could help around the house. I could—”
Lorenz’s arms dropped, and his gaze grew acute as he studied Tedrey. “What manner of parent raised you?”
“I…sorry?” Tedrey asked.
“If I wanted a servant, I would hire one. If I wanted an injured man to work for his supper, I would be a beast. I am offering a gift to a friend. What manner of parent raised you that you would not accept a kindness offered with a true heart?”
Taking in these words, slowly, Tedrey reached out his hands. It was not slowly as Lorenz again extended the gifts.
Tedrey took them and felt his throat cinch.
“Thank you,” Lorenz said, making Tedrey blink.
He was thanking Tedrey?
“Now I will leave you to your musings,” Lorenz muttered, turning again to leave.
“I still wish to help around the house,” Tedrey called to his back, making Lorenz face him.
“If you wish to help, most of the Go’Doan priests have left the city. Their schools have no teachers. If you are well, you can go back to teaching. You are needed there. It is your choice, but I would hope you did not go wearing the robes. The priests that are left, they will not turn you away, either way you return to them.”
His heart leapt at the thought of being back with his students, which Tedrey found odd, but even odd, it was undeniable.
His feelings were entirely different about the Go’Doan leaving the city.
“Are you well enough to do this?” Lorenz asked.
“The Go’Doan priests have left the city?” Tedrey asked back.
“They were behind the attack. This is twice they have beset our sovereigns. It would have been ferreted out. Thus, in the end, they have shown some modicum of wisdom, for they chose flight rather than tar.”
“You know it was them?” Tedrey queried nervously.
“Yes, we know it was them. And yes, I know that you were amongst the collaborators, but your heart was not true to their cause. If it was, nothing could have kept you in my home while that attack was being carried out. Not even the grave injury they did to you.”
Tedrey felt heat hit his cheeks and terror burn in his chest.
“Y-you know?”
“I have known practically since I met you, amico.”
“And you still call me amico?”
“Do you wish me or my wife harm?”
“No.”
His answer was swift and not at all nervous.
Lorenz’s lips twitched.
“And do you think I did not know this too?” he asked softly.
Tedrey looked away.
His tone was still soft when he asked, “How deeply are you in love with her?”
His gaze skittered back. “I…I don’t…I don’t feel that way—”
“I know it is not my wife’s body you desire, but her heart that you adore,” Lorenz decreed and grinned. “When I fell, I went about it the other way.”
Tedrey did not doubt that and found it amusing.
However, he also found his feet and took them.
Standing and staring Lorenz right in the eyes, he declared, “I will never—”
His grand declaration didn’t come to fruition.
Lorenz shook his head and again interrupted him. “I know, Tedrey. You do not love her as I do. You’ll never love her as I do. Or you would not be right here, right now. But you love her, do you not?”
He did not know about love.
However.
“She, and you, are the only beings who have ever in my life shown me kindness.”
Tedrey watched with no alarm as Lorenz’s face grew hard.
Lorenz never liked to think of these things that had always been a way of Tedrey’s life.
And so perhaps he was learning about love.
“I will take that as a yes,” Lorenz said through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know how to show it in return,” Tedrey whispered.
“You will not learn, staring at the road and being morose,” Lorenz replied.
This was very true.
“Do you…do you want to know about The Rising?” he offered, and Tedrey did not miss the flare in his eyes at the last two words.
However, he mistook it for the fact Lorenz already knew.
Maybe not all of it.
But he knew of The Rising.
He was surprised when Lorenz answered, “When you’re ready to tell me.”
“I would suspect that, if the priests have fled, it’s rather in disarray,” he mumbled.
“I would suspect the same, but we are not counting on that.”
Tedrey continued mumbling, “That’s probably wise.” He drew breath into his nose and spoke more distinctly when he noted, “I do not understand why you forgive me.”
“I have not said I forgive you.”
These words were like a blow.
“But—” he started.
“My wife’s heart bleeds for you, and as my wife owns my heart, I have little to say in the matter of her wishing to care for you. You are not a threat. You are clearly very confused. I have hope you will find your way and it will be the right way. But it is not gratitude for kindness that should guide that way. You should understand what you do is right, and that should guide your way. I will hope for this. That you learn right and how to act on it.”
He’d never thought about it before.
But he wanted to learn right and not simply because every part of his life until he met these people in this house had gone so wrong.
Tedrey turned his head away again, this time so Lorenz would not see the tears that sprang to his eyes.
“Why do you not look at me as you weep, amico?” Lorenz asked with open curiosity, sharing that Tedrey was hiding nothing.
“It is weak,” Tedrey muttered shakily.
“And again, I have proof the manner of your parents was no manner at all.”
Tedrey returned his surprised attention to Lorenz.
“You are warrior,” he remarked.
“I am,” Lorenz agreed. “And I wept when my father died. I wept when King Ares died. I wept when my bride bound her life to mine. I felt tears sting my eyes when my king claimed his queen. I will undoubtedly weep when my wife gives me my first child, and any that come after. If she were to move to the next realm before me, I do not know if I will ever stop weeping. What I do know is I will not have the will even to try. There is no weakness in being fully you and fully feeling anything you feel. What makes us weak is when we do not celebrate all that we are, all that we feel, which is what makes us strong.”
“My father did not like that I liked…”
“Men?” Lorenz guessed.
Tedrey nodded.
“A peculiar Dellish trait,” Lorenz murmured.
“I was…I was very…” He cleared his throat. “I did not know how to be around people who did not take extreme issue with this.”
“The Go’Doan,” Lorenz stated.
Tedrey again nodded. “They…having that freedom to be who I was and be with who I wished, I was seduced by that religion.”
“Religion is not seductive,” Lorenz returned. “It’s faith. Faith, at its heart, is pure. It is man who led you down the wrong path. Beware of laying blame on the gods, no matter which gods they are, for the actions of men, or your own
. Only you are responsible for what you do and the same for any man or woman.”
Tedrey stood still, struck so deeply by these words, he could not move.
“I ask one thing of this Rising,” Lorenz went on, but his question was vocalized as a statement. “It is not all of the Go’Doan, is it.”
Tedrey shook his head.
Lorenz nodded and continued speaking.
“Now I ask one thing of you, Tedrey. That you go speak to my wife and share some things with her I do not know for if she knows we have had this talk and she was not the one who reached you for you to offer what is in your heart, she will pout or fume and we cannot make a baby if she’s pouting or fuming.”
For a moment, Tedrey could do nothing but blink at him.
When he saw Lorenz’s mouth quirking, Tedrey then could do nothing but smile.
Lorenz smiled back.
Then Tedrey dipped his chin at his friend.
And went in search of Nyx.
55
The Patra
Princess Elena
One Hundred Miles from The Northwest Border of The Enchantments
WODELL
We sat around the campfire with me glaring at Cassius’s back, considering the fact that I’d seen a lot of it the last three days.
The man had a fine set of shoulders and an alluring arse, but I was sick of that view.
He was walking into the wood, something he did of an eve every eve since we left the others.
The first night he’d gone with Mac, but Mac had returned without him.
The second night, he’d gone with both his men, and together his men had returned without him.
Neither night had he come to my tent when he’d come back.
He had promised, from that first night he joined me in my chamber at Catrame Palace, we would never sleep apart.
I had not desired this.
We were now sleeping apart.
And I did not like it and not simply because, without Cassius beside me, sleep was difficult to find, and it was restless when I finally caught it.
Further, if we stopped for lunch, he would walk away from the rest of us to enjoy his repast on his own. Or, more accurately, brood over his meal by himself.
And at breakfast, he appeared last, wolfed down some bread slathered in butter and jam, packed his horse, mounted the great steed (for Caelus was beautiful, and he had to be eighteen hands tall!), set his heels into Caelus’s sides and we all had to race to catch up to him.
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