Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
He shook his head. “That’s hardly fair.”
“I agree, but this all falls on Magnus, not any of us.”
“Magnus should have killed Decimus when he returned. No one would have questioned him succumbing to old wounds.”
“You’ve never had a sibling, Zev, so you don’t understand.”
He scoffed. “I’ve seen more than one killing of a brother or sister in my time.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “Well, regardless, we find ourselves faced with the debt that is payable to Ødger, who as firstborn, now rules Ophir.”
“So the king’s known all this time that Ødger, not Decimus, is owed a mate.”
“Yes,” Isabella answered Zev, “and as you can imagine, it’s been weighing on him.”
“Why?”
“Because when Varic sent the missive that he was to be married to his consort, Ødger decided Jason was the one he wanted.”
I had to consider her words for several seconds. “Me? He’s never even met me!”
“No. But you are the prince’s consort, and he’s sent people to see who you are.”
“People?”
“Spies,” Zev clarified for me. “Visitors to the palace asking about you, watching you, and reporting back to him.”
“That’s insane.”
She nodded, dropping her hand from my face. “I—” She stopped a moment, listening as we all did to a roar from above us and then a crash, something shattering. “I suspect the king has gotten to this same part in the telling,” she whispered.
“I can’t marry anyone but Varic.”
“Oh, darling, I know that, but Ødger knows nothing about what it means for a royal to create their font, their singular source of sustenance.” She smiled at me. “And more importantly, he doesn’t understand that you are Varic’s very heart.”
I wanted to ask then how she felt not being the only one Messina drew blood from, but it wasn’t the time. “He loves him,” I blurted out instead. “I mean, Varic loves the king.”
“Oh, I know,” she assured me. “Varic has always loved his father, though Messina does not make that easy for any of us.”
I sighed. “No.”
“Don’t hate him for all this,” she pleaded. “When I learned he gave Leda to Decimus, I had to tell myself the same.”
I would definitely try. “When did you find out about Leda?”
Her breath caught. “Recently.”
Which meant it could have been as recent as earlier today. She would never tell me, and I would never ask. “And the king planned to do what?”
“He thought to bespell Ødger with another, and first thought of sending Carice,” she choked out. “But then decided that would do no honor to Cassius.”
Of course not, plus, there were other considerations.
“You are the only one to send.”
I was quiet.
“It doesn’t mean he has no regard for you.”
No. It was much worse. It meant that everything I’d done, the work I put in for him, the excuses I’d made to keep him above reproach, the anger I had taken on his behalf, the devotion I had for the title he’d given me, were all for nothing. He thought of me as completely disposable.
“He was assured by Ødger that if he sent you, the matter would be closed forever.”
If I were the king, before I promised anyone the mate of my son or daughter, I would have razed his holding to the ground for even suggesting anything so vile.
“Along with you, the king promised Ødger the siren Keres from Gaius’s court.”
“Gaius consented to give up Keres to help his brother?” Zev asked her.
“He asked her, and she consented,” Isabella told him. “Keres does nothing she doesn’t want to do. Ever.”
“Where is this Keres now?” I asked.
“She’s here in the palace, as she was supposed to travel with you.”
“That poor woman. She—”
“No,” Dae-Jung said abruptly, drawing my attention. “Do not mistake Keres for an ordinary woman or courtesan. If Keres finds Ødger, Balon, or any other noble in Ophir in any way disagreeable, if anyone does anything to displease her, even bore her, they will come to a quick end.”
I could only stare at him.
“She is deceptively lethal and carries with her as many soothing, fragrant oils and aphrodisiacs as she does rare toxins from before Rome.”
Keres sounded like a very interesting woman.
“Sometimes the poison is in the bowl, sometimes it’s on the outside of the bowl, and other times, it is the bowl itself,” he explained. “I once saw her open a beautiful, ornate butterfly fan so fluidly, so gracefully, I became lost in the movement as though the creatures were in flight, until the man at her side yawned, lay down, and was dead the next moment.”
“He’s right. She’s extraordinary,” Sabira said excitedly. “I once saw her kill five men with a hairpin dipped in arsenic.”
I glanced at Dae-Jung and then at Sabira. “That’s horrible. You get that, right?”
“What I was trying to make you understand is that she is in no danger from anyone in Ophir, only them from her.”
“If she’s caught having killed him, she—”