Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
“She is fond of you, me, the men, she shouldn’t be thinking about losing any of you.”
“In time, she will have no choice but to lose us all. The only choice all of us have is to hope that time is long.”
Ha-Lah pressed her lips together.
“It is young for her to learn of death, of mourning, of how you heal but don’t. Of traitors and plots and deception and danger. But she is a princess of two realms, Ha-Lah. And she is not five, she’s eight. She’s old enough to know.”
“Aelia was there too.”
“Aelia bounces through life in a bubble of cheeriness. Cassius has worked hard to build that around her. Nothing touches her and won’t, until the time Cass decrees it should.”
“I wish to say at this time that we will be discussing if eight years old is the appropriate age to share about plots and deception and danger when it comes to our children.”
For the first time in hours, Aramus smiled.
His wife’s face softened when she saw it, and he shifted her out of both his arms and held her with only one at her shoulders, turning her and moving them up the steps.
“I will look forward to this discussion.”
“I’m thinking thirteen,” she stated.
Aramus almost laughed.
He was not going to shelter any child of theirs, of royal blood, of Mer blood, until they were thirteen.
They would learn to be alert and cunning and prepared.
“We’ll talk of it then,” he said.
“When they’re thirteen?” she pushed.
He started chuckling, doing it replying, “When they are here.”
The doors opened for them and they passed through.
When they were shut behind him, and he was moving her to the wide staircase that wound about the edge of the central turret, the supports of the railings made of stone carved in lacy versions of coral, Ha-Lah murmured, “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry?”
She stopped them before they took their first step and looked up at him.
He looked down at her.
“You had every right to be angry, to lose your temper and rail at me. This time, Aramus, you had every right. So, my darling, thank you. Thank you for not shouting down the castle when you had cause and thank you for understanding why I did something hurtful and foolish. And last, thank you for loving me the way that you love me.”
In that moment, he did not want to check to see if Dora was sleeping soundly, and if not, show himself to her so she knew he was safe.
He wanted to throw his wife over his shoulder and carry her to their bedchamber.
But he needed sweet Dora to rest easy.
Therefore, instead, he simply bent his head, pulled his wife again into his arms, and he kissed her.
Thoroughly.
When he pulled away, and he knew she was of a mind she would not be averse to him throwing her over his shoulder and taking her to their chamber, he grinned at her and took her to check on Dora.
And then, he took her to their chamber.
96
The Crew
Princess Serena
The Shanty, Notting Thicket
WODELL
Princess Serena, who had not bathed in days, and was wearing the rags of a dead woman, lolled in the crumbling doorway of a building that used to be a home, but time and neglect meant there was no door and beyond there was no roof.
She had a large, heavy, chipped jug of grog on the step before her, a ragged blanket pulled over her head, and her shaded eyes aimed across the alley.
There slouched a troll, a big one. She had not seen many in her lifetime, but of the ones she’d seen, this one was large.
He had a vague blueish-green tint to his skin, much of which was on display since he only wore breeches, boots and forearm shields.
He also had a mass of filthy black hair on his head, matted into ropes.
He further had a pronounced underbite, to the point his lower teeth were exposed, and that lower set, unlike the upper ones, had large fangs.
All his teeth were yellowed with inattention.
She worried this mission would last so long, without cleaning it, her hair would get the way of the troll’s, and she’d have to have it all shorn off.
She then stopped worrying about that, for she could be bald. Scarred. Skin and bones. Hairless, sunken and weak.
And there would be no one to care.
Perhaps, her mother.
Perhaps, her lieutenants.
Perhaps, Silence and Ha-Lah, who, in the short time they remained before being off to the realms they essentially helped rule due to the men who doted on them, she had taught a few hand-to-hand defensive moves and some minimal skills with how to use a dagger. And both had been kind to her.
But not her sister.
Not Chu.
Never again her sister.
Never again Chu.
He and she had ended.
No.
He had ended them without allowing her to say a word.
As for her sister, since it had happened, it had often come to mind how Serena did not want what she had when she had it, but when she lost it, she missed it.