Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Her head tipped back and True saw her eyes were just as remote as her voice.
This was not Farah.
Not his beautiful Farah with her shining topaz eyes that were always keen and alert and emotive.
“The torture procession,” she explained.
True blinked down at her.
“The what?”
“Did they take any assailants alive?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then Mars will torture them, and all affected will go to the necropolis by the pit in order to watch them walk to their deaths. They will go by procession so the people will know those who attacked our palace, our king, will have no mercy.”
True grew even more alarmed.
“All?” he queried.
“All,” she asserted.
“Even Silence?”
“Especially Silence.”
Gods-damn it.
“She cannot—” True started.
“She must.” Farah made to move. “And I must.”
True tightened his arms. “You’re going nowhere.”
She stilled in his hold. “I must, True.”
“You must if you’re Firenz,” he declared. “But you are no longer Firenz. You are Dellish. And the Princess of Wodell does not attend a procession to watch torture after she lost her mother…or ever. You’ll take another sleeping draught and you’ll rest. And when you wake, I’ll be here, and I’ll help you mourn.”
She turned her head away.
True jostled her. “Farah.”
She looked at him again. “I am Firenz.”
“You are Dellish,” he asserted.
“I am not.”
“You are mine and I am Wodell.”
“I am not yours,” she whispered. “I am not anybody’s. Not any longer. I’m now actually of no one and nowhere. I am not Firenz. I am not Dellish. I am nobody.”
True’s alarm increased exponentially.
“You belong to me, sweets,” he said softly. “And I belong to you.”
“For either of those to be true, you have to wish it to be true, and you do not, Your Grace.”
Your Grace?
She hadn’t called him that since the first day they met, and he asked her not to.
“Farah—”
She turned away from him, pulling out of his arms.
“Bring me the draught. As you wish, I shall sleep.”
She slid down into the bed, settled on the pillow, her back to him, her knees pulled up to her chest.
True placed his hand on her hip and leaned toward her.
He tried again, “Farah—”
“Shall I call a servant for the draught?” she asked her pillow.
True didn’t move or speak. He stayed right where he was, gazing at her profile in the lamplight.
And doing this, he decided she needed time.
She also, as he had noted, needed sleep.
After that, she would need him.
Even if she did not think she did.
And she would have him.
All of him.
He took his hand from her hip, pulled her hair away from her neck and then he tugged the silks up to her shoulder.
Through this, she didn’t even twitch.
He then leaned ever closer and spoke in her ear.
“You grieve and speak through that grief. And I am at your side. You will sleep and you will wake, still in grief, and I’ll be at your side. I’ll see you through your grief, Farah, and I’ll do it at your side. I will see you past your grief, also at your side. I will remember your mother as kind and loving, and I will do it at your side. And then we will carry on with our lives, our marriage, building a family, and through it all, I’ll be at your side. You do belong to me, Farah. My future princess. My future wife. And in return, darling, I belong to you.”
He got ever closer, dipped his voice lower and finished.
“And as yours, I will avenge your mother, my sweetling. The one that caused your hurt will know his own pain. That is my vow to you as my friend, my betrothed, my future princess, my future queen and just mine.”
Through his speech, her body got tighter and tighter.
It stayed that way when he bent low and brushed her temple with his lips.
He pulled an inch away and murmured, “I’ll have a draught brought up.”
Then he exited the bed, moved to the door, opened it and walked through it.
“Get her another sleeping draught,” he ordered Florian after he closed the door. “Go in and sit with her,” he ordered Bram after Florian moved down the hall to the stairs. “But be silent and keep distant. She needs time with her thoughts.”
Bram nodded and entered Farah’s room.
True gave Luther a look and Luther remained where he stood outside Farah’s door as True started toward the stairs with Alfie at his side.
They did this dodging servants who were sweeping up plaster from the quake.
And mopping up blood from the bodies that had been removed.
“Do you know of this procession?” True asked the captain of his guard.
“I didn’t, until Basil came up but moments before you came out and summoned you to Mars’s study.”
“Aramus will not allow Ha-Lah to take part in it,” True guessed. “I wish to ask her to sit with Farah until I can return to her.”