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)
“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.”