Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Aramus didn’t like it, but he couldn’t exactly argue that.
They had not flourished on the mainland.
On this isle, they had grown prosperous and they had grown fierce.
His wife intoned just that. “We are the mightiest of all the kingdoms. We don’t clash in their silly skirmishes, losing man and blade and blood. Our fleets grow larger, our men and women strong and healthy and thriving. They’ve long since ceased attempting to raid our shores, even find their way east of our island, for they can’t pass our armadas and they know it. They can’t even send a ship with their goods across the sea for trade unless we allow it. If a vessel from the Northlands or the Southlands from across the Green Sea comes, it is we who decide if they sail through our waters.”
Aramus couldn’t argue this either because it was all true.
Ha-Lah was not quite finished.
“We can use the bounty of our pearls, the treasure wrested by our raiders, sell the vast fleets of ships collected from the seas—”
He had to put an end to this.
She spoke blasphemy.
All of it.
“This is our insurance,” he clipped.
“This is our treasure, our due, our commodities, and our reward for not allowing them to best us. You do not bow in victory, Your Grace. You crow it to the heavens and hold it over those defeated.”
Aramus said nothing for part of him felt, uncomfortably, he couldn’t argue that either.
It would seem when the fierceness went out of her beautiful features, and they gentled, his wife, too, had decided to seek patience and for the first time in their acquaintance, reach him a different way.
“I am not the only one who thinks this way, my husband,” she said softly.
“And you touch the pulse of all Mar-el?” he asked curtly.
Though he knew she didn’t, he also knew she spent most of her time out and about in Nautilus when he was gone (and even when he was ashore).
So she undoubtedly knew better than he.
She shook her head, which shook her shining curls. “No. But our coffers grow, and it takes months for a ship to cross the Green Sea and come back with coin for our goods, and different goods for our people. It takes nearly half a year to get to The Mystics.”
“You tell me things I know,” he replied.
“It takes less than a day to sail to Triton,” she stated carefully. And even more carefully, watching him closely, she finished, “They banished us centuries ago. It is our king who keeps us banished.”
His wife said no more.
But it was safe to say, especially with that last, he was now at his end.
He stood and walked to the edge of the dais, staring down at his bride.
“It is my duty as king of my people to keep them safe. To build their wealth. To protect our secrets. To guard our magicks. It is also my duty as king to provide an heir, which, wife, I will do, with your cooperation, or without. And now, it’s my duty to shield them from the tidals, the threat of the Beast rising, and this I will do as well, sewing my seed in you.”
She glared up at him, her exquisite face no longer gentle, but set.
“Lena shares that we will need to attend the weddings of the King of Firenze, the Prince of Wodell, and Prince Cassius of Airen, all happening to bring about the prophecy so we can know peace. That is what I will give to those who abide on the mainland. And I will only do it in order to protect my sirens-damned own.”
Ha-Lah said naught, just continued to glare.
He continued to speak.
“Amass your chests with appropriate garments. Arrange for your servants to travel and attend you. We set sail in a week and we’ll be gone months. And I’ll warn you, you have until the time our feet hit Firenze to make your decision, wife. Or I’ll make it for you.”
She continued to glare up at him for long moments before she demanded, “Am I free to leave?”
He crossed his arms on his chest and jerked up his chin.
At that, she whirled and strode much faster, the skirts of her gown drifting like blades of sea lettuce around her calves and feet, and in far less time than she’d made the trek to his throne, she disappeared through the mighty doors.
To the truth, he didn’t quite credit Lena’s words of that morning, and wouldn’t have, if the waves were not hitting with regularity, the tremors forewarning them.
But Aramus knew something not many did.
Something his father had shared with him very late in his training, in fact, close to the great last king’s passing.
And that something was that the Beast did not make this isle those many years ago because water harmed it or because the Beast feared the salt, the wet, the ibex-whales or even the angmostros or sirens.