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)
And if that coinage was found, it would be a blow to The Rising, possibly a grave one.
Yes, that warmth settled in his stomach.
“Faunus has requested to come visit,” Lorenz drawled, overly casually.
His friend was very good at a great number of things.
He was very bad at matchmaking.
So bad, Tedrey nearly smiled.
Knowing he had to say what he had to say next, he did not.
“It is not safe. I’m being watched. You know this.”
“I do,” Lorenz agreed. “However, I am a general and he is a soldier. It would not be unusual he was to attend me at my home.”
“Lorenz—”
His friend lifted his hand and dropped it. “If you feel it is a risk you cannot take, then I understand. But Faunus worries about you. I tell him repeatedly you are doing well, but he is deaf to the words. He wishes to see with his own eyes you’re handling this as you are handling it.” His voice dipped. “He cares for you, amico, greatly. You did not ask my advice, but I share it with you regardless. I would give him that.”
Tedrey wanted to give Faunus that.
He wanted it very much.
But he needed to do what he was doing.
He had wrongs to right and doing something solely for himself was not the road to take to achieve that aim.
That said, if Faunus was worried…
“Perhaps, when I feel I have won over more than Fenn. I am not trusted by them, Lorenz. With the way Fenn stopped discussion about this treasury, I see I do not even have his full trust. They follow me. They watch me. They are not comfortable speaking in front of me. They are in disarray. There is discord and not a small amount of anxiety around the capture and execution of Carrington and the defeat at The Enchantments. Seph moved forward with a great amount of hubris, but it was Fenn’s plot to assassinate the Dellish queen and attack The Enchantments as it was done. If I can ingratiate myself in this cadre in Fire City, as they plan for future campaigns, the information I would be privy to could be crucial in thwarting them.”
“And if that should happen, you would be the first suspected,” Lorenz pointed out.
“This is the risk I knew I took from the beginning.”
“And it causes no harm to remind you that you’re taking it, and further, that you can abandon it at any time and you still would have my protection, a place in my home, my family and my heart.”
Tedrey felt his eyes get itchy.
In order to give him privacy to control his emotion, Lorenz looked away, bringing his wineglass to his lips, and muttering into it, “Just know that.”
Tedrey had to clear his throat before he replied, “I do.”
Lorenz took a drink, swallowed, turned again to Tedrey and inquired, “I wonder what that father of yours would think of you now?”
Tedrey’s entire body strung tight.
“It is not the manner of a man what he does with his cock,” Lorenz stated, finishing with, “No?”
“No,” Tedrey whispered.
“You are more man than many men I know, Teddy. And most the men I know are soldiers.”
To hide his increasing emotion, it was then Tedrey looked away.
“Let us see if we can find some food,” Lorenz suggested. “I grow hungry and intend to end this enmity with my wife tonight and do it in a way we both will be most fatigued. I need sustenance.”
With that, he got up, and raised his brows to Tedrey until Tedrey also rose.
And even if they both were not needed to perform this task, they both went to find a servant to order some dinner.
It would be much later, when Tedrey was abed, and he did not hear the noises of passion emanating from his friends’ chamber down the hall, that he lit a lantern and did what he often did, what Lorenz had, some weeks ago, suggested he do.
Something, with the things he was doing now, he did nearly every night.
He opened the beautiful, leather-bound journal Lorenz had given him. He took up the lovely, silver pen Lorenz had also given him.
And he shared his fretful thoughts with the page.
93
The Citadel
Princess Elena
On the Seil Sea Outside Sky Bay
AIREN
“I think it’s over,” I noted when the deafening blast of cannon fire stopped and did not start again.
“I hope it’s over,” Finnie muttered.
“I do too,” Circe said, shaking her head in such a manner it looked like she was trying to clear water from her ears.
Circe being Dahksahna Circe, the Golden Warrior Queen of the Korwahk nation of the Southlands.
We’d met just hours before we’d all boarded one of Aramus’s ships and headed right back from where she and her husband Lahn had come from.
King Noctorno and Queen Cora remained in Wodell.
Lahn was, right then, where all the men were.