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 fingers drifted through his beard as she murmured, “I’m sorry you lost him.”
His voice dropped deeper when he replied, “I, as well.”
Her hand moved, and her thumb trailed over his cheekbone as she gazed into his eyes and whispered, “Why is it that a great man like Ares is lost to this world and men like Wilmer and my father live on to be at least, ineffectual, and at worst, whatever my father is?”
“It is rare a great man, or woman, in all of history lives long, piccolina,” Mars replied. “Study your history books. A man, or woman, of vision or will, whose efforts and strategies might affect progress, comes to tragic ends and they do this early. This is because people do not like change, especially those who will have to share riches or power they have kept to themselves while also keeping those around them under their thumbs in order to ascertain they cannot take those riches away, or worse, lessen their power. I can think of only one in all of history who lived long, and that is because she created The Enchantments to protect herself and her sisters.”
He felt his arms about her tighten automatically when he saw the look on her face after he spoke.
“Silence?” he asked after the fear she now wore stark in her expression.
“You are great,” she said.
He relaxed, and although pleased she thought this, she was not right.
“I walk in the footsteps of a giant,” he told her.
“We will defeat the Beast.”
He was glad at her positivity.
“That is not greatness, bellezza, it is destiny.”
“You could not have walked in your father’s footsteps. You could have erased everything he did,” she pointed out.
“This is but a decision, not a mission.”
“You are great, Mars,” she declared stubbornly.
He fought back his smile and murmured, “All right, wife. I am great.”
If she wished to think that, he would not continue to argue the point.
“Do not humor me,” she demanded, appearing cross.
“This is hard when you are being humorous.”
She glared at him for long moments before her thumb again moved over his cheek and her eyes shifted there.
Her mood shifted as well, and Mars watched it happen, fascinated.
“How did you get your scars?” she asked.
Ah.
The question she had asked what seemed so long ago. On their wedding night.
And at hearing it, Mars felt the best he had in weeks, indeed, since the loss of Sofia.
For this question demonstrated to him he finally truly had his Silence back.
“As is custom, my father sent me to Airen to train,” he began. “It is what, over the centuries, after the war that tore our one country into two, has kept the peace. Trajan, and Cassius, trained in Firenze and knew our ways and strategies. And I, as did all princes of Firenze before me, trained in Airen to know theirs.”
Silence nodded.
Mars carried on.
“It was not long after I arrived that Trajan challenged me.”
“Oh no,” she said.
“It is fine, Silence. As you can see, I am here, no worse for the experience.”
“But you have scars.”
He tipped his head on the pillow. “Do you want to hear the story?”
His wife shut her mouth.
He fought another smile and continued.
“Future king to future king, Trajan said. I was younger than him by five years, but Laches men grow fast, and I was his height, if I did not yet have a powerful build. I was also young, and most full of myself, so I accepted.”
“This story isn’t getting better,” she mumbled.
He ignored her and kept telling said story.
“Cassius was alarmed. Not that he didn’t know my skill, and that I could look after myself, but that he knew his brother was a cheat.”
“And still, no better.”
“I unhorsed him, Silence. And when we persisted on our feet, I disarmed him.”
“Oh,” she whispered.
And there was that noise he liked so much.
Mars ignored that too.
“Trajan was not a bad soldier, but he was a terrible loser. I offered to shake hands and embrace, he turned his back on me and walked off the field. Cassius felt this made matters worse. He followed me like a shadow for weeks. He remained so close, the others began to call us lovers, thinking this was an insult, when it was not. They stopped doing that when Cass, nor I, appeared to be offended by these comments.”
“Are the Airenzian not free sexually, like the Firenz are?” she asked.
“No one is quite as free as the Firenz, little monkey,” he told her. “But although it is not hidden and considered debauched, as it is in Wodell, it is not spoken of openly and there are some of a certain bent, bullies and bigots, who attempt to use their antipathy toward it as a weapon.”
“Airen seems a most unpleasant place,” Silence mumbled.
“It is a land of great beauty and great bleakness. If you ever visit a battlefield, even years after the battle is done, you will feel the pain and despair. If there is enough of it, it taints the very soil and does not let go until the last who knows of the atrocities that happened there perishes. Airen’s soil is tainted with centuries of pain and despair. So much so, it rises up and dulls the very air.”