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 urge you to take pains to stay well for as long as you can, Ophelia. As you know, we have no idea what we will face. War. The Beast. Go’Doan treachery. Which will come first, and what will come of it.”
She gave a slight shrug. “I have the time I’ll have.”
“Your daughter needs you.”
“I’ll have the time I’ll have, my son,” she said quietly. “No more, no less. When the goddesses call to me, I cannot evade their summons. Now I need to know I have your support. But more, I need to know she will have it.”
“For what it will be worth, you have it,” he promised. “As will Elena.”
Her head tipped to the side.
“These words,” she whispered. “They surprise me. For a man of such skill and intellect, you do not know your own worth. I hope my daughter can help you find your way to understanding the magnitude of that.”
Again, Cassius made no reply, but that feeling of pride came back.
“I have one other thing to discuss with you,” she said.
“Please go on,” Cassius bid.
“You must take Aelia and Theodora with you to Notting Thicket.”
His princess being his princess and the future queen of another nation, he had no say. Only Elena could abdicate, if that was her wish, and he could not imagine, how she was in her realm, how clear her devotion was to it, that she would.
His daughter, and Theodora, he, and Elena, had the only say.
Therefore, he shook his head. “Elena and I have discussed this, and we’re told there’s much unrest—”
“They must not be in The Enchantments.”
The way she spoke those words made Cassius’s mouth snap shut.
“I do not know, I cannot say, but I do not like what I feel in the veil,” she told him. “And I know one thing as a mother. No daughter is safer anywhere than with her parents.”
“If you feel The Enchantments are in danger, we will not leave,” he declared.
She shook her head.
“Wodell is on the precipice of greatness. The like Ares cultivated in Firenze, and Mars has continued to nurture. This must not be imperiled, for it is also on the precipice of ruin. It must be given every opportunity to fall the right way. And it goes without saying the plans for Airen must move forward. The Enchantments might be shaken, but we will survive.”
“You understand if they don’t, if you don’t, I will have a woman and a daughter on my hands who will be inconsolable.”
“Ah,” she murmured.
“Ah?” he asked.
She smiled a small smile. “And there you will find your worth, Cassius, for this is wholly untrue. They will be, for they will be consoled by you.”
Cassius felt these words like a punch in the chest, so much, they left him winded.
“I will be gone, Cassius, it may be weeks, it may be months, but it will happen. And now…now…” She drew in a delicate breath and released it. “Now I can go in peace, knowing I have left my Elena to you.”
“Ophelia—”
“I am tired,” she muttered, maneuvering out of her hanging chair.
She couldn’t expect to leave it at that.
He stood. “Ophelia—”
She was moving slowly across the room, but she stopped and looked at him.
“When my babies were young, I taught them to read the cards,” she whispered.
Her words, the look on her face, Cassius braced.
“Every morning as wee girls, they turned a card,” she shared. “And I told them the meanings, day after day, until they could read them themselves and understand the omens.”
“Elena does this still,” he told her quietly.
Her face softened, her eyes grew sad, and she smiled.
“I turned the Dragon this morning,” she told him.
He had no idea what that meant, but from her demeanor, she thought it was not good.
But he knew it was.
“And Frey Drakkar comes with dragons,” he informed her.
“No.” She shook her head. “The Dragon means fire, power…” She paused. “Endings.”
Yes, she thought it was not good.
“And The Drakkar comes with dragons,” he said through his teeth. “Bringing fire and power.”
“So I turned another card,” she went on as if he did not speak.
Cassius was silent.
“It was the Pegasus card. Astral travel. Flight.” She held his gaze and finished, “Freedom.”
“You’re giving up,” he accused.
“I’m giving over,” she returned.
“Which is the same as giving up,” he clipped.
“You know loss, my son, help her through it.”
“Ophelia—”
He stopped speaking when suddenly, a tear raced down her cheek and the word she spoke was as weak as her visage.
“Please.”
Cassius swallowed.
Then he declared, his voice gruff, “A great woman begot a woman who will be great.”
“I find myself annoyed with you,” she replied, “for I was ready, with no regrets, and now I am not quite ready, for I know regret, and this is that I will not know my son.”
Another punch in the chest.
“Your granddaughters will know you as if you supped with us nightly,” he swore.