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Just.
As his father had been, Mars was a much different sort of ruler for Firenze.
Innocents did not walk into the tarpits for no reason but to be a brutal reminder to anyone who might upset a king.
Maybe he changed his mind.
But I knew him well.
So very well.
And Mars had always been most decisive (like his father).
He was not the kind of man who changed his mind.
So I could not imagine, after nearly four years of living unmolested, but much more simply than we’d been accustomed to, stripped of status and most of our belongings, what this was about.
A male servant in the embroidered crimson tunic and loose pants of the adult staff of the Catrame Palace of the Fire City met us in the vestibule.
“Ven, ven,” he bid impatiently, but I sensed he was not impatient with us.
There seemed a good deal of activity in the palace.
In fact, there’d been quite a bit of it throughout the city from the moment we entered through the fiery gates.
We followed the servant, my mother close to my side, down a passageway we both had traversed thousands of times before.
A passageway that was taking us to what his father, King Ares, but mostly his mother, Queen Elpis, had fashioned into state rooms.
Before Ares, there were few affairs of state.
There was war.
And there were clan clashes.
When those weren’t happening, there were celebrations, feasts, executions, games, parades and orgies.
There was still all of that, just not in the same abundance.
Save the celebrations, feasts, games, parades and orgies.
I heard my mother gasp, and I, too, was surprised when the servant didn’t take us all the way to the end of the hall, where the throne room was, but turned right, where the informal receiving room was.
“Mio re,” the servant muttered, bowing low at the waist.
I fell into a deep curtsy instantly, the side of my back leg flush to the floor, the knee of my forward leg tight to my stomach, my chin in my neck, my hands one over the other at my chest.
This was because Mars was lounging on the cushions of one of the divans under the burnished gold and vermilion, rich cream and olive-green drapings coming from a large, intricately carved chitai lamp hanging from the ceiling, crossing the room, and swathing the back wall.
“Salir, Farah, Sofia,” Mars murmured.
We gained our feet.
After just a glance from the king’s black eyes, the servant vanished.
Those eyes came to us.
“Come forward, my sisters,” he said.
My mother took my hand and we moved forward.
“None of that, little mother,” Mars said low, his attention to my mama. “I have passed my judgment. I learned at the foot of Ares. You spent much time with my father. You know better, no?”
“You did indeed, Your Grace, pass your judgment,” I said to take his attention from my mother, who I could now feel was trembling. “Which was exile. So I do hope you understand why we’re anxious as we thought never to see you or our Fire City or this great palace again.”
He dipped the long point of beard at his chin into his neck and I tried not to look farther, even if there was much to look at.
It was known throughout the land that Mars Laches, King of Firenze, was the finest warrior specimen in the realm.
His father had been that before him.
His grandfather had not.
Well-chosen wives mated to seasoned warrior kings over centuries was what lounged before me in a pair of cream silk, paneled ante pants and nothing else. His feet bare. His wide, heavily muscled chest on display. His shoulders so broad and developed, the sinews overtook his neck. His stomach defined to such an extent, you could pour a river of wine in the indentations and it would run without crawling up the swells.
Long black hair cut in layers from crown to falling down his back.
A small gold hoop piercing his left brow. Little gold balls on either side of the bridge of his nose. An upside-down arch of diminutive Firenz rubies between his nostrils. A tiny asscher cut ruby in the indent of the flesh above his lips. Stout gold hoops in his ears. And a narrow gold hoop in his upper ear, his right nostril and just above the right side at the corner of his top lip, waiting for his wedding chain.
“I can understand this confusion,” he said. “It is an important secret to keep, why you were summoned. And it will continue to be, for a time. But in that time, you must prepare.” He dipped his chin, this time to two stacks of long, colorful cushions set beyond the low rectangular table inset with an intricate design of mother of pearl that sat before his divan. “Sit.”
I led my mother to her cushions, and as she sunk to them, I let her go.
I then moved to mine and did the same.
“I forgot Your Grace, beautiful Farah,” Mars murmured.
I put my hand to my chest and bent my head. “Your kindness warms me, my king.”
At that, he roared with laughter.
My head shot up, I felt my eyes grow round, and I was too stunned by this response even to turn to my mother to assess hers.
Then again, Mars was always quick to laugh. He had a rousing sense of humor, both making you laugh (and laughing with you when he did) and finding a multitude of things amusing.
He was the easiest male I’d known in my life to be around. That laughter. The seriousness that would fall over his severe, but handsome face when you had something to say and he was listening. The tenderness that would invade his entire mammoth frame if he knew you were hurting.
It had been thus when he’d shared our sentence of exile, almost appearing as if it pained him more than it did us to strip us of all we had and all we knew, leaving us only with our names, before sending us away.
Though he did send us away with only meager belongings, all of those were of import. Heirlooms my mother had from her family’s side, treasures it would wound me to leave behind.
And the modest accommodation he afforded us in our exile was hardly the home of paupers.
It was not a great dwelling the likes of which we were accustomed.
But although very small, very remote and very far away from all we knew, it was safe and snug and comfortable.
I should have known he would not change his mind and summon us to punish us further.
“All right, my little sister,” he said when he’d calmed his hilarity. “Allow me to make this clear.”
Suddenly, my back straightened and my skin tightened.
Because his handsome face turned simply severe as all humor left him.
And a humorless Mars Laches was not just a sight to behold.
It was a sight to fear.
“What your father did was not what you did,” he stated, his deep voice rolling like sarsens toward our cushions. “I lost my sire, I watched my mother lose her husband, these are the only reasons I am more deeply grieved of that event than you. And it is not because you lost your sire or you,” he turned to my mother, “your husband. For we all lost not only a king we loved, a man we loved more, but also much trust and any innocence we might have had left at the machinations of G’Dor.”
I leaned forward. “King Mars—”
“I am Mars to you, Farah,” he growled. “We sat at our cushions at our tables at our studies side by side. You bested me with the paint when I was seven and you were four, something you should be more concerned about at this juncture because I never forgot the humiliation.”
I could not believe this, but I had the most bizarre feeling that I was about to smile.
Mars was not finished.
“The first boy who broke your heart, I broke his nose, and the second, and if memory serves, the third. You gave your heart too freely. It was a nuisance. And you spelled to sleep the first girl to break my loyalty in order that you could shear her hair. My father and mother lost my blood sister to forces they co
uld not control or understand. You took her place.”
I heard my mother’s quiet sob.
I looked that way and my heart squeezed.
“Little mother,” Mars said. “What was done to you had to be done. But truly, you must know your place in my heart.”
“My son,” she whispered.
She knew.
It was just beyond beautiful Mars still knew it too.
I felt like smiling no more.
Instead, I turned my head to hide the tears gathering in my eyes.
“Little mother, dry your eyes,” Mars bid. “Farah, you as well.”
I sniffled, controlled myself and looked to my king.
“Know this,” he said when he caught my gaze. “Your father plotted to assassinate our king. This plot succeeded. He ended the life of the finest ruler this land has ever known. I can’t even begin to understand how it would feel knowing the man who sired me did that. And he, his collaborators, and his warriors walked into the tarpits, my sister. They are gone. The Firenz know peace and further prosperity. It is done.”
“So our exile is done?” I asked, my voice shocked, as it would be.
He was a ruler like his father, trained by his father to be fierce, but just.
It was still my blood and my mother’s husband who killed the king.
He held my gaze and I noted he did not look at my mama.
“Not exactly,” he answered.
Oh dear.
My mother spoke up.
“Mars, truly, with respect, my son, it’s been two weeks. We’ve been most anxious. And—”
“Farah marries,” Mars told her.
I did?
“She marries who?” Mama asked.
“The heir to the throne of Wodell. Prince True,” Mars answered.
I blinked.
I then started when my mother clapped her hands and pretended to spit on the multitude of colorful rugs overlapping the floor before her.
“Wodell!” she cried in disgust.
“Little mother,” Mars murmured, his lips twitching.
It was this I did not find funny.
I married a Wodell?
“They are weak,” Mama snapped. “A Firenz woman does not open her legs for a Wodell.”
“True is not like his father,” Mars assured.
My mother sniffed and lifted her chin. “I can believe that. I can believe he’s not even of his father. For that king has no balls and it would surprise me he even has a cock.”
Mars chuckled.
I whispered, “Mama!”
My mother’s head whipped to me. “We hear the stories, even in our banishment. Many of his men fall and fall and fall as he tries to steal our saffron, our tar, our rubies. We have been warring unnecessarily with Wodell for decades. Centuries.”
“The Firenz did steal that tract of land from the Dellish many years ago,” Mars pointed out genially.
“Yes, and we have managed to keep it,” Mama hissed at Mars. “But it was ours first.”
Mars chuckled again.
I sighed.
“I obviously have no power in this room, in this land, and definitely not sitting in front of my beloved king, a man I helped raise side by side with my sister-friend Queen Elpis,” Mama began grandly. “But I can tell you, that ruby mine builds our armies and widens our roads. I know, Mars, like your father before you, you ceased taking the proceeds of royal holdings into your own personal treasury and added it to the treasury of the people. It is a blessing and the people know it, feeling of you like they did your father. That you are noble, adored and our true ruler. The tar has always been of Firenze and only of Firenze. And those saffron fields are owned by our king.”
“I do know this, Sofia, as I am that king,” Mars muttered with amusement.
“And he dares?” she demanded.
“They are not as rich a nation as we,” Mars explained.
“So…so…so…make more sheep!” she exclaimed. “That can’t be hard. They rut. Another one comes. Even I covet Dellish wool.”
Mars looked to me. “I forgot, as well, your mother’s spirit.”
“It’s not spirit, it’s loyalty,” I returned.
“I did not forget that,” he whispered, and I felt my throat close.
Instantly gone was her blustering affront, Mama emitted another sobbing peep.
Mars gave her a soft look before returning his gaze to me.
“This marriage is arranged, Farah, and there is no changing it. True rides here as we speak for parades and betrothal celebrations before you ride there for the ceremony.” His voice dropped. “It’s a good match, my sister. He is so not of his father, I would call him a changeling. At his last surrender, when his father again sent his son to command too few soldiers in an effort of folly, he knew it was lost before it had begun, and I could feel his frustration. He and his men fought with cunning and valor, regardless. His soldiers’ loyalty to him is so strong, it scents the air. This match will mean an alliance between our countries. And I cannot say I do not feel some relief for it also means I do not have to defeat such a valiant soldier again.”
One could not say I was overjoyed at the news that I would take to husband, a Wodell, prince or not.
What one could say was that I was being called to be in service to my people, and really, there was naught else that needed to be said.
“I will marry this prince, my king,” I told him simply so he would know I would do it willingly, because as king, he did not need my assent.
But as the Mars I’d grown up alongside, he would desire it.
“And when you do, you will drip the finery of our great nation, my little sister,” he replied.
I lifted my chin. “I already do.”
My breath caught as Mars’s eyes started to burn red.
I’d always loved his unusual ability to do that when he was feeling deeply.
It was a sight to behold too.
One of great beauty.
And one to fear.
King Mars Laches
King’s Study, First Floor, East Corridor, Catrame Palace
FIRENZE
“Lorenz,” Mars greeted, lifting his head from the papers he was studying as delivered of Lord Johan Mattson of the Arbor that were on his desk as his captain strode into his study. “You’re back from your travels with Nyx so soon? I didn’t expect you for another week.”
Lorenz threw his large frame in a chair in front of the desk.
“I followed a Go’Doan from the bazaar at the Tebes.”
Mars narrowed his eyes at his brother, asking, “And why did you do that?”
“Because Nyx was in a mood. This mood heightened when she saw him. And as her mood heightened, as it has a way of doing, so did mine. I took his arse for her. My wife was pleased. The false priest was not. And I thought nothing of it until the next day when his acolytes brought down his tent and one of them had a marked cheek and a swollen, broken lip.”
A burn hitting his throat, Mars sat back in his chair.
“Did you ask what he was doing in Firenze?” Mars inquired.
“He makes his way to Fire City, obviously, since I’m here. And he says he’s a teacher.”
“Do you think he’s a teacher?”
“No, I think he’s a maggot,” Lorenz said harshly. “And I think G’Dor was a Go’Doan before he renounced that faith to serve our king and marry Sofia. Though, it might prove true we would understand all too late why he didn’t renounce the name they gave him. And I do not have to tell you, Mars, I still do not believe the Go’Doan did not have anything to do with the murder of your father.”
“This was investigated thoroughly, Lorenz,” Mars said low.
“And you don’t believe they had nothing to do with it either,” Lorenz replied. “This is why you have them watched.”
Mars didn’t say anything for there was nothing to say and Lorenz knew it.
This was why he had the false ones watched.
“I want to play w
ith his priest,” Lorenz shared.
“You only need Nyx’s permission for that,” Mars told him.
Lorenz curled out of his lounge, leaning forward, elbows to his knees, eyes on his king.
“I want to play with him, Mars,” Lorenz growled.
“Will I have troubles with Go’Doan ambassadors with how you play?”
“Maybe.”
Mars stared into his warrior’s eyes.
“Play,” he granted.
Lorenz smiled a smile Mars liked, Nyx would like more, this Go’Doan might not like at all (then again, he might), and his warrior pushed out of his seat.
He started to leave the room, but Mars caught him by calling his name, and he turned back.
“The Go’Doan are here to tend our sick and teach our children. They do not have immunity. I wish these acolytes to be watched closely. If there’s another split lip or even a fucking bruise, Lorenz, I want the priest behind it brought forward on charges. And if the Go’Doan send an angry pack of envoys to argue their ways and that they should be allowed to practice them, even in foreign lands, I’ll have an excuse to expel the lot.”
“It’s done,” Lorenz returned.
“Gratitude, my brother.”
Lorenz left.
Mars stared at the door.
Then he picked up his silver pen, dipped the quill into the ink, and struck out a variety of numbers written on the missive, changing their quantities greatly.
10
The Dowry
Lady Silence Mattson
Throne Room, West Corridor, State Wing, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
“This is impossible to believe,” my father hissed.
“Please be quiet, Johan,” my mother whispered.
“I-I-I don’t understand,” my king stammered. “You have the fullness of the dowry you demanded when no dowry should have been demanded for I offer you my very own niece to quell the Beast.”
“I do believe I changed the quantities,” the King of Firenze noted calmly, completely ignoring my uncle’s assertion a dowry shouldn’t have been requested, considering I wouldn’t be there if not for the fact that he and I somehow were meant to save the world.
This dowry situation, by the by, did not best please my father.