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)
The boy came in, found Aramus, walked swiftly to him and set the gilded tray he was carrying on a small table by the divan.
He hesitated a second, awaiting further instructions, and when he did not get them, he dashed out, closing the door behind him.
Aramus uncorked the bottle of rum on the tray, poured a healthy dose into the glass provided, set the bottle aside and took up the glass.
He swallowed all of it.
He had another glass filled in his hand moments later.
But his wife was under the silks and the lamp by her side of the mattress had been blown out.
“I’m your husband,” he announced to the bed. “It’s my duty at all times to see to your protection.”
She did not reply.
He threw back the rum and poured himself another.
Holding it in his hand, he spoke again.
“It’s also my duty to decide what the threats are, what they aren’t, when a situation is uncertain, and precisely how you’ll be protected from the former and latter.”
Ha-Lah didn’t move or make a noise.
Aramus tossed back the rum, set the glass aside and stood.
“It’s for your own bloody sirens-damned good,” he told her.
His wife made no response.
He glowered at the bed.
She didn’t so much as twitch.
Aramus prowled toward the bathing chamber.
He stopped short when he heard, “Have you ever been locked in a room unwillingly with naught to say about it?”
When he looked back to the bed, he saw she still hadn’t moved even if she had spoken.
“You’re hardly in a dungeon,” he retorted.
“That doesn’t matter.” She rose up to a hand in the bed and aimed her gaze at him. “Not even free to wander the palace, Aramus? Not even visiting with the women? Not even with a guard?”
Aramus stood, frozen in place, staring at her beautiful face that wore not an expression of mutiny or frustration, but hurt, and he had the sudden realization of something that made him excruciatingly uncomfortable.
He knew nothing about her.
She had mermaid magic.
She was beautiful.
She was stubborn.
She was strong in her beliefs.
She was appropriate in behavior when she stood beside him as his queen when they were in company.
She had been scouted when it was time for him to wed, found in a small, remote fishing village on the northeast coast of Mar-el, and brought to him to be his bride.
And he liked the gowns she wore, so she had good taste.
Other than that, he knew nothing.
And this nothing included how she would feel about having her liberty taken away and what she might need to do to occupy her time to make it the least enjoyable for her when she did.
Not to mention, being taken from her village and forced to wed the king in the first place.
Most women of Mar-el would find that the highest honor.
But he was finding his wife was decidedly not most women.
He turned back to the bathing chamber, moved to his dressing room, and changed into his short pants for sleep.
He then moved back into the bedchamber, shifting about it himself to extinguish the lamps, the last one at his side of the bed.
He lay on his back under the silks and stared at the dark ceiling.
He did this deciding how to go about doing what he should have started doing over seven sirens-damned months ago.
And what he decided was to tell her the truth, even if it frightened her, about why he was being so cautious.
“I know a raider of the Northlands, his name is Frey Drakkar,” he said softly.
He sensed his wife tense at his side across the wide expanse of bed.
“He’s a very powerful man, a good seaman. The best I’ve ever met who is not Mar-el. I grew to respect him very quickly.”
Ha-Lah said nothing.
“He is a raider, but he is high born. Married to a princess,” Aramus went on.
His wife made no move or noise.
“Tales were told wide about Drakkar and his Ice Bride. Many of them. They reached far. Their love, it is said, is unsurpassed. But not long after they were wed, in an intrigue that was not entirely out of his control, his wife barely escaped dying a violent death after she set aside a glass of wine she had not sipped that was poisoned.”
He felt Ha-Lah’s body tighten.
“Another woman mistakenly picked it up,” he shared. “Her journey to death was not long, but it was violent, as she coughed up blood the entirety of it.”
“Aramus,” Ha-Lah whispered.
He turned to his side toward her.
“I do not know these women in this palace,” he said. “I do not know the machinations of this land. You could take up a cup of tea but rooms away from me and be dead by the time I ran down the corridor to see to you.”
His wife rolled to face him.
“But to lock me in a room?” she asked quietly.