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)
However, he couldn’t think on True because this wasn’t getting any better.
“Oh shite,” Cass heard Otho mutter behind him.
Yes, it was not getting any better.
Gallienus didn’t hesitate.
But he did look like saying the words made him ill.
“And you will marry Elena, second daughter to Ophelia of the Nadirii.”
He felt his brothers sidle closer to his back, but even so, there was no sound in a room that seemed stripped of its capacity to carry noise, so heavy was the silence.
Finally, Cass was able to control his fury enough to declare, “That cannot happen.”
“Apparently, it must.”
“She’s Nadirii.”
“Nauseatingly, this she is,” his father spat. “And her sister killed your brother, my son, the heir to my throne.”
This, Cassius could dispute and every man in that room, save his father, would dispute it.
Trajan died of pride.
Serena, first-born Princess of the Nadirii Sisterhood, had, indeed, inflicted a wound on Trajan that had ended being mortal.
But if he’d had it cleansed, stitched, tended, treated, and the proud fool had rested, perhaps a day, or better, three, or best, two weeks, he’d be of this earth.
Enraged Serena had wounded him, he’d refused even a cleansing, carrying on a battle that was entirely lost, doing this for three days, losing scores of men, eventually falling weak as the poison set in the wound, and after suffering greatly, dying.
Serena might brag as broadly as she could that she’d killed the heir to Airen, and she did brag, as was her way.
But Trajan had died, if not at his own hand, to his own prideful, reckless, unwise, irresponsible decisions, which was poetic, in its way, as in his life, he had made many.
There was not great love lost between brothers. Cass’s brothers were not of his blood.
And they were all in that room.
But this meant Cassius Laird was not what he wished to be, a general in his father’s army, free (for the most part) to live his life as he pleased without the yoke of his father’s wishes weighing at his neck before the yoke of ruling bore down on it.
Now, he was heir to the throne and facing just that until his dying breath.
“I’ll not marry her,” Cass said low.
His father gave him a sick smile. “Apparently, she’s a powerful witch whose power will grow momentously with the injection of your seed.” His smile died. “And there is the matter of you siring me a grandson to secure the throne to the direct line for the next generation.”
Aelia was bright, observant, learned quickly, was kind of heart, generous of spirt, sound of logic and thus would make a stupendous queen.
Cassius would never suggest that while his father was breathing, or he would indeed face a noose.
Or a guillotine.
“You suggest the next in line have Nadirii blood,” he reminded Gallienus.
“At this point, I don’t care if he has mermaid blood,” Gallienus retorted.
“Nadirii don’t abide male children,” Cassius went on.
“She can’t exactly put a future king in a basket and set him outside some cottager’s home, now, can she?” Gallienus returned.
“They ceased doing that a century ago, Father. They’ve now learned to use magic to stop conceiving a male child.”
“Well, you’ll have to find some way to stop her from doing that, won’t you?” Gallienus snapped. “And I daresay Fern can help you handle it. She knows to serve her king well.”
She did at that.
Not a female in Airen didn’t know exactly how to serve their masters well.
Even, and perhaps especially, a powerful witch.
“The Airenzian will never accept a Nadirii queen,” Cassius pointed out.
His father flipped a hand. “They’ll have no choice. They can accept her, or they can run from the Beast.” He shook his head. “But it really matters not if they accept her. Once the Beast is dispatched, she can reside in the dungeons and her cunt will still be there. You can visit her, sire a son, take him, and she can rot there for all I care.”
Cassius drew breath into his nose, and wondered, not for the first time, if his mother had found a man who looked much like his father and that was his true sire.
She was very dead, therefore he’d never know.
Oddly, Gallienus’s tone gentled. “It is done, my son. There’s aught to do about it. The others will have learned this news or will be learning it soon. We have no choice. We must ride for Firenze soon, leaving our staff behind to prepare for a royal wedding.”
Trajan’s decision to battle on wounded by a woman meant this was Cassius’s life.
He had no choice.
In anything.
But with a fury beginning to boil in him the strength he had not felt since he roared his lament when the life left his wife’s body, he realized he was heir to a bloody throne and yet utterly powerless.
Including who he would, or would absolutely not, take to wife.