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)
“I don’t…that’s quite generous…it’s—” Johan stammered.
“It is not generous, although it is a fortune,” Mars declared. “But it comes nowhere near the worth of your daughter, which is what, with that fortune, I’ll be buying.”
At this, Johan was perplexed.
“You already have her,” Johan reminded him.
“After all the prophesied are wed and she and I come back to Firenze and we go about our lives, you will not see her, unless I allow it. Her mother will come at Silence’s behest, under my guard. But you will not attend her. Is this to your understanding?”
And with that, he was no longer feeling beneficent to his future son-in-law.
No.
He was enraged.
“You…you intend to…to…cut me out of my daughter’s life?” Johan stammered.
“If she never sees you again, this will not bother me. If she wishes to see you again, I will consider it. But I will not grant it unless I feel you can attend her without harming her. Now this is understood, no?”
“I would never harm my daughter,” Johan snapped.
“She does not know her own beauty. And my mother spoke to me earlier this evening and told me Silence shared she has no companions in your land. She is close only to a woman who I’m told is her lady’s maid. A woman of Silence’s wit and charm should have more in her life than her lady’s maid.”
“She’s an oddity.”
Johan fancied a rush of hot wind hit his entire frame when Mars growled, “She is not…” he drew breath in through his nose, “an oddity.”
“She’s an oddity in our land,” Johan hastily explained.
“And how is this so?”’
“She reads.”
Mars blinked.
“She does not like to dance,” Johan continued.
“I do not like to dance either, but I am not an oddity,” Mars remarked.
“You are not a woman. Women enjoy these things. Fine clothes. Fripperies. Courtly advances. Flirtations. I don’t know,” Johan tossed out a hand, “kittens.”
This seemed to concern the king for he asked, “My bride does not like kittens?”
“Yes, she does, of course, but not figurines of them scattered about her rooms.”
It took a moment before Mars sighed a heavy sigh.
He then said, “You do not understand her.”
“She is not like other girls,” Johan returned.
“No, she is like your daughter. And there is no one, outside her mother, who should understand her better than her father. In twenty-three years of life, I would suspect there is much to know. For what I know, in just a few days, I’ve learned this is true.”
Johan went still.
“Do you like to read?” Mars asked.
Johan felt his insides turn cold.
“Yes,” he mumbled.
“Do you like to ride?”
“Of course.”
“Your daughter likes to ride.”
“Girls shouldn’t like to ride in anything but carriages.”
“This is how you harm her, Lord Johan. For I know of two things you enjoy that your daughter enjoys as well, and you do not share these with her.”
Johan shook his head. “You must know, it is every aristocratic daughter’s role to advance the means of her title and as she is, she was unweddable.”
“She is not now, for she marries a king. And you will leave here with chests of riches,” Mars returned. “And with that you can see, Lord Johan, she was not unweddable. It was simply that you did not value all she has to offer, you made that clear to her, but fortunately for your daughter, destiny led her to someone who does.”
“I must think on this,” Johan murmured.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you to do so on your own,” Mars murmured back, dropped his arms and started to move away.
“King Mars,” Johan called.
On another sigh, Mars turned back.
“You can’t possibly think I’ll give up the right to see my daughter for a chest of gold.”
“And you can’t possibly think it’s wise to barter for more treasure for this isn’t an offer, this is a gift from a king on obeying a command.”
A command?
He was not this king’s to command.
By the gods, he’d take a moment to think before he obeyed his own king’s command.
Johan was getting angry again.
“If you were going to give me so much for her, why did you demand such a huge dowry?”
“That was a barter,” Mars explained. “And your king is not very good at it.”
After delivering his parting line, Mars sauntered away.
And Johan watched him go.
As he did, he realized he was the father to a woman who would be queen in but days’ time, and at the parade, he’d been relegated to the stands, not the podium.
And at the betrothal dinner, he’d had to sit with a Go’Doan and a Nadirii lieutenant and his king’s counsellor, not at the table with Queen Ophelia and Princess Serena and his own king and queen. But the bloody wife of a traitor had sat with them.
Further, his daughter had had her flesh pierced and lazed about all afternoon getting fuzzy headed on smoke.