The Beginning of Everything by Kristen Ashley Page 0,124
the stairs. I turned right, a direction I rarely went, for this was where the formal rooms in which the king did business were located, and except in the beginning, Mars was never formal with me.
As it had been for days, it was rife with men.
Mars’s Trusted.
True’s personal guard.
The same of Wilmer, Gallienus, Cassius and Aramus.
I went right to Alfie, True’s closest lieutenant.
His attention had shifted to me the moment I hit the stairs, as had Kyril’s and Guard’s, Mars’s men.
“Countess,” Alfie murmured when I arrived at him.
“Sir Alfie,” I murmured back. “Is our prince still behind those doors?” I asked, glancing at the closed doors to the meeting room where they were having their diplomatic discussions.
“He is, milady.”
“I would speak to him, please,” I requested.
He was openly surprised and thus spoke carefully. “Talks are such they shouldn’t be interrupted.”
“I understand.” And I certainly did with all the goings-on I’d overheard. “But this is important.” I paused in hopes of adding the significance I needed to my emphasis. “Very important.”
I felt a presence beside me, turned my head and saw Kyril there.
“I will get my king,” Kyril stated instantly.
“She asks for her prince,” Alfie replied.
“She has no prince. She has a king,” Kyril announced implacably.
Oh dear.
“I wish to speak to my cousin, Kyril,” I told him.
“And you shall. As well as your king,” Kyril told me.
Balls!
Kyril turned on his sandal and stalked to the double doors.
Alfie threw me a certain kind of look and followed on his heels.
I fought wringing my hands for this was not going well.
I could tell True. True needed to know.
I couldn’t tell Mars what I’d overheard.
Though, it must be said, he needed to know too.
It would seem I had no choice. I either had to keep it to myself, wait to get True alone and tell him later, fabricating some other reason I urgently had to speak to my cousin, thus interrupting political discussions of grave important.
Or I’d have to share with True and Mars.
For both were right then stalking my way.
Well, True wasn’t stalking. He was striding with purpose.
Mars, however, was definitely stalking.
“Is all well?” my intended demanded when he was four feet from me.
“I…well, I…” I looked to him, to True, to him.
They both arrived at me, stopping very close, tipping their chins down to stare at me.
And in that moment, I remembered Sofia.
She had not known what her husband intended to do.
And from the words of the piercing ceremony, I wondered if she had, what she would have done.
That ceremony stated your first allegiance was to your husband, not your realm.
But if she knew her husband would personally murder her king…
If he’d told her this, he would have put her in an unbearable position.
And I was in somewhat the same position right then.
Except I knew the kind of man my cousin was.
I also knew that I would, the very next evening, be the Firenz queen.
I had alliances to both sides.
And one of them was to my (very soon-to-be) husband.
So I understood what I had to do.
“Can we speak privately?” I requested.
Mars took my hand immediately, and I rushed with him as he strode down the hall to a door. He opened it and pulled me inside.
True followed and closed it behind him.
It was his receiving room swathed in bold silks and furnished with cushions and divans.
I very much liked that room, a room I would in future use to do my own receiving with and without my king.
Then again, I liked all about the palace that would be mine.
This heartened me, this reminder of who I was and who I would be in this palace.
On that thought, I straightened my shoulders and lifted my gaze to my king and my prince.
“Silence, mia piccola, there are matters of—” Mars started.
Before I lost my courage, I interrupted him.
“I overheard Carrington speaking to King Wilmer. In the king’s chambers. At what I heard, I listened, and it was shocking. And concerning. So much so, you…you…” I lifted my chin. “You both need to know.”
“Silence,” True murmured, clearly feeling his own shock.
And worry.
“Carrington called you a traitor,” I told True and watched my beloved cousin’s eyes flare in an odd way I’d never seen.
It made them seem impossibly more green.
And it was impossible because they were already very green but now they seemed alive with green, like a burgeoning leaf unfurling at a fantastical rate.
Matters were of such important, I tore my gaze from that wonder and looked to Mars.