The Beginning of Everything by Kristen Ashley Page 0,26

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