The Beginning of Everything by Kristen Ashley Page 0,49
it was dawning on me I didn’t mind being a little monkey.
Farah Magos
Landing, Third Floor, Catrame Palace, Fire City
FIRENZE
We sat in the window seat of the back, center window on the uppermost floor.
All around us was dark.
We gazed at the moonlit gardens.
We were both twisted to the windows.
His thigh was up in the seat, as was mine.
Our knees almost brushed.
But they didn’t.
Though I wished they would.
In the past days, he only touched me when he was being gallant.
Although this was often, as he was gallant in all things, I found I wished for other touches too.
These, I did not get.
“Would you like me to have a word with Mars?” he asked.
I studied the features of True Axelsson’s handsome face, patterned silver in moonlight through scrollwork.
I had told him of Queen Elpis’s remoteness.
And he would do that.
Talk to Mars.
For me.
For my mother.
Because I had learned very quickly that he was that man and he wanted nothing to weigh on me.
As he would want nothing to weigh on anyone who had even a modicum of his affection.
Oh, would that this man could truly be mine.
Elena of the Nadirii must be quite something.
“After Silence marries Mars, we’re away to Wodell, True,” I replied. “Mama is coming with us and staying with us. It matters not if Queen Elpis accepts us again. She will not be coming, and we’ll be living on Dellish land, somewhere it is not likely she’ll travel.”
He turned to face me. “Her daughter-in-law will be Dellish.”
“Yes, and if Mars takes his bride to visit her home, Elpis will not ride with them.”
“Because of you?”
I reached out and briefly touched his knee before I said gently, “Because Firenze does not hold much interest in Wodell.”
“Of course,” he murmured, and I could see his lips quirking in the moonlight.
“I don’t want to offend you,” I told him earnestly.
He looked back out the window. “My father is of my grandfather. And my grandfather is of his. And so on, Farah. They have two things they are very good at doing. Selecting ill-chosen counsellors who advise them in all things and do it very poorly. And then they take this counsel and carry it out fully.”
He turned his attention again to me, reached out and took my hand, but it wasn’t briefly.
He held it.
He was good at that too.
“In other words, I’m not offended, sweets.”
He’d begun calling me that yesterday.
I had marked the first time he gave that to me.
I did it not only because it was dear, but because I hoped he thought it to be true of me.
Carefully, I asked, “Did these counsellors advise your father to ride on Firenze?”
He squeezed my hand, let it go, but didn’t take his attention from me.
“Three times. And if Rebecca, our great witch, did not share about the Beast, another campaign would have been forthcoming.”
“Oh, True,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “We are not a poor nation, Farah. We don’t have the riches you do. We don’t have the advancements of Airen. But our people are not starving. If we set the men we use to war on Firenze to training them in the engineering of Airen and bettering the piping in our homes, the irrigation of our fields, the improved passage of our rivers. If we were to build alliances with the King of Mar-el to allow our ships through to the Green Sea so our wool and grain and pewter can get through to Lunwyn, Hawkvale, Fleuridia, they would know better lives without ruby mines and saffron fields.”
“I’ve noted King Wilmer has not taken this rare opportunity to sit with King Aramus,” I remarked.
That made him look out the window. “It isn’t rare. It’s unique. And you’re right. He squanders this opportunity when we have much wood that can build ships, and if we had passage, we could build fleets for merchants to deliver our wares to the Northlands and The Mystics.” He turned again to me. “I do not know if my men would desire to be sailors. What I do know is that they would be gone from their homes for months, but they would return. And they’d do it breathing.”
I caught his hand at that.
“Can you talk to King Aramus?” I asked.
He nodded. “I can and I will. Not now. Our relationship is new, and I don’t think it’d be wise to ask for a concession when I barely know the man and he has no reason to grant it. He is warm to his men. He is warm to