front of his father, absolutely did not bow, but instead noted, “You summoned?”
Cassius endured the flash of displeasure from his father’s eyes and it was not difficult to do so.
“Before I even had breakfast served to me, the witch Fern demanded an audience,” his father began.
“Is she still alive? Or have you had her beheaded for her insolence?” Cassius asked drolly.
“I can have you beheaded for yours,” Gallienus snapped.
“The truth of the gods, I might welcome it for it’d put me out of my misery,” Cassius murmured.
“And what of Aelia?” Gallienus pressed snidely.
Cassius felt a sharp pang rend his heart.
“She has six fathers. She’ll be all right,” he returned.
“This is not getting us to where I wish us to be,” Gallienus noted hostilely.
“Please,” Cassius rolled a hand, “do proceed.”
“I’m delighted beyond measure I have your permission,” Gallienus rapped out.
Cass sighed.
“The witch Fern has shared that the tremors mean the Beast is being roused,” Gallienus announced.
Cassius’s back shot straight and he felt the air in the room turn thick as his men went alert.
“You jest,” Cass whispered.
“I wish I did. Alas, I do not. All of the witches have met. They’ve been trying to put a stop to it as well as discover who’s behind it. Someone is rousing the Beast. They mean for it to rise. To surface. For what purpose, I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. As it seems they cannot stop this from happening, we must be prepared.”
“And how exactly do we prepare?” Cass demanded. “If lore is true, nearly the entire population of the continent of Triton fell to this Beast before they fled to Mar-el. It was only the Beast’s aversion to water that kept them safe. But it’s been so long, and there are so many incarnations to that story, we can’t begin to truly know how it happened. Some say magical forces banished it. Some say the water injured it and it slithered home to recover. Others say—”
“I know the lore, Cassius,” his father interrupted him. “I also know that the Great Coven was formed back then for this exact purpose. They’ve met over the millennia for other reasons, but there’s a plan they concocted in that ancient time that they’ve carefully nurtured over the centuries. And the time is nigh for them to put it into action.”
“And the plan is?” Cassius queried.
“King Mars will marry Wilmer’s niece, a girl named Silence.”
Cass did not at all like how this had started.
And he knew, irrefutably, that Mars was going to lose his mind at having to marry a Wodell.
“And how is this marriage—?”
“And Prince True will marry a Firenz woman called Farah.”
Sad for True, who many said was deeply in love with the second daughter of the Nadirii.
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