The Beginning of Everything by Kristen Ashley Page 0,95

replace it when needed. And give you a small draught to help with any pain. And, of course, after you receive my son’s gift, we shall smoke.”

Smoke?

No one mentioned smoke.

I could not ask.

I’d sat up, and when I did, I saw Zosime was coming forward with what appeared to be a small cage.

She offered it to Elpis, who did not take it, she opened the door.

And I gasped in delight when a tiny monkey with a bushy face and a striped tail bounced out into Elpis’s hand.

She offered the wee precious thing to me.

Instantly, I reached out and took him.

He wrapped himself around my finger, which was about his height.

“It is a baby and it will get no bigger than your hand, that would be even your hand, Silence,” Elpis said. “From Mars, for you. His gift, after you gave him your gift of bearing his wedding chain.”

Oh by the gods.

By the gods.

Yes, now I was weeping.

I looked to the queen.

“You must name it, tesoro,” Elpis bid, and I noticed her eyes were bright with unshed tears too.

“Piccolo,” I declared.

“It’s a girl,” Elpis murmured.

I grinned at her through wet eyes.

“Piccola,” I amended.

She gave me a soft smile in return.

I gave my attention to my new darling, bringing her up to my face.

“Allo, wee precious,” I whispered.

She reached her teeny hand to my nose.

I started laughing and instantly fell in love.

With a wee monkey.

And maybe…

A king.

Everyone giggled.

“It is not funny,” Elena stated.

We were in the royal bath of the palace garden that was at the very, very back. It was somewhat opened to the elements (no ceiling, only the head and end of the bath walled, the rest was sunshine and shrubbery with some stout columns that held flowering vines). It was tiled in small diamonds of peach and green. And there were eight lounges facing it.

I was on a lounge with my ornate fumaria beside me (a glass contraption that looked like a bottle with an extravagant stopper in the top and a glass extension where you put your lips).

Smoke was lovely.

Smoke, outside my wee Piccola, was my new favorite thing in the world.

Elena was in the bath, wearing her body stocking, looking lithe and tan and like she could fell a whole regiment of Firenz with her trim, tall, athletic body.

To my shock, Zosime, Nyx and Farah were in the bath as well, and they were naked (even Zosime, and she was heavily pregnant!).

Ha-Lah, the Mar-el queen, was in it, and she was naked too!

And she was thus when her guard was not far away. If he looked (which I’d checked, and he wasn’t), he could see his queen in the nude!

This, of course, led to Mother and Aunt Mercy vacating the premises.

But Elpis was there.

She wore a short sarong wrapped around her torso and hips, and she sat on the side of the bath with her feet in it, her own fumaria at her side, laughing.

Sofia was on the other side and down from Elpis, in her own sarong. She had a fumaria and was using it, but she wasn’t laughing, or talking, just being with us…and smoking.

Dora had gone with Ophelia, but Elena’s lieutenants were now with us and one of them, Jasmine, was not in her body stocking (though the other one, Hera, was).

Everyone had a personal fumaria (save Zosime, who told me she couldn’t do the smoke when she was expecting).

And it appeared we all loved them.

“It is hilarious,” Jasmine negated her princess’s words.

“He’s a lout,” Elena declared.

“A handsome one,” Zosime said.

“If I did not have my Lorenz or he allowed us to play with such as him, I would not mind this lout pinning me to walls and telling me he wanted to kiss me until I was soaked,” Nyx added.

I giggled again from where I reclined still wearing my orange drapings, though I did not quite understand what this “soaked” business was that the ladies were tittering about.

I had flicked the silk off so my legs weren’t covered.

My mother would be scandalized.

But the sun on my legs felt wonderful.

At my giggle, Queen Elpis turned her gaze to me and gave me an affectionate look.

By the gods.

It was true.

She liked me!

“You would never kiss him,” Zosime said as if she was horrified.

“I would not,” Nyx agreed. “But I wouldn’t mind him threatening me with it.”

Elpis threw her head back and shouted with laughter.

Then she lifted her fumaria to her lips, drew in and eventually popped the lavish stopper from the top, taking in the