Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
We were all seated in the living-room area of the loft, Sabira on the love seat with me, everyone else but my guards sitting as well.
“Wait, I’m coming,” Isabella announced, walking into the loft.
“I thought you needed to be up there so Messina and Varic didn’t kill one another,” Sabira said to her sister with a raised eyebrow.
“No, they’re yelling and not listening to each other, and you know how that goes. It could be a while before they start speaking to one another and not at one another. I left Hadrian to make sure no bodily harm is done, and Tiago’s there to remind them to breathe, use I statements, be clear and concise, modulate their tones and actively listen.”
Sabira shot her a look.
“If you think about it,” I chimed in. “Tiago was made to be a therapist. He loves digging into other people’s minds, loves correcting overly aggressive language, and likes being right.”
“All very true,” Isabella agreed as Sabira slid over so she could take a seat between us.
Isabella tipped her head. “My darling, so you’re aware, the king holds no animosity toward you. He simply felt he had no recourse left to him, and instead of consulting me first, he acted rashly. Now that I understand all the pieces myself, I will explain, but my account cannot leave this room,” she said, glancing at my guards.
They all immediately made fists and placed them over their hearts.
“The prince’s consort has our sworn loyalty, my queen, as do you. Always,” Brenna promised her, speaking for the group.
The queen looked at Cirillo then.
“Me? You trust guards but not me?”
“They have all demonstrated their loyalty many times in the past.”
“So have I,” he countered.
Her eyes narrowed, and he leaned back a bit, not enjoying her close scrutiny. “Have you? Name the times.”
“I—cannot think when you’re staring at me so.”
“Then tell me honestly, are you to be trusted, Cirillo Ormiston?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said like her distrust was killing him.
Giving him a nod, she then turned back to me and caught my hand.
“A lifetime ago, Magnus, the king’s father, and Decimus, the king’s uncle, were at war together, fighting a regional warlord in what is now Romania, when Decimus fell in battle.”
I could feel myself calming with the sound of her voice, soft but husky and so warm that everyone leaned forward, my guards moving closer to listen.
“When Decimus fell, several reports said he had been pierced by many swords, then trampled once he was facedown in the mud and pools of water on the battlefield, and finally, beheaded. The issue was, no one could ever say that they, themselves, had seen his headless corpse.
“A thorough, exhaustive search yielded no results, but the pyres in the enemy camp and their own were burning day and night, and with many of the dead unaccounted for, Magnus was moved to proclaim that his brother was deceased and his body burned accidentally in the fires. On his arrival home, he told Ashira, Decimus’s intended, about his death, and she was utterly bereft. She threw herself from the very roof gardens where Varic and his father are now.”
My heart went out to Ashira, whom I had never met.
“Flash forward a hundred years, and Magnus became king and made his beloved Livia his consort. Another two years later, Livia became pregnant with her first child, Messina, and that was when Decimus returned from the dead.”
I could only imagine how happy Magnus had been to see his brother and how sad he was to have to give him such terrible news about the woman he loved.
“Understandably, Decimus was quite alarmed to find out that his intended bride was dead and that the lands that had once been his now belonged to Magnus. He had fought his way back first to health, then to walking, then crossed the world to return to Malta, only to find that the life he left was no longer his.”
“It must have been horrible for him, but awful for Magnus as well,” I told her.
She nodded and explained that the situation quickly became horrible when Decimus demanded Livia in exchange for his lost Ashira, feeling that Magnus should have done more to keep his beloved from taking her own life. When Decimus realized that Livia was going to have Magnus’s child, he renounced his claim. He and Magnus ironed out a recompense—a swath of Greenland, the only lands left unclaimed at that time, and he would be allowed to self-rule in perpetuity. He never wanted to live with the laws of Ascalon, his father’s rules, nor did he want his new holding to be counted in Magnus’s realm.
“About the same time,” Sabira began, “the first incarnation of Rome as a political state, Romulus Augustus’s empire at that time, finally fell, and many vampyrs found their way of life gone just as the normal human populace had. Believing that retiring from the world was their best chance to live freely, they followed Decimus across the ice to his newly created Ophir.”