The Beginning of Everything Page 3

  And his three wives surrounded them.

  It was nauseating, not only being in his father’s presence during these times (or at all), but also that his father was a man who was so little of a man he could not find what he needed in one wife.

  He had none of their love.

  Just their greed, need for status, fear, or all three.

  Fortunately, after his father’s first attempt, he did not demand his granddaughter attend him there.

  He had a second son, a spare to the throne.

  When he attempted to make his rule include his granddaughter, he learned he would not have even that.

  Gallienus never again made that attempt.

  As he walked through the tables where the appalling number of courtiers sat to dine when his father was in full king mode, which was nearly nightly, Cassius saw that, indeed, all of his men were around. His personal guard. And this had been true even when they were but simply soldiers.

  Then again, they each thought of all as their own personal guard.

  As it should be with soldiers.

  Macrinus, of course. Nero as well. Otho. Antonius. Severus. And Hadrian.

  Every one a general.

  Every one had things to do.

  Cassius knew whatever was to come would not be a blessing.

  He stopped directly in 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 Laird was not what he wished to be, a general in his father’s army, free (for the most part) to live his life as he pleased without the yoke of his father’s wishes weighing at his neck before the yoke of ruling bore down on it.

  Now, he was heir to the throne and facing just that until his dying breath.

  “I’ll not marry her,” Cass said low.

  His father gave him a sick smile. “Apparently, she’s a powerful witch whose power will grow momentously with the injection of your seed.” His smile died. “And there is the matter of you siring me a grandson to secure the throne to the direct line for the next generation.”

  Aelia was bright, observant, learned quickly, was kind of heart, generous of spirt, sound of logic and thus would make a stupendous queen.

  Cassius would never suggest that while his father was breathing, or he would indeed face a noose.

  Or a guillotine.

  “You suggest the next in line have Nadirii blood,” he reminded Gallienus.

  “At this point, I don’t care if he has mermaid blood,” Gallienus retorted.

  “Nadirii don’t abide male children,” Cassius went on.

  “She can’t exactly put a future king in a basket and set him outside some cottager’s home, now, can she?” Gallienus returned.

  “They ceased doing that a century ago, Father. They’ve now learned to use magic to stop conceiving a male child.”

  “Well, you’ll have to find some way to stop her from doing that, won’t you?” Gallienus snapped. “And I daresay Fern can help you handle it. She knows to serve her king well.”

  She did at that.

  Not a female in Airen didn’t know exactly how to serve their masters well.

  Even, and perhaps especially, a powerful witch.

  “The
Airenzian will never accept a Nadirii queen,” Cassius pointed out.

  His father flipped a hand. “They’ll have no choice. They can accept her, or they can run from the Beast.” He shook his head. “But it really matters not if they accept her. Once the Beast is dispatched, she can reside in the dungeons and her cunt will still be there. You can visit her, sire a son, take him, and she can rot there for all I care.”

  Cassius drew breath into his nose, and wondered, not for the first time, if his mother had found a man who looked much like his father and that was his true sire.

  She was very dead, therefore he’d never know.

  Oddly, Gallienus’s tone gentled. “It is done, my son. There’s aught to do about it. The others will have learned this news or will be learning it soon. We have no choice. We must ride for Firenze soon, leaving our staff behind to prepare for a royal wedding.”

  Trajan’s decision to battle on wounded by a woman meant this was Cassius’s life.

  He had no choice.

  In anything.

  But with a fury beginning to boil in him the strength he had not felt since he roared his lament when the life left his wife’s body, he realized he was heir to a bloody throne and yet utterly powerless.

  Including who he would, or would absolutely not, take to wife.

  4

  The Bluestocking

  Lady Silence Mattson

  Study Corridor, First Floor, Bower Manor, The Arbor

  WODELL

  I walked down the corridor, my feet in their slippers silent on the carpets.

  I’d felt it in the night, the tremor. It brought a chill of fear and foreboding, as it had done now for months.

  Even as the sensation of the earth moving was getting stronger, these feelings normally receded, perhaps slowly, but they did.

  This time, they grew. So much, I was not able to regain sleep.

  Now it was early evening of the next day and my father’s house had seen much activity.

  Including a visit from a royal messenger, straight from the king, which caused a flurry of activity not only from the servants, but from my mother and father as well.

  As usual, I had not been a part of it.

  So, as usual, I had to use certain means to discover what was happening.

  This I did, wending my way toward my father’s study, where I heard his voice, always loud and thus it traveled, as well as my mother’s, which was neither.

  I heard this long before anyone I knew would hear it.

  It was an oddity of mine, one of many, this unnatural hearing.

  I’d long since learned to hide it, just as I had long since learned to do what I did once I’d stolen even closer.

  Shifting into a recess in that corridor of my father’s castle, one that held a table with a bust of some proud, puffed out, male ancestor of mine that for some reason commissioned a sculptor to sculpt him while his lips sneered, I focused my mind, experienced the tingle up my spine, and I drew my cloak over me.

  It shimmered just a moment before I felt the ethereal shadow overtake me, warm and snug.

  Truth, I would live shrouded by my precious shadow if I could.

  Not to be seen.

  Not to be known.

  Naught to be expected of me.

  Naught for others to be disappointed about in me.

  And mostly, naught for me to be disappointed about in others.

  “Johan, we simply cannot ask this of Silence,” my mother said shakily, taking me from my thoughts, and I focused my attention on their conversation.

  “We won’t be asking anything,” my father retorted. “It is her duty to her king, her father, her title, this very house. And Vanka, it cannot be borne that you don’t realize how bloody opportune this is. The chit has demonstrated we’d never find her a match, until now, and not surprisingly, it isn’t her who made it.”

  My breath snagged.

  A match?

  My father continued.

  “Now she’ll be wed to a king.”

  Oh, by the goddesses, no.

  Was King Gallienus looking for another wife?

  He seemed to collect them at an alarming frequency, each one younger than the last.

  Could he—?

  My mother interrupted my rampant thoughts.

  “It’s only in his father’s reign before him that land has even become a degree of civilized. They’re still barbarians.”

  But…what?

  The Airenzian could indeed be considered barbarians, if pressed. Their treatment of females left quite a bit to be desired. If history told it true, it was actually worse now after the Night of the Fallen Masters those centuries ago, when the Nadirii Sisterhood was born.

  But mostly, it was civilized. They had laws (however, not reasonable ones for women). They had taxes. Schools. Hospitals. And they had the best engineers and architects in Triton, so they even had running water in their abodes, and in some, you could turn a lever, and it would run hot.

  I couldn’t say in my several journeys there that it was not austere (though the countryside was lovely, the vineyards, olive groves, vast fields of grain, and the lovely, large Cairngorms Lake was astonishingly beautiful).

  However, Sky Bay was actually quite terrifying, the whole city built from that glinting black stone. Of course, the buildings were beautiful, in their way, considering the talent of the architects that designed them. They were still frightening.

  And the severe citadel carved into the side of the highest peak overlooking the bay was definitely terrifying (though also quite lovely, in a daunting manner).

  But for all intents and purposes, Airen was even more civilized than Wodell.

  Unless you were female.

  Though, even females in Wodell (and, I’d heard, in Firenze) didn’t have it like the Nadirii.

  Ah, to be a Nadirii.

  I’d often thought I’d do quite well with the Sisterhood.

  Though I didn’t reckon I’d be very good with a sword.

  Or a bow.

  Or a staff.

  Or daggers.

  Alas, perhaps the Nadirii was not for me.

  “They’re also the richest nation in Triton,” my father said, interrupting my thoughts.

  I blinked into my shadow.

  The richest nation in Triton was…

  “The Firenz don’t practice fidelity to their mates,” my mother remarked sharply.

  …Firenze!

  “Not the men, nor the women,” she went on. “And they have those retched communal baths where they all, women and men, bathe naked…together. They freely engage in that terrible smoke. And the violence practiced there is irrational. They fight amongst themselves, liberally. Since his ascendance, the king himself has quelled three coup attempts. These happening in the first two years after he assumed the throne. But even if in the last three there have been no rebellions, there still has been fighting. Their clans regularly—”

  “You don’t have to live there,” my father noted.

  Shockingly, my mother’s voice was rising. “But my daughter will!”

  “By the goddess,” I breathed.

  The messenger from the king.

  I was to marry King Mars of Firenze.

  Balls and begorrah!

  How had this come about?

  “By the goddess,” I repeated on a whisper.

  “Yes, she will,” my father declared.

  Oh, by the goddess.

  I was to marry King Mars of Firenze.

  “He will not take to her,” my mother snapped, and my heart lurched.

  My father had very little use for me.

  This was because my mother could not give him what he wanted, a son, or even a second child who was more to his liking than me. He had tried, in his ways (which were not enjoyable), to make me the daughter he wished me to be, the Countess of the Arbor he felt fit the title.

  But I preferred my own company, truth be told. Or if I had it, the company of my mother, who was dear to me and in her way s
howed I was the same to her. Or Estrilda, my Tril, who had been my lady’s maid for years now.

  I liked people.

  I was heartened by companionship.

  I just did not enjoy groups and definitely not crowds. It was fun to watch, for a spell, but after that, it became boring and sometimes could feel oppressive.

  I therefore preferred reading to attending large dinner parties. I did not enjoy dancing a’tall. I further did not enjoy making banal discourse with suitors (or, really, anyone).

  This, indeed, was perhaps my least favorite thing in the world. And I’d long since learned if I attempted something not banal, exposing I had read many books, traveled across Wodell, Airen, even had been amongst The Enchantments of the Nadirii once on a state visit with my cousin, Prince True. Or if I shared about the many times I had been in the presence or at the courtly affairs of our very own King Wilmer, and I had watched and listened well, learning much, my dinner or dance companions were shocked.

  I had become known as The Bluestocking.

  When I was not known as The Mouse.

  I did not find this insulting (though, the second wasn’t my favorite).

  My father found it infuriating.

  He wanted a bright, lively (but empty-headed) daughter who made a spectacular match to build the power of his title, which would carry forward to my child through me.

  Instead, he got me. A quiet, watchful mouse whose head was far from empty.

  But now it seemed even my mother did not think I could turn the eye of a king.

  By the goddess, I wasn’t that difficult to look upon, was I?

  I thought my ebony hair was rather lovely. Very long, it wasn’t stick straight, it had nice curls. It also had a rather impressive gleam.

  And I’d always liked my eyes. Even my father said I had extraordinary eyes (albeit he said this grudgingly). I’d never seen my eyes in another’s face, not ever.

  Silver.

  Not a blue that could be construed as gray.

  Silver.

  Polished.

  Shining.

  Dare I say my own self…luminous.