“How could you make something so awful sound so wonderful?” she asked, her voice husky, and he knew her emotion was high.

He did not answer her question.

He made an assertion.

“And for you, it explains why he has not been the father he should have been all these years, no?”

“I suppose,” she mumbled.

“Silence,” he called when he noted her eyes going vague.

Her attention came back to him.

“It is how it needed to be so we could have what it gave us. Think naught of it but that,” he urged.

“You are able to make something so awful sound wonderful because you are wonderful,” she whispered.

Of course, her doing this meant he was forced to kiss her.

This he did, for quite some time.

He was pressed to her, when he relented.

“What does my queen do today?” he asked softly.

When she answered, her voice was breathy, which he liked.

It was what she said he did not like.

“I thought I would practice with my dagger, and if Kyril has time, I can continue to try to take him to his back, something I have not yet been able to do.”

This had been her bent since leaving Birchlire. When they were not astride horses, she worked with her dagger or attempted to fell Kyril, Basil, and once in a sneak attack (that was unsuccessful, though it did lead to something pleasurable), him.

“You do know, my beautiful Silence, you will never need these skills.”

“One cannot be too prepared.”

Mars sighed again.

Silence regarded him.

Then she changed the subject. “Is that invitation open-ended?”

He was perplexed.

“What invitation, my love?”

“For my mother, should she ever desire to leave him.”

He felt his face soften, and he bent to touch his lips to hers before he lifted away and answered, “Yes. If she comes to us, and you wish her here, she will be welcome here.”

“I think he loves her, in his way,” she said.

Mars did not, for that was not the way of any love he knew.

He thought Johan Mattson of the Arbor was selfish and manipulative and very likely showed his wife love to control her.

But this was not his concern, and as it was not, but more, if he gave them to her, his thoughts on the matter would not make his wife happy, he did not share them.

“I think it is not yours to worry about anymore, piccolina.”

“Do you think that you’ll…erm, find this Zee?” she asked.

“I think if you wish to meet him, I will have every corner of Triton searched until he is found.”

This was when Mars watched her face soften before she lifted her head off the pillows to kiss him.

Sadly, they had been away from their home for some time, only arriving at the palace the evening before.

There was much to do and spending the day abed with his wife was not it.