Zosime smiled a secret smile and said, “We have decided to perform her naming ceremony the day before Miet.”

Naming ceremony?

“This means yes, she just isn’t going to tell us,” Nyx put in.

Zosime’s gaze dropped to her daughter and gentled. “She is for Guard and myself, for now.”

There was something beautiful to that, as Zosime entertained a variety of company, all falling in love with her daughter, so she and Guard had to share.

But they were able to hold that, something so vital as a child’s name, to themselves until they deemed fit to offer it to others.

I would wish to do that with Mars, if I ever spoke to him again.

Or if he spoke to me.

I lingered over my farewells (foolishly), then met Kyril at the door and allowed him to help me astride my horse.

We were on our way back to the palace with my extravagant guard of four in formation in front of us and ten behind us when he began, “My queen—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I interrupted him to say, doing it smiling at a little girl on the red cobbles waving at me while her mother curtsied.

“Did you talk to your friends about it?” Kyril pushed.

“I do not want to talk about that either,” I answered, dipping my chin to a man whose eyes I caught before he bent at the waist my way.

I did more smiling, dipping, head inclining, and gave a few children waves before Kyril educated, “Mars ignores them.”

“Well, I am not Mars, am I?” I retorted.

“I shall remain quiet from now on,” Kyril grumbled.

Balls.

I felt badly I took my foul mood out on him. It was not right.

And making matters worse, him being quiet meant things could plague my mind I did not wish to think of.

“Can you explain Miet to me?” I asked Kyril.

“Your husband could explain,” he said by way of answer.

It was me who was silent the rest of the way to the palace after that.

However, when he helped me to dismount, he began, “Silence—”

I looked into his eyes. “When you are first married, I will thank you to tell me how easy it is. Until then…”

I said no more and swept by him, up the steps, and did this bracing, for I knew either Francesco, the palace overseer, or Angelo, Elpis’s secretary, would beset me the moment my foot was over the threshold.

This would include a variety of questions and demands for answers, ranging from what guests we may have that night and into the coming weeks, what I wished to feed them if they were dining with us, to if Mars and I deigned to climb the Sheeonee to attend some clansman’s cousin’s wedding.

I was not wrong.

It was Francesco (with Angelo hanging back, looking anxious), who practically fell upon me.

“Your Majesty,” he said in Firenzii, for he spoke very little of my language. “The king requires your attendance with him in his study.”