“It is not your burden he is a revolting man.”

Again, I spoke like Mars hadn’t.

“All this time, all these years, I wanted there to be.”

“Of course you did, you were a daughter and you thought he was your father.”

“All these years, he made me feel like nothing, when he was.”

“Yes,” Mars said firmly. “Yes, Silence, it was he who is nothing.”

“But he made me feel like nothing.”

“Fuck,” he bit. “I did not mean to make you feel that way, my love.”

“He made me feel like nothing.”

“Silence.”

“Nothing.”

“Piccolina.”

“A shadow,” I whispered, right before I dissolved into tears.

I would have collapsed in his arms, but he lifted me up in them instead, and he carried me to our bed.

There, he entered it, holding me close, and he continued to do so as I wept into his skin.

I did not want to feel this.

I did not want to give my father this.

But I could not seem to stop.

Mars tutted and stroked my hair and back and held me tight, altering this with rocking me like a baby.

And moments before I cried myself to sleep, I heard my husband say, “Your shadow is not nothing, my queen. You were right. It is a gift. And the gods do not grant something this important, this beautiful to someone who is nothing.”

King Mars

The King’s Study, East Wing, Catrame Palace, Fire City

FIRENZE

Lorenz arrived in Mars’s study looking alert even if it was late and Mars was certain his call took his captain from his bed.

And it was a bed Lorenz was also late to, Mars knew, for they had had a very long discussion about things they were learning from the Go’Ella. None of it about The Rising, but none of it was good. This happening after he had scraped off Ines which was soon after Silence had left them.

He did not see Lorenz directly.

Mars was standing behind his desk, looking out the window.

And he was doing this keeping his body very still.

It was Lorenz’s reflection in the window that he saw.

“Mars?” Lorenz called.

“Select men, the best you know for this sort of operation, and deploy them immediately.”

“What operation?”

“I want Johan Mattson, Lord of the Arbor, ruined.”

“The queen’s father?” Lorenz asked with verbal shock.

Mars turned from the window.

Upon one glace at his king, Lorenz stood straighter.

“Ruined, Lorenz. Fucking destroyed. All that he cares about, all that is important to him, I want it gone. And once that is done, I want him to know it was me who took it from him.”

“What did he do to her?” Lorenz whispered, his face now carved from stone.

“He made her feel like nothing.”

A muscle ticked in Lorenz’s jaw.

He then dipped his chin and stated, “It will be done.”

And without another word, Mars’s captain pivoted and walked out the door.