He entered the bed and held her about her waist with one arm as he gently cleaned his seed from between her legs, his gaze cast down her body as his hand went about its ministrations.

“Why do I sense this is not sexual?” she asked quietly.

“I am simply taking care of my queen,” he muttered.

“It is more.”

He said nothing.

“Aramus, look at me.”

His eyes went to hers.

“Did something happen that you did not tell me in your discussions with the pirates?”

He did not want his hand between her legs with anything on his mind but his Ha-Lah.

Thus, he kissed her shoulder again, moved from her, the bed, to his valet chamber, where he tossed the cloth.

She was no longer holding her position for him but seated cross-legged in their bed with eyes on him when he returned to their bedchamber.

“You didn’t answer me,” she noted.

He entered the bed, and she cried out in surprise as he positioned them, Aramus with his back to the helm, Ha-Lah astride him on her knees.

He pulled up the bedclothes so their legs and hips were covered and then he looked into her eyes.

“Outside of Magnus, it was an exodus. They leave for the Mystics, or to attempt to wreak havoc in the Northlands and Southlands. Now knowing Tor, Lahn and Apollo as well as Frey, I do not think, if they choose east, it will go well for them. I know from experience, if they choose west, it will go worse.”

“I do too,” his wife replied softly.

And she did. Her grandfather, a pirate who tried his hand in the Mystics, met his end there.

“My best captains are gone, Ha-Lah. Which weakens our armada.”

“Oh no,” she murmured.

“All is not lost,” he assured. “My navy is always strong. But with them here, if the time came it was needed, and the time might be coming it is needed, it would have been unbeatable.”

“Whatever comes our way, we will prevail.”

He did not hold that hope.

“You worry,” she remarked.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Aramus—”

“You said that tremor, the one felt recently, was one we had no need to fear,” he noted.

She nodded. “I do not know what it was, but it was not like the others. Not in the slightest.”

“I have a gnawing dread.”

These words came out in a burst.

His wife blinked at him.

And he felt a fool.

“Do not consider what I say. I simply—” he began.

“Shh,” she hushed, her fingers to his lips. “My love, you can tell me anything.” She slid her hand along the beard at his jaw. “Anything, darling.”

“It is that…I understand happiness.”

Her body gave a slight twitch that made her curls bounce, but she said nothing.

“It is the headache of hearing of a revolt against the King’s Will, and sending men to quell it, and going to the dinner table where you sit, and what happened in the day means nothing, for I dine with you. It is listening to pirates grouse, understanding I ask for great change, but feeling frustrated they, in turn, do not understand the valid reasons I am asking it, and coming to my bed with you here, and their complaints lose all significance. In other words, it is knowing each day will dawn, and it might be good, it might be bad, but it will end happy, for I have you.”