“I’ll have your vow, right now, if aught like this happens again, which it will not, but if it does, when you are made safe by a warrior, and told by that warrior to run, that you bloody do as you’re told and run.”

She stared up at him, a mercurial shifting of the silver of her eyes the only indication she gave she did not like his words.

“They’re still counting body parts, but at least a hundred men attacked this palace,” he went on. “If it was not for the might and skill of those who were close to your chamber, you could have easily been killed.”

“Earlier, you bragged about me taking up a dagger,” she remarked.

“Earlier, my barons and chieftains were here, and you desire to impress them, so I bragged of something that would mean something to you as it would mean something to them. However, it means something entirely different to me.”

She shook her head. “I’m not certain it was safe for me to escape.”

“Serena reported Elena told you to run, something she would not do if it was not safe for you to run. Instead, you attacked an opponent Elena easily dispatched.”

“I was right here, Mars. I heard Serena report that. And just to say, I was there, and it wasn’t that long ago. I remember what happened.”

“It is not wise for you to be flippant in this moment, piccolina,” he warned.

She fell silent.

“Do I have your vow you will not act so foolishly again?” he pressed.

“I will not act so foolishly again, Mars.”

He did not like her tone. The rote manner in which her words came.

Not as if she did not mean them.

As if it meant nothing to her saying them, even if in saying them they meant a good deal to him to know his bride would keep herself safe.

In response to this, Mars pulled her closer and whispered, “There is a great change in you, mia bellezza.”

“I’m bloodied, tired, Sofia is lost, she was a kind soul who touched mine too short of a time, yesterday was long, this night longer, and thus this day looms longest of all.”

“And we will be wed at the end of it.”

“Of course,” she said, as if he’d told her they would sup together at the end of it.

He decided not to address that.

“And I have lost a woman I have known the whole of my life who means a great deal to me.”

It was that which moved her.

She lifted a hand to his jaw, her face softening, and she said gently, “I’m so sorry, Mars.”

He studied her, noted the softening of her face set the silver of her eyes to a liquid and that made him turn his head and kiss the skin of her palm.