“You should leave word with someone where you are so they can tell our king when he arrives,” Kyril instructed.

I stopped and again looked to him. “You know where I’ll be. You can tell him. And if my husband wishes to find me, he can seek me.”

“I will not be leaving you,” he reminded me.

This was true. He was my escort often and when he was done escorting me somewhere, he didn’t go off to play a game of tuble.

His tone was much changed—quieter, softer—when he went on to advise, “Don’t play these games, Silence.”

“I’m not playing any games,” I denied.

“You are.”

“I am not. I’m having a sherry with my parents. We do that in Wodell, and as you know, we’re now in Wodell. Sherry or brandy or port. Though I prefer a wee dram of Benedictine.”

Kyril glowered down at me.

“My mother and father are waiting,” I prompted.

“He tires of this distance, my queen. You do not know him well. He’s very taken with you and thus has been courting you. But I advise you not to test him.”

This was not news to me.

Since our wedding night some weeks prior, a night when Mars was very thoughtful and allowed me to rest after an intensely trying time, rather than expecting me to consummate our marriage, things that had been very promising between my new husband and I had deteriorated.

And of late, Mars was letting it be known that he was not fond of it.

This was, I would admit only to myself, my doing.

For Kyril was right, I did not know Mars very well.

However, what I did know was that he was indeed taken with me and he could be very affectionate and loving.

He could also be vicious and ruthless.

He had not been these things to me, but I’d witnessed them as he’d tortured and taken men’s lives, in battle and by executing them.

I had spoken to no one of what I’d seen and how it made me feel.

I was now queen.

Queen of a land where traitors were put to death without trial.

Tortured and put to death.

My dreams were filled of these things. Remembering them and conjuring new images.

These new images included Mars torturing my father.

Mars torturing my friend and maid, Estrilda.

Mars torturing me.

This meant I woke with a start, with heart racing and skin chilled.

This I kept to myself as well, though my husband knew as I slept in his arms every night.

It was just that he had quit asking about it and cooing me back to sleep when I said it was naught but anxiety after the attack and the last quake made by the Beast.

He now, I suspected, knew it was more.

He just tired of attempting to make me talk about it.