“I would have it no other way than have both my kings,” I glanced at True, “all my kings with me, should that be their wish.”

“I shall be there,” True said, before turning stiffly on his boot and sauntering away.

I headed toward the door.

Mars was at my side, querying, “Would you like me to call for Tril?”

“No, for I will hold my patience, and she might not,” I answered.

“Silence,” he called as we entered the doors.

“I will be all right,” I said to the spray of coral and purple gladiolus on the table in the center of the entryway.

“Piccolina.”

I stopped and looked up at my husband, who stopped with me, as did my brother who was right there.

Always right there, Jorie.

Making up for time lost.

Making up for nearly twenty-four years of having a sister.

And not having her.

Because of my mother.

“My love,” I said to Mars. “I will be fine.”

He didn’t seem convinced.

I didn’t have the energy to convince him.

And what energy I did have, I had to conserve.

I divested myself of gloves and cloak, tossing them over a chair before I found the small antechamber off the Great Hall that had a privy and a basin with a faucet that looked like the face of an angry god blowing wind from his mouth and out of that wind came (hot and cold, depending on the dial you turned) water.

During the return sail into Twilight Harbor, Finnie had helped Ha-Lah and I wash the salt from our skin and rinse it from our hair and I had donned a lovely gown.

But for this meeting, I would have wished something a might grander and perhaps my hair arranged, not simply pulled back at the nape.

I wanted this meeting done.

Therefore, I would not get this wish.

I splashed water on my face, toweled it off, looked in the mirror before me and whispered, “I shall have to do.”

I left the antechamber to find my husband and brother loitering outside it.

And in the seeing, it struck me.

These tall, handsome, powerful men were my tall, handsome, powerful men.

I had earned one through love and the other through blood.

But now they were mine.

And neither had anything to do with him.

Or her.

My life no longer had anything to do with him.

Or her.

And this bolstered me.

They said nothing as we made our way to the stairs to seek the throne room.

Cassius had had a wedding gift made for his bride, of which we had witnessed the giving, something that made Elena trill with laughter and kiss him deeply, even if she finished the kiss by saying, “You didn’t have to and I mean that truly. I’ll lose my vantage, but I suppose I’ll be more comfortable.”