Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 690(@200wpm)___ 552(@250wpm)___ 460(@300wpm)
But as we traversed that dusty, hot, bleak landscape, in the night I shared the pallet of my husband’s tent, but that husband did not force his body on mine.
And as one day melted into the other (somewhat literally, this land was hot), I came to understand that his frustration at our conversation might have made him say the words.
However, that was not the man my husband was.
I also came to understand the significance of this.
And regrettably, it was then I came to understand that perhaps upon our marriage, I’d made a rather large blunder.
Now, as we made our final approach to Fire City, so much time had passed where I’d used righteous anger to make my arguments—arguments about things that held great import to me, and I felt I was right in them, but in doing so holding my husband at bay—I did not know how to break through the wall I myself had built between us.
I had spent more time with him these past weeks than I had in the whole of our marriage.
Through it, I saw how he was with his lieutenants. Boisterous and filled with humor and often-times rowdy. But there was genuine affection between them, and true loyalty.
Not to mention, he was a formidable captain. He expected order and compliance. He ran a tight ship and was skilled at it, but he was not dictatorial. He could be stern. If something was done wrong, he could be harsh. But wrongs were rarely done, and regularly he was attentive, had a listening ear, and was most the time jovial and approachable.
Thus, his seamen followed him due to respect.
And fondness.
Yes, I had most definitely made a blunder.
And I didn’t know how to rectify it.
Further, it was important (but difficult) to admit to myself that there was not a small amount of pride that was holding me back.
In the course of my twenty-seven years of life, I had often found myself stumbling on pride, mostly around those times I had to admit I was wrong.
And this wrong was not about what was of great import to me.
But how I’d chosen to communicate it.
Therefore, we were currently riding to a great city in the richest realm of our land, I was soon to be faced with being introduced as the queen of my own beloved realm, wife to a man who was not truly my husband, this to kings and queens, princes and princesses.
And even as I sat in front of him on his horse, his arm loose around my waist, we were still oceans apart from one another.
“You speak to the dolphins,” he grunted over my head (for he was tall and unless he dipped to my ear, that was the only aim his words could take).
I blinked at the sand before me.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, my frame tightening.
“I watched you. On my ship. You stood at the bridge regularly and you did it for some time. You weren’t thinking. You weren’t pondering. Dolphins swam with us. You speak to them.”
He’d…
Watched me?
I felt something inside me flutter.
Though I could have no mind to it.
Because something else inside me was filled with fear.
“I—” I started.
“Do you speak to the whales as well?”
“My king—”
“It’s naught to be concerned about,” he declared. “It is not a magic we have in our land, but I know in the Northlands and Southlands, men speak with their animals, women speak with their own.”
I continued to study the landscape as my breathing escalated.
His voice lowered.
“But I know naught but the mermaids who speak to the beasts of the sea.”
Well…
Hmm.
“Do you have mermaid blood?” he asked.
One could say that.
“It would explain your affinity for these creatures,” he stated. “Is this where your magic comes from?”
One could say that too.
Knowing what I knew of him now, I thought it safe to whisper, “Yes.”
My husband had no response.
As he’d broken our very long silence, I searched for something to say.
Before I found it, he broke our current much briefer silence.
“Why did you not share this with me, wife?”
“We weren’t exactly communicating very well, my king.”
“No, we were not,” he grunted. “Though it was not for lack of trying on my part.”
Drat!
This was all too true.
“It is…the mermaids are…” I stammered.
“Greatly mythicized,” he finished for me. “Even hunted simply for the purpose of study. And in olden days, when they were friendly, they were captured and held as pets, forced to perform for entertainment, or murdered and dissected to try to understand their magic. They learned, and they fled, hiding themselves away from beings of the land. And those who hold their blood hold this same allure, a fascination, an other, to be studied, prodded, tested.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“And you did not think I could and would protect you from this if it was to be known about you?” he demanded.