Rise [Bruno Mars]

Chapter fifty-eight

Chapter fifty-eight

The sun lifted gold and glaring over the mountains when Joseph and his ten men were spotted entering the tunnels. At the announcement, laborers hurried to the foyer, clutching greenhouse flowers of several shades and symbolism: reds for love, pinks for appreciation, yellows for joy. Servants rushed to draw baths and the kitchens set about preparing special meals. Those from Unhomboldt hung back a hair, curious of whom they proclaimed the man of ice and stone, for they only heard of Joseph through hearsay.

I had leaned a shoulder on a nearby column, watching everything unfold.

Joseph's men entered first. He was last. The flowers were thrown, petals and stems tossed high toward the ceiling. Excited conversation thrummed into the foyer. Joseph—a prominence in the eyes of the beholder—was questioned, touched, admired.

And in a way, it was my doing. The orders given to benefit the workers had been conceived by my signature, yet Joseph took, with acquiescence, all the credit. He needed to be loved, and loved he was.

Joseph once told me to never trust them, our own. Their loyalties were a pendulum, too easily shifted.

As he laid a hand on top of a little boy's hair who squirmed to get his attention, his gaze lifted and touched mine. Had it not been for our connection, I would have thought the sight of me had zero affect on him—he was inscrutable as always. But his emotions were a flood: desire, relief, gladness.

I allowed my mouth to slowly curve, pleased he shared the way I felt. I had turned then and walked the long walk to my chamber.

When Joseph came an hour later, carrying Fidel in his arms, hair damp from his bath, there was an odd frenzy in him I had not noticed until then. We didn't speak until after we had each other, and I awakened with my head on his chest. He smelled of the burning wood of a torchlight.

Ellen met him the following dawn in the throne room. Poised straight and steely in a blue coat, her tiny height seemed not so miniature. Damascun guards stood behind her, dressed in brown leather as opposed to the gray of mine. Joseph, splayed careless and clean-shaven beside me, regarded her with a thoughtful cock to his head, a single finger rubbing his chin. "The woman that launched a thousand ships," he murmured.

My mother smiled, polite and by some means fierce. "The white man who stole an entire reign. That's very commoner of you."

The single finger stopped. "You remind me of my wife."

"You remind me of a history book."

"Mother," I warned, wearily messaging my forehead. "If I wanted something bitter this morning I would have had coffee."

"Let me get a good look at you, Rev's son." She took a step forward, and when he did not object, she came, up the dais and pausing directly in front of him. Joseph stared up at her, serene with a quiet touch of curiosity. "My. It's startling how much you look like—"

"Not him," Joseph whispered.

"—your mother," Ellen finished, striking him across the face.

My head whipped to the side, pain blooming in my cheek.

"Adrian." Ellen's hand flew over her mouth, horrified. "I'm so sorry. I did not know."

I shifted my attention to my husband, ignoring her and the stinging.