AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Aurelius.
He was shaking his head, even mouthing the words no, as if his thoughts might be unclear.
She clenched her fists. After everything he had done to her, he wanted her to say no, did he? He almost destroyed her family with his cruelty, and he wanted her to say no, did he?
Well... well, to Dimethan with that!
“Yes,” she said, wincing a little at her own volume. “I would love to come to dinner at the palace.”
54
AURELIUS
It was past midday when Aurelius arrived at Calix’s vineyard, the air hot and dry under a cloudless sky.
He stomped past the surprisingly modest villa, looking down over thirty even rows of vines, housed in a funnel between hills that gave the property more seclusion than the others he’d passed.
His fury had sustained him on the hour-long walk from the city, running the morning’s events over in his head.
What is Calix playing at?
He spotted the prince about halfway down the sun-drenched slope, his olive skin glistening. He was practically naked, save a wine-red loincloth, the front and back panels extending down past his bulging thighs like fabric swords, just like those worn at the wrestling grounds. He was swinging some double-headed farming tool, forming shallow trenches between the rows. Each swing caused the muscles on his back to ripple.
Despite Aurelius’s residual anger, Calix’s godlike figure remained captivating as he approached. After a little too long, Aurelius remembered himself. “What are you doing?”
Calix neither paused nor turned, once again unsurprised by his presence. For the first time Aurelius wondered if that was a satyr thing. If he had some way of detecting his arrival?
“Laying ruby clover,” said Calix. “It will help the vines replenish over winter.”
“No, I mean why are you doing it? I thought the fighters fought and the farmers farmed.”
Now he turned. Beads of sweat glinted in his chest hair. “We rule for all Ardora. House Viralis might come from fighter stock, but we can’t be blind to the challenges of the Greens. We must feel the pain of droughts and the joys of bountiful seasons, just as they do.”
“Every other vineyard has a bunch of giants working it. Surely you could afford a whole army of them?”
“No one is too good for hard work. Not a prince. Not a king.” He gave him a long glance, then tossed the tool, trailing a path of black dirt. “Not even a herald.”
Aurelius surprised himself by catching it, though he held it like a rotting fish and had to steady himself against the unbalanced weight of the metal head. “You can’t be serious?”
The prince was already kneeling back over the freshly dug trench, placing straw-colored seeds. “You came to talk?”
“Well, yes.”
“Fine. But the rains are coming. So we talk and work.”
Aurelius eyed the tool with suspicion, already resenting the brown-black smear of dirt across his palms. Eventually, he relented, struggling to copy Calix’s swinging motions. “So, what was that about at the embassy? Asking Teigra to dinner?”
“That is your first question? After everything that happened at the Wax Crack?”
“Yes,” he said, flinching at the accuracy of the barb.
“Your cousin had a bad experience. It was the proper thing to do.”
“Well, that is very dashing, but there was no need. You fished her out of the sea. I’m sure she is best left to her duties.”
“You sound jealous.”
The bluntness was once again like a smack to his forehead. “What? Hardly! You may do whatever you want with whomever you want. My only concern is that you left me high and dry—filling me with such delicious sensations, then stopping before completion!”
