ғᴏʀsᴀᴋᴇɴ
♡ pairing | ᴍ!ʟɪᴄʜ X ᶠᴱᴹ ᴼᶜ
⁋ word count | 15.3k
✎ genre | angst, smut
✗ warnings | arranged marriage, infidelity
That damnable smell has returned. The cloying scent that lingers in the halls of the palace, clinging like a perfumed fog in clouds of sour spice. It’s distinct, easily identified as it wafts through each room that accursed witch graces with her coquettish presence. Bergamot and lemon as if she’s doused herself in citrus, enough to leave traces of that horridly saccharine scent sewn into the fibers of every velvet curtain and silk rug that she passes. The whole palace smells like the ripest orchard at the height of spring covering any other aroma that might’ve lingered in the halls before her arrival made the halls nearly inhospitable with the strength of her presence.
All the windows of my chamber were tossed open to relieve a bit of the maddening smell that’s begun to seep past the doors of my apartment, the light breeze bringing in a bounty of fresh air and the peals of bells as the kingdom praises the return of their Emperor. He and his wretched whore.
There’s meant to be a feast beginning at nightfall to celebrate his victory at the northern border, organized in all the splendor befitting a crowned warrior and yet my heart has not been moved to elation upon hearing of my husband’s safe return. Instead it’s shriveled and gone bitter as a rotten fruit. He’s yet to grace my rooms with his presence, not even a squire sent to the drawing room to be fawned over by my ladies in waiting. Since his return they’ve been lacking in entertainment, simply loitering about my quarters as visitors have dwindled in favor of visiting that new mistress of his. It’s an insult unto itself.
Missing for the first year and a half of our marriage and returning without so much as a personal announcement. His neglect is bold indeed. The eyes of the court follow their rulers and one has been shut up in her quarters, ignored while the other flaunts his new bedmate throughout the palace. A simple visit would be a reminder of where his loyalties lie and yet Nathaniel can’t even do me that small honor to remind my personal court that I haven’t been abandoned as the rumors say. He scorns me at every step, not even sparing the basic courtesy of discretion.
He’s brought back many war prizes. Horses, servants, foreign riches to fill the treasury, and a bountiful addition to his personal household. Because among the thralls and cooks, masters of horses and seamstresses is a sorceress. A court priestess is hardly something to bat an eye at. An addition to the church to help them read the heavens and interpret the will of the gods in each comet and eclipse. But she’s been paraded into the palace with a child on her hip and another quickening in her womb. Nathaniel had been gone for only so long and this is what he returned with to reward my loyalty. In these long months I’ve been an exemplary wife and beloved empress, sitting on his throne each day to rule his empire in his stead. And all I have to show for my toiling is a lemon-scented mistress and her bastard children.
“Two!” My voice echoes over the courtyard beneath the window as I sit on the tufted seat, nose pointed to the wind as I breathe in the reprieveful scent of a lavender sachet. Despite my best efforts the orchard smell carries, nearly overwhelming any incense that burn in braziers throughout my chambers. Even without seeing her, her presence mocks me.
“He expects me to accept this insult as if it is I who is the hidden woman. I am the mother of his empire and yet he can’t afford me the basic respect a farmer could give his wife. A mistress is insulting enough but to fill her with child? Twice! He must’ve laid with her the first night he reached the borderlands and thought her precious enough to keep by his side through the war.” I imagine her being groomed and waited on by the women serving at the war camp, sparing moments between battles to be sure the emperor’s chosen paramour is presentable for his return from the frontlines. In my nightmares he’s wild with bloodlust, the wanton spirit of a warrior possessing him to take her roughly. The idea plagues me even in waking moments. The thought of my husband’s public betrayal of our vows.
“Blue cunt.” I swear.
Her title worsens the blow. A daughter of the moon as they’re called in the south. Sorceress, priestess. The accounts differ from source to source but all agree she is a daughter of the pale-faced moon god. Llamor as he’s called in my mother tongue. His children are known to favor blue and silver in their dress. But I was raised in a castle touched by the sun, in Creztesina by the Sea. The sun goddess Ymilia is exalted in the home of my girlhood, halls dripping in gold and yellow. It’s spun into the threads of every gown I own and hangs in delicate chains over my body. There is no animosity between the moon and the sun, united in the heavens as husband and wife. Their disciplines must be balanced to ensure harmony between the lady sun and her moon husband.
The north knows no such parity. They keep different gods. I know the moon as Llamor but the Snow Lords call him their All Father. The moon is his great shield as the sun is the golden shield of his enemy. They fight in the heavens with every passing day. When the sun rises the moon is defeated and when the sun disappears the moon claims his victory. There are more lesser gods in the stars whose names I never learned. All of them are as cold as the people who offer them worship. There is no balance in them. They are severe and dark. There is no balance between the light and shadows. Perhaps if Nathaniel were known to be more pious his taking of a northwoman could be seen as cultivating harmony over his newly united lands but the emperor has never been interested in devotion to the gods.
“If he names her consort it is within your right to return home and be done with this farce of a marriage.” Letizia says, cooling herself with an enamel fan dipped in rose water. The Lady Frosa speaks with a lack of decorum, sharing in my impolite tone as we trade gossip across the window seat. Letizia is the only woman at court I can speak with so freely, a friend since childhood that followed me north when I was married into the Midlands. We’re both children of the south where palace rules are lax and the hills roll with dunes of jewel-colored sand. It was only my marriage to Emperor Nathaniel that brought Creztesina into the Midland fold of five petty kings and this is how my father’s strides towards peace have been rewarded. An abandoned daughter living in the shadow of a publicly acknowledged mistress.
“She's a consort in all but name. Rob tells me they pay tribute to her now that her rooms have been settled. Lady Rosamund brought her a pair of fertility dolls to ‘further her blessings’. They’ve forgotten who sits the throne. It certainly isn’t that northron bitch. I expect she’ll be seated beside the emperor tonight. I should take ill and avoid the humiliation.”
Letizia clicks her tongue. “Rosamund is a beggar lady at best.”
“Lettuce!” It’s hard to keep the mirth from my voice. Gossiping is below an Empress’s station but trading jabs seems to be the only thing lightening the burden of betrayal.
“It’s the truth! She’s a fortune hunter through and through. She jumps from one wizzen prick to the next, draining their coffers as she goes. If you ask me she’s a succubus killing off the lords that run half of the damn empire. First it was Sir Kennedy Yarrow, do you remember? Then the Duke of Shallowport. Wasn’t it just a few years ago she was married into the Hydes of Red River? She has no loyalty! She is the realm’s most successful tart.” The breath runs from my lungs as Lettuce raves on about Rosamund’s reputation as a cursed bride, laughter pinching my chest as I try to catch my breath.
Her impropriety makes me laugh in a way I haven’t in the months since my husband’s return journey was announced. It took him three months to bring his armies home from the subjugated borderlands and if the stories are to be believed he sent the ravens and then retired to bed his whore to celebrate his victory. The child inside her is three months grown from what the whispers say, though I’ve been spared a close look at the swell of her belly. The scant few glimpses of her have been in passing, usually the train of her dress disappearing around a corner in a burst of citrusy wind as the mistress runs from the lawful wife’s approach. At least she knows to keep hidden though I’ve heard accounts of her appearance. Rob is an adept spymaster, bringing forward any morsel of information he and his underlings hear throughout the palace and the empire at large.
“Rob says she’s lacking in power.” It’s a small comfort to know that her title as a priestess or perhaps a sorceress is contested among the court. It’s a small thread of hope that Nathaniel might put his paramour aside and remember his true empress. If only he’d spare the time to look upon my face and remember the power I hold before he makes a rash decision that shames us both. I’ve been learning the disciplines of a priestess long before my father sought to marry me off to the most promising of the squabbling kings threatening his border. My marriage was decided in truth when Nathaniel reigned victorious over the war to unite the Midlands under one rule, and by then I’d grown quite skilled in my craft. Nathaniel could have a god-queen in his lap if he hadn’t gone off and fell between the legs of some subpar witch.
“You could curse her,” Lettuce whispers behind her fan, green eyes squinting conspiratorially. I could. It’s well within the reaches of my power, but it would bring harm to an innocent life. The blue witch forwent the moon tea that would’ve cleaned up my husband’s indiscretions. That isn’t the fault of the child growing inside her. The babe will be her shield until it is birthed regardless of my disdain for its mother. I’ll simply have to bear the humiliation for at least a few months longer, because I won’t let that woman take one step beyond the palace walls with my husband’s children. The bastards are still of his blood and I need no fodder for future rebellions with half blood princes bringing their swords to my door. Bastards or not they’ll be raised within the palace, as far from their mother’s influence as they can bear. Shrewd as I may be in planning for the bleakest future I am not cruel enough to deny them contact with their birth mother. Still she can’t be allowed to sway them towards any cause she may have because no one enters the palace with no ambitions.
A sudden knock quiets the thought as a maid announces a visitor.
“What news?” Lettuce asks when Rob arrives through the door. He looks disheveled, hair coming loose from the ribbon meant to keep his dark curls at bay. His face is pale, stricken as if something dire has happened.
“Lettuce, the door.” I say quickly, already moving to close the window lest our voices carry beyond these walls. Letizia sends the maid away to find cheese and wine, bolting the bedchamber door when the sound of retreating footsteps fades to silence.
“Come sit.” Rob’s skin is damp with sweat as I lead him to a chair, the white linen of his shirt darkening where it clings to his skin. “Robert, what is it?”
“Dead,” he murmurs, lips hardly parting around the word. “The emperor is dead.”
There’s a tradition in the Midlands, a superstition as it were, that certain words cannot be said in close relation to titled nobility for fear of cursing their name. “Death” in all its forms is one such word and it’s said in many ways in the Central Tongue. Rob mumbles the word over and over, eyes staring without focus, but it isn’t the grand death of nobility he’s speaking of. His tongue stumbles over the informal form meant for the lord of less precious lives. A death meant for commoners. This isn’t a true announcement of death and that only further sinks my heart into roiling anxiety. If not a true death then what? Rob takes the water when I offer it, drinking so deeply that it dribbles into his beard before he’s finished. When it’s gone he holds the cup in his lap, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles go white.
“What do you mean he died?”
“No one has seen the Emperor without his armor since he returned. He’s worn his helm even at court, else he’s shut away in his quarters refusing visitors. But I saw it. It was an urgent message from the northern border. The settlements are still unstable and rebellion looms closely over the horizon with the defeated Snow Lords wanting to retake their small pieces of land.”
“So you’ve mentioned,” Lettuce goads him to continue beyond the finer details of the matter.
“He’d recently bathed when I was given leave to enter and I saw him. He was dressed in usual attire, not armor, and his shirt was slightly undone when he bid me enter. His chest–gods be good, his skin. I had no words. I handed him the message and nearly ran from the room when he dismissed me.”
“His chest? What was wrong with his skin?” Things happen when men are at war and Nathaniel has been a warlord since childhood, raised on the battlefield as his father fought to expand his meager territory, attacking the small earldoms at his borders until only four foes remained when he was finally defeated. He died a warrior’s death and went to the Pale Palace of the moon riddled with the scars of his storied life. Nathaniel is much the same. For Rob to be so shaken I can only imagine what has happened.
“His chest was cleaved open. There’s a scar,” Rob runs his shaking fingers down the center of his chest. “It spelled death and yet he lives. He was healed. It looked like the work of an ax. It must’ve struck his chest like a tree and yet I saw his chest moving with his breath. He lives.”
“He’s changed.” It isn’t a question. “His eyes, what color are they?”
“Brown.” Rob says in an instant and then looks pensively into his empty cup. “They’ve always been brown.”
“And now?” Lettuce presses. She is always with me, if only a half step behind. She knows the worry that plagues me now as Rob tries to piece together what he saw in the emperor’s bedchamber.
“They were white. Everything was white. He had the curtains drawn and candles lit, and he seemed to glow. His hair, his eyes. They’ve gone white as snow.” The sentiment is lost on me. Snow is only a vague idea in my mind as a woman of the south. Even the Midlands hardly see more than a few flurries in the cold seasons but they never blanket the ground in the way northerners speak of it. White to me is pearlescent sand dunes after midnight when the moon is highest in the sky.
“Forsaken.” The word is like poison on my tongue. Rob raises his head, eyes searching my face for an answer. Heat begins to well in my chest, anger rising at the thought of the truth being kept from me as if I am someone to be overlooked.
“You heard nothing of this? Truly?”
Rob swallows thickly. “There was one message. A raven came from one of the physicians about a wound His Majesty had sustained. It caved in his armor so deeply his wound was held open by the warped metal, blood pooling in the gash torn through his chest. He’d been alive when he was brought into the healing tent if only barely, but died as they were working over him. He was meant to be left overnight while plans were made to decide how best to proceed with the news but when night fell the emperor emerged from the tent, alive despite the damage still plain to see in his armor. The physician had tried to bend the metal away from his wound so it wasn’t cutting into his skin when he rose but there was a scar where the gash had been. The message was written in two different inks. Half written when the Emperor died and the rest when he walked out of the tent unharmed but changed. He wasn’t seen publicly without his armor beyond that day.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Upset doesn’t begin to encompass the roar of emotions crashing like towering waves in my chest. Rob has never neglected to tell me anything of note and this is hardly something that can be pushed aside and deemed unimportant.
“I thought it was a lie,” he rushes. “The rest of my correspondences after that day were written in a different hand and that physician that wrote the original message never returned to the palace. I looked into it. He died, gorged himself on his elixirs and tonics in the dead of night. They found him in the morning, eyes bleeding and mouth foaming. They said there was blood beneath his nails from where he tried to claw at his throat.” Lettuce turns away, hands tight over her ears. She’s never had the stomach for gruesome things and she was nearly in tears already hearing what had happened to Nathaniel.
“Quiet!” She hisses, sniffling as she begins to pace. Her feet wear tracks into the rug until she nearly jumps from her skin when the maid knocks to announce her return with the requested refreshments. Lettuces dabs her eyes dry on her sleeve before going to the door, sending the girl away to find something else of little consequence. The girl lingers for a moment, looking past Lettuce to see what is so important that she can’t linger and hear a few words through the door. Her expectations seem to be disappointed when she finds me standing with my hands clasped, a respectable distance away from Rob who has straightened his posture to look presentable before the door shuts once more.
“Nosy thing.” Lettuce tuts, setting aside the platter of cheese and goblets of wine with little intention to indulge. “Now enough with the carnage. We need no more of it poisoning our ears. I’ll have nightmares.”
“Someone killed the physician.” Lettuce makes a disbelieving noise as I ignore her appeal for a lighter topic, going back to her pacing as she picks anxiously at her nails.
“That was my thinking as well once I saw His Majesty. When the message came and I heard of his death so soon after I assumed it was the ravings of a madman, but it seems it was written in truth. And that truth was meant to stay hidden. I know of one other dubious death. Sir Oddingsel. He was an esteemed knight, very skilled. You may have known his face if you saw his colors at a tourney, Your Majesty. He was killed by retreating forces. An unlikely death. He was skilled and brutal–forgive my vulgarity Lady Frosa. The last to leave the battlefield. He couldn’t have been killed by crippled forces.”
“What importance does his death have in this?”
“He was one of the few people the physician consulted about the Emperor’s supposed death. His second in command at the frontlines.”
“Then someone wants all the witnesses dead.”
“I fear so, Your Majesty. I will look into it. But if I may speak freely for a moment?” I nod my acquiescence. “The emperor frightened me, Your Majesty. Truly. He’s been touched by something beyond my comprehension.”
“He is Forsaken,” Lettuce says. When Rob doesn’t seem to understand she grumbles in our mother tongue about the Midlands being godless.
“To be Forsaken is to be shut out of the halls of Llamor. The sun is the goddess of life and the moon the master of death. He takes everyone into his cold arms when their time comes. Those are the stories told in our temples to the south.” I begin.
“There is a saying in Creztesina: the soul for he and the rot for she. Your body is left to nourish the earth and your soul is taken to the moon’s midnight halls. Cold and dark, but peaceful. To be denied a seat at the night lord’s table is to be Forsaken, your soul sent back into a dead body to walk the earth forever. It’s a cruel fate. One that can only be done and undone by a child of the moon, someone who favors the night god.”
Lettuce’s anger flares. “By your reports his sorceress companion isn’t capable of such feats!”
“And she isn’t, I swear it! She does small tricks to entertain those that pay her visits, turning cups of water to half-melted snow and chilling fruits the servants bring. Someone–I believe it was that Lady Rosamund–asked her to fill her drawing room with snow and she was only able to make a few flurries and then took sick for the rest of the day. Her power is very little as if it was learned with recent haste. It couldn’t have been her that raised him from the dead. In any case, I doubt he’d let himself be tied to the whims of a strumpet like her.”
“That strumpet,” I sigh, “has given him a son. And perhaps another is growing inside her at this very moment. He’s already tied to her. But if it wasn’t her, then who?”
“This has become a true conspiracy,” Rob says mournfully. “A knot has been tied around the empire. I will do my best to unravel it.”
“Good. Dismissed. Thank you, Robin.” Rob sets the cup down at last before leaving past the prying handmaiden.
“What does this mean? For the court? For us?” Lettuce frets when the door is shut once more.
“Nothing good will come of this to be sure. It’s likely that blue bitch isn’t the only woman I’ll have to worry about in this lifetime.”
Nathaniel has been made immortal. Any death beyond his first will roll off like water on a duck’s back. I’m mortal, my life is finite. And he is a man. He’s already proven he’s no stronger than any other when it comes to indulging in desire. He’ll be bedding my replacement before I’m dead and buried.
“The moment a gray hair is found on my head I’ll be tossed aside, or perhaps even before that. That fool must think it was that sorceress that brought him back to life. She’s no better than Rosamund, preying on men who know no better. He wasn’t raised to understand the gods across any practice. No matter their face he wouldn’t recognize a god if they took out his soul and showed it to him. No one of Midland descent understands what has happened. I’m sure he’ll believe the first person that flashes a crumb of magic at him.”
My fingers press against the painful pressure building in my temples as I try to soothe away the ache of being the most qualified ruler between Nathaniel and I. He leans heavily on the word of his advisors when he is not off battling some lower lords and earls. In my time as sole ruler I’ve done the work to prune the incompetent weeds from his court. It had taken nearly as long as his war. Each sir and duke and lord was more egocentric than the last, using their voice to sway me towards a choice benefiting their own family and treasuries before the whole of the empire. Blundering fools that they were, thinking me inferior. Women do not rule in the Midlands but I was raised from birth as my father’s one true heir. I’m sure Nathaniel has hardly noticed court sessions now run more smoothly without the underhanded power grabs that he seemed so ignorant to.
“And yet he’s the father of the empire.” Lettuce says bitterly.
“He was born into this. If the world since birth has told you that day is night you’ll sleep when the sun rises. His ignorance is an inconvenience but he’s hardly to blame for it.”
Lettuce flusters, “Damn the stars, there’s truly nothing we can do. Not without knowing the sorcerer that did this.”
“For now, there is no rush. Nathaniel might be changed but how many in his court will recognize the mark of a Forsaken? It’s best to leave their minds to imagining while we work quietly to untangle this mess. Let them make up their own stories, they seem to do it so well.”
“They’ll hail that whore of his as a powerful sorceress.”
“Let them. They’ve yet to see what I am truly capable of. Let them say that he is so enamored by her and her magic that it clings to him wherever he goes. Anything is better than the empire knowing their ruler will never die and pass on his crown. He’ll be emperor for a thousand years and no one will be able to unseat his power. That is my true worry. Let him whore and drink and battle as much as his heart desires, as long as the smallfolk aren’t forced to show fealty to a man gone mad with his own power.”
“Their ignorance is of help to us yet,” Lettuce says, temper cooling. “Yes, let them dote on that harlot and think she holds the world in the palm of her hand. To them a drop of water is the same as a flood. They know not of true power.” We were both raised in the sunswept temple of the Golden Mother. We’ve seen true power. Even my own capabilities pale in comparison to that of a high priestess. What’s been said of the blue cunt is hardly more than a child’s practice.
“Gods be good!” Lettuce curses, but quickly corrects herself when another knock comes. A timid voice announces the emperor’s personal servant Dorian. He enters balancing a box in his arms. There are rules in the Midland courts about the status of servants, dizzying checks and balances to remind them of their lower class. I hardly paid attention to the lessons upon arrival at the palace and still reach to accept the box myself only for Dorian to shrink back, leaning purposefully towards Lettuce. She accepts the box but he still lingers in wait.
“Thank you, Your Majesty, for your favor.” It’s a practiced line learned from the governess that attended me in the first months of my enthronement. Anything sent by the emperor is to be treated as if it is his own presence. I curtsy and Lettuce follows suit, dipping lower than I had as is expected of our separation in court ranking. It’s swift and flippant, but Dorian accepts the courtesy and quickly scampers out of my bedchamber. I wonder if he knows what’s happened to his master.
“I still don’t understand why I can’t accept things for myself.” I grouse as Lettuce sets the box on a table. It’s wide and flat and made of handsomely polished wood. Inside a dress made of sunlight spills over the velvet lined edges. The sumptuous fabric is smooth as water between my fingers and as lustrous as candlelight.
“Oh!” Lettuce coos, caressing the fabric with gentle hands. “There’s a note.” She hands over the small roll of parchment hidden between the swathes of gold fabric. I recognize my husband’s own hand if only from the few letters I received during our short courtship. He hadn’t thought it necessary to send letters from the warfront and it only took a few weeks for Rob to find out why. That witch had kept him thoroughly occupied during his campaign but it’s harder to conceal his neglect now that we’re in the same vicinity once more.
Empress–
It has been very long since I last saw you. Allow this gift to be an atonement for time lost between us. Wear it to the feast tonight and let the banquet hall be filled with your light.
It’s unsigned and void of the attempt at affection he used to lace into his letters. My sundew, darling sunrise. He couldn’t even spare a dearest or sweet before my title. Now it is only Empress. It’s what I am but it feels as though his previous kindness was only meant to lull me into a false sense of companionship. If you want to catch flies you set out a plate of honey and I fell for the trick of his sweet words as he played at being kind and chivalrous to goad me into marriage so he could continue his quest of uniting the realm. Because Creztesina would not have fallen to siege. He needed to endear himself to the heir and Father and I had foolishly allowed it. Though I hardly swooned at his old letters, it was a welcomed attempt at niceties if we were meant to spend the rest of our lives together. Now it’s plain to see it had all been artifice. The note crumples in my hand before I toss it aside.
“I’m expected to wear this tonight.”
“It’s a beautiful gown.” Lettuce says, trying to rouse my spirits.
“Of course it is. Anything less and it would be an insult. But I have no doubt his mistress has received a similar gift.”
“Tonight will show where the courts’ allegiances lie. We will see who is truly allied with their empress as the true mother of the nation. Allow me to be the first to restate my support.” In most things Lettuce disregards proper etiquette, but when she cares, when things truly matter to her, she expends the effort. She kneels before me in the way of our homeland, bowing low enough for her forehead to nearly touch my feet.
“Lettuce!” She is like a sister, raised alongside me, the daughter of my father’s closest advisor. To see Lettuce prostrate herself to reaffirm her lifelong loyalty is almost jarring. She accepts my help to her feet and dips in a proper curtsy befitting the Midland customs.
“I’m borrowing one of your dresses.” She says as she stands, already walking towards my wardrobe and the short moment of formality passes. Lettuce leafs through the hanging gowns until she settles on a few to pull out. They’re laid across the bed for my appraisal. Each is made of gold fabric that catches in the light of the setting sun streaming through the window. Soon someone will arrive to light candles and primp me for tonight’s festivities.
“Won’t it be seen as impolite to wear the same color as the Empress?” In Creztesina it hardly matters. Fabric is fabric and every body is worthy of wearing it, from the lowliest peasant to the highest of nobility. A fishmaid is fit to sit beside the queen, both in emerald green dresses if they’d like. No one bats an eye. But here it is seen as an offense if a servant wears too many ornaments in their hair or a bright pattern on their clothes. They must be plain and uniformed. They’re meant to look dull, humble, in their appearance. Lettuce wearing gold will show her allegiance but some might question why she’d dare try to upstage the empress at a feast held in her husband’s honor. It hardly matters. He won’t be looking at me anyway. It’s doubtless he’ll only have eyes for his lusty little mistress. Lettuce leaves with the dress folded over her arm, saying something about recruiting a few other ladies in waiting to spread some gossip when the celebration begins. About what you can’t be sure but it’s your hope she won’t overindulge and damage her reputation as an upstanding lady.
The feast has already begun when the maids deem me suitable to attend. My olive skin is brushed with gold dust and gilded paint; my dark curls tied away in a multitude of sinuous braids, and laced with gold ribbon; my earrings are sparkling with yellow topaz. The dress the emperor gifted is pure gold, the neckline dotted with yellow pearls and embroidered with golden flowers. The clincher about my waist is delicate, made of gold and affixed with bronze blossoms. The same metal flowers that bloom across the crown atop my head.
No one can deny what court I hail from as the arrival of the empress is announced over the din of music. The room seems to quiet as the doors swing open, bated breaths awaiting my reveal.
The lords tasked with planning have outdone themselves. The banquet hall has been made over to look like the northern border. Pillars are hung in spirals of white silk, strings of pearls and diamonds hang like snow flurries from the vaulted ceilings, the tables are dressed in shades of ivory and periwinkle, and the floors are dusted in little white feathers meant to stir like snow underfoot. Everything seems to glow in the candlelight, myself included. The flickering light is kind, sparkling off the finery draped over me, making my gold-dusted skin seem to shimmer. The hushed crowd parts to allow a path towards the high table sitting on the dais at the head of the room. Among the usual arrangements is an unmatched chair beside the seat of the emperor, smaller by comparison and hardly as ornate as the rest. It’s empty as is Nathaniel’s seat and I try to keep the sour look from my face as I sit in my respective place.
A serving girl wearing thick furs despite the heat of the room comes rushing to fill my cup, her cheeks and nose brushed with a thick tint of rouge. It’s likely meant to imitate the nipping of the cold as is her thick clothing but it looks as though she’s been standing in the sun as sweat glistens off her skin from the heat of her themed costume. She’s purposeful with her actions, pulling back the fur cuff of her sleeve to reveal a thin copper bangle. She curtsies deep as she straightens to leave; a sign of her fealty.
The ballroom is filled with a wash of colors that stand out against the white decor. Some have kept to the colors of their coat of arms. Lady Tresmont is in her family’s typical purple, and Duchess Gadsborough wears her husband’s quartered green and gray. A few ladies with blue in their banners have taken on my style of dress, bared shoulders and lighter skirts to mimic my continued fondness of Creztesina fashions. But there are many ladies in gowns of blue that don’t look similar to my own. Pale as a freshwater pond and deep as the night. Others are gilded in shades of blossoming yellow and warm orange. Their stones have been cast.
Among the swaying bodies, I find my husband, given ample space to dance with the woman on his arm. He’s wearing all white with an antlered headdress in place of his crown, the diamond studded mantle tosses beams of light over his partner’s face as they twirl to the music. Even from a distance his changes are evident.
Robin hadn’t been so forthcoming with the details aside from his scar and I work to keep my face void of emotion as I see him without his armor for the first time since his return. His hair has gone from midnight black to silvery white, and his brown skin has lost its warmth. He’s taken on a sickly pallor that has tinged him a strange shade of blue where there used to be a golden glow beneath his skin. The two of them are dancing close, far more intimately than what I’d been taught is customary of Midland celebrations. Nathaniel’s hands, now clawed and tipped in stark white as if he’s wearing gloves, are placed properly but his partner lacks such decorum. She leans up close to his face as she laughs at something he’s said, red painted lips stretching into a pleased grin.
His face looks starkly different next to her round cheeks, having lost the fullness of life. Nathaniel has always had prominent cheeks and a defined jaw, but now he looks gaunt as his blanched skin sits almost too tight against the bones beneath. His eyes are filled with an icy glow. Somewhere beneath I hope there’s still a hint of the man I’d been obliged to marry, that perhaps beneath the magic his eyes will be brown as they were when we met. His appearance will only continue to change the longer her remains Forsaken. Taloned hands and tinted skin will be the least of his concerns when his mortal body begins to truly conform to its new immortal status. And yet he doesn’t seem to have a worry in his mind as he twirls his paramour, dipping her so low I worry he might kiss her before the whole court.
Instead he presses his whispers against her ear and her smile falters, a peachy glow rushing to her cheeks. Pain shoots up my arms as my nails curl into the wood of my armrests, nearly tearing up from my fingertips with how tight I grip to keep myself seated. What could he have possibly said to her?
It doesn’t matter. I’m still the empress. I have to be conducted with proper etiquette befitting my status and storming off the dais to wrench the two of them apart will do nothing but prove I have a fear that I’ll be usurped by a common whore.
The song changes and Nathaniel pulls her upright but not so close as to hide the swell of her belly pushing tight against the fabric of her deep blue gown. Her hand moves to fix the jostled crown on her head and I nearly toss court rules to the wind. He’s crowned her. Before the whole of the court he’s allowed her to adorn her head with a crown. One so similar to the ones I wear when full court regalia isn’t necessary. It’s fashioned in the style of Creztesina, a place she’s surely never been. She’s from some small northern kingdom and yet the silver crown dipping over her forehead is a twine of silver leaves with a blooming desert flower at the center. This isn’t the homage paid by loyal ladies and dutiful lords dancing around the pair. She has stolen what is rightfully mine in every regard. If Nathaniel allows it she’ll have my throne before everything is said and done.
“I’ll admit, she’s more audacious than even I expected.” Lettuce says, sliding into the seat beside me.
“He’s crowned her.” I mutter, trying to keep a smile on my face. Lettuce looks again and sits up straighter in her seat.
“What use does that trollop have with your crown? It hardly fits her features besides that.” She chides. It’s true. The pointed shape of it matches the sharp angles of my face, my long nose and upswept eyes. It gives me some pleasure to know her attempt at imitating one of my most recognizable adornments has fallen so flat. It is a crown, yes, but it looks more out of place upon her head the longer I look at her. Silver or not, it was made for me to wear. I sit back in my seat, placated for the moment. More wine is served along with some meat and I’m in much higher spirits when Lady Rosamund comes trotting up the steps of the dais.
Currently unwed but in mourning, her gown has been trimmed in black lace for whatever husband she’s recently lost but the dress itself is a shade of blue so pale it’s almost white. She curtsies with a vulpine grin and gives the usual greeting of flattery before offering me a box. Lettuce accepts and opens it, scoffing out a laugh before passing it over for me to see. It’s a simple pair of dangling earrings. Blue gems set in silver.
“Is this meant for me?” Rosamund should know better than to give me something like this. The color wouldn’t have scorned me a few years ago but even so the gems are cheap. Blue spinel. It looks to be sapphire to a less affluent eye, but the three of us were raised in wealth and know such gems apart from each other in an instant. To offer this as a gift after hearing what she gave that other woman is an insult worthy of expulsion from court. To be a lady in waiting is a privilege and Rosamund hardly performs her role with proper dedication.
“Of course not!” Rosamund laughs. “Why would I ever give you such cheap jewelry? It’s merely a jest. I’ve started giving that harlot gifts just to see what her standing was in the north. They’ve all been imitations of more expensive pieces. Earlier I gave her fertility dolls. They’re perfectly fine to an untrained eye. The carvings are unflawed and symmetrical. But,” she pauses, leaning closer with a collusive smile, “I said they were red agate.”
“That’s all?” Lettuce huffs, sitting back in her seat. “You gave her red agate dolls?”
“I wouldn’t dare!” Her wide smile always looks more devious when she’s flashing it at someone else’s expense. “Why waste such valuables on someone like her? Of course not!” She shakes her head at the notion.
“The dolls I gave her are made of carnelian. Any other woman at court would have mentioned it, but she just thanked me even after handling them. She looked closely to see the faces carved in the stones but didn’t see anything wrong. But I’ve overextended myself with my favors, may Your Majesty pass along this gift in my stead.” Rosamund leaves with another curtsy, the ruffles along the back of her dress wagging like a tail as she melts into the throng of dancers.
“Clever minx.” Lettuce snorts.
“Indeed,” I agree. “Asking me to extend my hand to insult this woman in front of the emperor. Clever indeed. If I turned away her offer it would be a show of support, even keeping the gift to myself to spare her the embarrassment would be a kindness to be misinterpreted. She tied my hands, damn tramp. I hope her next husband lives a hundred years and she’s never free of him.”
At the mention of husbands, the emperor mounts the steps to the high table, the blue witch hanging happily from his arm. The smell is like a veil being draped over me, heavy and clinging. My nostrils flare and I mourn my lack of foresight as I’m without even a handkerchief to keep the tart smell from assaulting me. It’s dizzying but my smile never falters, denying her the pleasure of seeing me discomforted by her presence.
It’s the expectation that she’ll bow and show deference and fealty to her empress but she forgoes formality and sits without introduction. I work to keep the annoyance from my face, brows twitching upwards at her blatant lack of respect. Even the lowest of citizens in the Midlands knows that you do not enter the presence of nobility without offering a proper greeting. It would be like entering someone’s home and refusing to speak to the host. And Nathaniel allows her this, simply sitting between us.
“Wife.” He hardly turns to address me fully, only pointing his eyes in my direction. Even beneath the magic the color has been leached away to a frosty blue. He’s still handsome despite the deathly look of his face. Full lips, wide nose, round eyes. He’s beautiful even in death. He raises a questioning brow when I withhold my response for a beat too long.
“Wife, is it? I’m glad you’ve remembered. Or are you only calling me that because you’ve forgotten my name.” He frowns for a brief moment before smoothing back into a neutral expression.
“Cosima.” His voice shapes out the sound of my name without hesitation. I want to correct him, to say I’m Empress Cosima, but I won’t stoop to begging for acknowledgement as the Empress that he personally conferred the title to. His mistress stiffens on his other side, fingers tightening around the bunch of grapes in her hand. She sets it down to shake the juice from her fingers and I laugh. It is good that she doesn’t like the sound of my name. She knows her place even if she pretends to be aloof to such matters.
“So you do remember. You’ll have to introduce me to the other woman you’ve acquired. I’ve yet to hear anyone call her by name.” The desire to call her one of the many insulting aliases she accrued is strong, the words welling up to spill off of my tongue, but I bite back the urge.
“Her name is Meredith.” She startles at the sound of her name, standing awkwardly from her seat. She at least has the sense to look embarrassed, color flushing the tips of her ears as her eyes point towards the floor. I stand as well, refusing to be looked down upon by this meritless woman without even a surname to speak of. She keeps hers clasped beneath her belly, as if to draw my eyes to her pregnant state. She’s bold even in her fear, but foolish. Presenting her belly as if it will keep her from his rightful wife’s wrath. If I were a less charitable woman she would’ve met an unfortunate accident the moment she dared to step foot in my home.
“Just Meredith? And what of your family name. Westergard, Halpain, Lind?” I list off the names of northern nobility. Powerful houses that had valiantly resisted southern invasion before bowing to Nathaniel’s sword. Of course both of us know she doesn’t carry a noble name. What high lord would allow his daughter to run off with a married man without the promise of the first wife being removed in his daughter’s favor. She is undoubtedly someone of little regard where she came from and has only this affair to her name. The bedmate of a man powerful enough to make her disappear with a single word. History isn’t fond of failed mistresses and their bastards. Nor am I.
She hesitates a moment. “My surname is Alf. Meredith Alf.”
“Alf?” Already her eyes are beginning to narrow as I pretend to think over her family name. Surely they’re farmers or smiths or hunters of great value in whatever town she came from, but that matters little here in the palace.
“I don’t think I’ve heard the name before. Who is your mother? Perhaps I’ll recognize her maiden name.” My tone is amiable though I’m sure my smile never reaches my eyes. Meredith’s brows pinch into a tight line across her forehead beneath the downward point of her imitation crown as her lips shrink into a pout. She shifts uncomfortably as if waiting for me to laugh and wave away the question as a joke but I don’t. I want her to admit that she knows she’s out of place as I tilt my head in anticipation for her answer. After another moment she huffs through her nose before mumbling,
“My mother’s father was a tanner. He wasn’t anyone you would know.” She says almost too quickly. As if she has anything worth hiding about her lineage.
“Ah, well that is good too.” And it is. Seamstresses make my dresses, hunters kill the meat on my plate, smiths make the blades that defend my crown. An unknown name isn’t something to be shamed for unless you climb into my husband’s bed for a moment of glory. Because there’s no other reason to find yourself in an emperor’s bed if not for the lavish pleasures of being doted on by a powerful man and adding blessings to your family name. Being a princess kept me from knowing the desire to be more than I was but I can appreciate the sentiment.
“Cosima.” Nathaniel’s tone is a warning but I’m hardly stirred by it. If he wants to flash his teeth he’d better bite me or be silent.
“That would explain your lack of court etiquette, so I’ll give you a few words of a lesson. It’s expected that you bow before your superior. I am your empress. It’s only polite to show your respect as a woman of lower status. It’s like paying honor to your liege lord.” Meredith looks towards Nathaniel as if he will give her permission to dispense with the rules that govern his empire, but he holds his silence. She dares to look surprised.
“Meredith, Her Highness has told you to bow.” Lettuce says. “Do it quickly before you spoil the happy mood.” The witch dares to look at Nathaniel again before stomping her foot like a petulant child.
“Just curtsy and be done with it,” he says at last. “It’s palace rules. You must obey them before the empress. If you incite her anger I won’t save you.” Is that so? Her mere existence is a thorn in my side. What anger hasn’t he protected her from by keeping her away from me. I can hardly slap someone I can’t reach. Meredith suddenly looks like a child, shoulders shifting awkwardly before she finally bows. Lettuce clears her throat when she moves to rise.
“You’re meant to hold your curtsy until you’re told to rise.” I can imagine her discomfort. One foot behind the other as she balances the weight of her heavy gown and growing belly on bended knees. It can’t be comfortable but I enjoy the view of the top of her head, glancing over it at Nathaniel. He says nothing though his higher rank means he can tell her to stand at his own leisure. He doesn’t and I smile, nodding. It’s good that he remembers my place above this woman.
“You may rise,” I say at last and she nearly stumbles over, bumping into the table. “Do be careful. Wouldn’t want to harm the royal heir inside you.”
At that Nathaniel looks up, ghostly pale eyes watching my face for any show of displeasure. It’s a wasted effort. What woman wouldn’t be displeased at the thought of her husband impregnating the first whore that spread her legs for him. Some might say he took comfort where he could find it away from home. Of course war is difficult, but his soldiers suffered without their lovers and I’d expected him to lead by example. My eyes narrow. I thought too highly of him. He doesn’t look ashamed of himself but his full lips fold inward as he pinches his mouth against whatever he wants to say. I haven’t gone beyond my means as the empress. All has been within the sanctity of palace rules. I don’t need to stoop to underhanded tactics to bully her.
“Clumsy little thing.” Lettuce laughs. “Surely you were taught the proper way to bow. You aren’t so round that you can be thrown off balance so easily.”
“I was never a frequent visitor at my lord’s court. I can’t say I’ve ever had a reason to learn proper conduct.”
Lettuce clicks her tongue. “My lady.”
Meredith frowns. “What?”
“That will be your second lesson now that you’re a guest at His Majesty’s court. If you’re speaking to titled nobility it is expected that you exercise said title. I am Lady Letizia Frosa. It’s expected that you refer to me as such.”
“So many rules?” Meredith laughs, clearly feigning confusion as if that will spare her the need to abide by said rules.
“Indeed. Many rules in fact. It seems the emperor has spared you the lessons but now that you’ve been presented publicly it’s expected that you’ll learn your place.” A shadow falls over her pale face as she recognizes the venom in my tone.
“Of course,” she smiles through gritted teeth, “Your Majesty.”
“It’s all new so I understand the misunderstandings, but you needn’t worry. Sometimes favor is fleeting. You only need to be prudent. The need for such pleasantries might pass soon enough.”
“Sit down before you knock into something else.” Nathaniel cuts in at last. She brushes a hand over the slight swell of her stomach as if to remind me she has already won that battle twice over.
“I’m sure you’ll understand someday, Your Majesty.” Meredith laughs as she slides back into her chair. “It seems all I do while pregnant is eat. The new weight has made me quite clumsy at times. I hope my figure won’t be too terribly altered after I give birth again.”
“Children are a blessing. To be a mother is to be changed by motherhood. You’re carrying the future of the crown, you should be less concerned with the past.” I say curtly. She seems to mull over my words as she pulls apart a piece of bread between her fingers, covering her lap in crumbs.
“What is that saying about the past being passed, that you can’t change it? I think the future is full of possibilities. I agree that everything changes with time. May the gods be kind to us both.” Their kindness will look like a curse to one of us. I’m sure she’s aware of that as she picks at her food. My blessing would mean her downfall and I pray for it every night. She isn’t deserving of such grace. I try not to sneer as I watch her eat.
The red tinge of her lips begins to spread around her mouth as she indulges in the greasy meats set out on the table. They’re delicious but to see someone at the high table so lacking in manners is strange. But it doesn’t seem to upset Nathaniel as she takes his hand, smearing the grease over his pale fingers. They’re white as pearls, as are the sharpened lengths of his nails. There’s a chilled air lingering around him that raises goose flesh along the arm resting closest to him. Meredith doesn’t seem bothered as she leans into him, nearly climbing into his lap as she clears one plate and then another. It makes me wonder if this is the type of woman he’s been wanting. If my meager month of marriage before he ran off to start another war was spent following rules and adhering to decorum when he wanted a woman that was able to act as she pleased.
The Midlands have always been known to have a more rigid code of conduct than the south, and I’d been weaned from my way of life each day I spent in Nathaniel’s palace. In Creztesina, indulgence is expected and more liberal behavior is accepted. I’d given up my practices as a priestess and archer, I’d learned to govern my stomach to daintier servings, I wore less exposing clothing. All to be tossed aside for a woman that seems to be everything I was yet somehow to a lesser degree. Not even a court lady, or nobility at all. A commoner that could give him no more power than what he had taken in his victory over the Snow Lords. They called themselves kings yet each governed lands no larger than the capitol city. Hardly a kingdom and certainly not the empire Nathaniel and his father have built. And from all the pillaged castles and keeps Nathaniel had brought back the most unremarkable woman he could find.
“I nearly forgot, we’ve prepared a gift for you.” Lettuce speaks up, nudging the gift Rosamund saddled me with. Meredith reaches around Nathaniel with greedy hands, scoffing quietly when I gently pull it away.
“Court rules.” I smile as a servant takes the box to pass over to her. “It’s impolite for someone of lower ranking to accept something directly from my hands. Better left to the servants is what I was told.” Of course, such rules are as ridiculous to me as they seem to be to her but I refuse to give up even the slightest chance to offend her inflated sense of self. She is beneath me whether she’s warming my husband’s bed or not. A mistress can become Empress but she must first topple the woman sitting on the throne. I refuse to show weakness. She will never mistake you as an easily defeated foe. Her son has yet to be acknowledged before court, and has yet to be named as heir. Whatever power she thinks she has brewing bastards in her womb is fleeting. Just as easily as Nathaniel stepped out of our marriage bed, he can move on from hers. This doting will be brief, I’ll make sure of it. Until then she’ll have to endure these moments of barely concealed animosity.
I shun the worry as the song changes and I find myself drawn into a dance. Without a partner I’m left on the outskirts of the circle though I find a simple enjoyment in the practiced steps that had taken me so long to learn. The governess charged with teaching me court rules always said I was too liberal when it came to lifting my skirt and I indulge in the impropriety now, tossing my gilded gown in time to the music as every lady does, purposefully whipping it higher than necessary until I feel the kiss of a breeze about my calves. I flaunt myself like a proud stallion, wild and untamed. And as expected all eyes have found me. Even Nathaniel’s. Meredith is talking beside him, hand still in his but his glowing eyes are on me. So terrible that I’m not in the mood to receive his attention. Any man but him would do and Nathaniel’s own advisor seems to take my open invitation.
Lord Rhys Whitecrest abandons his place at the emperor’s table, Nathaniel’s brother looking thoroughly perturbed as the lord leaves him in the middle of their conversation to join me in a dance. The song flows into the next and Rhys’s hand finds my back instead of my waist. He pulls me closer than I’d been expecting until a piece of parchment can be held between our chests. It’s far more intimate than what is appropriate. It’s everything I’d hoped to find as I flaunted myself before the sea of nobility. He’s always been a clever man.
“It seems our Robin was right,” he says softly as the crowd makes space for us to dance. In the time since Nathaniel’s departure Rhys has been the only advisor I’ve been able to trust. He’s open with his honesty and holds no desires other than to keep the empire flourishing in its fledgling years of conquest. Nathaniel has only just begun this strained union of petty kingdoms and he didn’t stay long enough to keep a tight rein upon it. Instead he ran swift as the wind off to another battle and left his empress in charge of staunching rebellion and managing his patchwork of a court. Lords and dukes, and earls and baronets of the kingdom’s Nathaniel trampled under his boot have all been given a place at his court. It was like pulling weeds trying to consolidate a voice that had even the faintest hint of reason anytime I sat the throne to hear their words. Rhys has alleviated many a headache with his quick wit and handsome smile. He flashes it now as he twirls me under the candlelight.
“Your little messenger bird hasn’t failed you yet. She certainly has him entranced.” Rhys laughs. I laugh as well, tossing my head back as if I don’t care deeply about the issue that woman represents. My power in court will be challenged soon enough if she is not dealt with.
“I would’ve never done this to you.” He whispers against the shell of my ear. He’s far too close, and yet I don’t push him away. I let him fall into the fantasy playing behind his eyes. He’s enamored, plainly so, as his hand lingers when the song swells to a close.
“Another dance, Your Majesty?” There are rules about dances, allowing a man only three at any given event if they’re not your husband, but I indulge him. Another and another until my feet begin to ache and my eyes grow heavy. Rhys takes notice and sweeps me away from the dwindling crowd of party goers.
The apartment quarters designated for the ruling empress aren’t some hidden corner of the palace and he leads me there with a surprising haste. There’s an attendant at the door as we enter my drawing room, seemingly startled awake by my late arrival. I recognize her as one of the southern women serving in the palace, a small piece of home to keep me company when the foreign ladies that usually mill about my chambers have grated on the last of my patience. She takes note of my predicament in an instant, rising to relieve Lord Rhys of his duties as escort. Thanking him and sending him off quickly as if he’s dirt being swept off a stoop. The high lord looks offended by the maid’s audacity but I feign dizziness, leaning heavily against her as she mutters about me being drunk and needing attendance before shutting the door in Rhys’s face. He’s served his purpose. There’s no audience to see him fawning over me now, no reason for me to continue the charade. Nathaniel will come in due time and it would be in poor taste to truly sink to his level of infidelity to prove a point.
The maid helps me undress, keeping up a quiet conversation as she carefully unwinds each braid and washes the paint from my skin. The gold dust is harder to banish but it’s hardly a bother to me as I listen to her familiar accent rolling in my ears.
“I really don’t understand,” the handmaid says as she scrubs the last of the shimmer from my skin. “That woman seems so inferior. She must’ve crawled out from some minor lord’s manor to make something of herself by lifting her skirts for the first high ranked man she could find.”
“It’s by the Mother’s grace that she found her way into an emperor’s bed.”
“The Golden Mother wouldn’t waste her divinity on a woman like that, especially not when a daughter of hers sits on that emperor’s throne.” Her words are a comfort of home. It does well to soothe the annoyance still simmering deep in my chest. I hadn’t dared to hope Nathaniel would shun a public presentation of his mistress after she was boasted all over the frontlines to his greatest allies. The palace has been staffed with wet nurses and governesses to fret over his firstborn and he hasn’t made her banish the second from her body. Audacity is something the warlord keeps in abundance. Of course it would be unflinching even before the eyes of his rightful wife and empress. Though arrogance cannot force tolerance as half of his own court has sided with me even as he touts his whore around the palace as a proper wife.
He should’ve stayed dead. It would’ve complicated my life as the throne passed to his brother with no trueborn heir to speak of. Perhaps I would’ve been remarried to the new emperor or even been allowed to keep my station as empress. But either option would have spared me the humiliation that this Forsaken lich has brought home from the battlefield. I thank the maid as she deems me clean and takes her leave. The night has grown deep. Dawn is not far off and yet I do not feel like sleeping. I am tired, physically and mentally, and yet my mind is far too restless to have a hope of sleeping sometime soon. Instead I find myself at my desk. It’s cluttered with the mess of ruling an empire. Edicts from lords waiting to be reviewed and amended or denied completely. My red ink has gone dry as I abandoned the task of editing when Lettuce arrived to distract me.
I find a fresh pot of black ink and a clean piece of parchment to stave off my boredom. Painting has never been my strong suit but it’s an agreeable pastime that will keep me from thinking too heavily on anything. I’m halfway through with a tree dropping blossoms over rippling water when I hear the telltale click of a lock. My door isn’t bolted and the hinges that open squeal with disuse, shattering the serene silence of the night. There is no need to look towards the candelabra flickering in the corner of my eye to know it is my husband that has intruded upon my peace. The palace is full of hidden doors and passageways that run between the stone walls like veins. Naturally, there is one linking the Emperor’s rooms to his Empress, and I loathe the thought that someone has given Nathaniel the key. He brings a chill along with the candlelight as he comes up beside me.
He sets the candle holder on my desk before drawing his clawed fingers over my shoulder. I shiver as the sharp points prickle across my skin, shying away from his sudden touch. We were only just acquainted when he left and yet here he is touching me as a lover would. I am his wife before the court, but hidden from prying eyes there is no need for us to feign affection for the sake of stability in the palace. Especially not now when he’s sewn such discord by bringing Meredith to the forefront. I hear him sigh as I shrink away from his hand.
“Do you find me so undesirable now, wife?” Without the cacophony of voices and music echoing around us I can hear his voice in truth and even that’s changed. It has a certain graveled roll to it that hadn’t been there last you heard it. Or perhaps it had. Nathaniel is little more than a stranger. Our courtship lasted longer than his presence at my side. It seems almost wrong to begrudge him the ability to find love elsewhere. If I were a commoner perhaps I’d be more charitable to being set aside, but I’m not. I am an empress and a crown princess before that. He’s given me the world and expects that I’ll step aside to allow him to give away what is rightfully mine. She cannot have it. Not before I’m cold in the ground. And even then, perhaps I’ll return as he has as a Forsaken to reclaim my place on the throne. It’s a terrifying thought. Being denied a place in Llamor’s halls, being changed as Nathaniel has. I wonder if he knows a god has abandoned him. Though, if he does, he surely lacks the faith to find offense in it.
“Does it matter if I find you desirable?” I ask. He snatches the brush from my hand, staining a thick streak of black over my painting. My hand still sits where I’d been adding another ripple to the water before falling limply to my lap.
“You are my wife, I expect that I should be the only man you desire.”
I laugh bitterly. “Do you hear yourself? Your wife must only desire you? And yet you, my husband, can find your way between any pair of legs that so pleases you.” His eyes seem brighter in the darkness, narrowing as if I’ve insulted him. I take the time to look him over again. He has foregone a shirt, arriving at my bedchamber with his pants laced so loosely that they’ve fallen low on his hips. His bare chest is scarred as Rob said, though it hadn’t prepared me for the truth of it. I’ve seen scars before but none like this, perhaps because everyone else to bear such a mark has been burned or buried as Nathaniel should’ve been. The scar is thick and raised, flesh pulled tight around it. And his dark skin is marked with stark white shapes that run in perfect symmetry across his body. He sets one pale hand on the back of my chair and the other on my desk as he leans closer, braids sweeping over his shoulder as he smiles at me. It lacks any kindness, looks almost sinister as his full lips pull back far enough to reveal the fangs that have sprouted from his gums.
“Remember your place, my love.” He implores as if a few stern words will extinguish more than a year’s worth of fettered anger. From the moment I heard of Meredith’s existence at his side I’ve had wrath brewing inside me like a storm thundering in the distance, coming closer and closer with every moment she is not dealt with. Instead of stifling myself I laugh. Loud and unrestrained. Wrinkles gather on the bridge of his nose as he sneers at my reaction. When my laughter dies down I do my best to fix my face into a more subdued look, like his blatant anger has frightened me into behaving. In truth I have more to say that will incite him.
“My love?” I whisper. “Is that what you say when you’re inside her?” He slams his fist on my desk hard enough to rattle the pots of ink. I jump but don’t let him deter my own anger. When he sees I won’t be so easily wrangled, a clawed hand finds my face, wide enough to grip my jaw from ear to ear as his pointed nails dig into my skin. He won’t hurt me. He can’t. The whole palace would know who put the marks on me and he’d be shamed for it. When he’s sure my eyes won’t leave the eerie glow of his own he speaks with great difficulty, as if he’s staving off a harsher reaction.
“Every moment I laid with her I was thinking of you.” He speaks the words in gritted fragments, hand tightening on my face when I try to pull away.
“Am I meant to be comforted by the thought that you remembered your wife while breaking our marriage vows?” Nathaniel unhands me at that, stalking to the far side of the room to be away from me. There are markings on his back, from the base of his spine disappearing beneath the curtain of his hair. It looks like warpaint from a distance but I know it won’t be banished by a bath. This is his body now. Forsaken are marked for their state of being. Some have deep black veins and colorless eyes as if they’ve been plucked out and replaced with pools of darkness. Those that have been dead for longer, had time to rot before they were raised from death, never mend. Their bones and missing flesh laced with silvery magic. Of all the stories I’ve heard and the few I’ve seen, Nathaniel is surely the least offensive to the eyes. Whoever changed him worked quickly. He must’ve been dead for no more than a few hours. Reviving probably felt like waking from the deepest slumber.
“A thought means nothing when your actions say otherwise, Your Majesty.” I say as I watch him pace. His eyes cut towards me like two stars in the dark.
“Don’t call me that!” He snaps, sounding as petulant as a child.
“Would you prefer I call you ‘Your Grace?’” The sudden distance is short lived. He abandons his pacing to drag me from my seat. There’s a strength in him that seems beyond his capabilities as he tosses me on to my bed. I sit up as quickly as I can manage but he’s already there, crawling over my prone body.
“I would prefer if the only word rolling off that vexing tongue of yours was my name.” There’s no mistaking his intentions as his hands find my wrists and draw them over my head. He holds me down with a single hand while the other explores the body he’s been estranged from for most of our marriage. We’d laid together only thrice before he ran off to play soldier at the border. Had he given me the attention a newly wed husband should give his bride I might’ve given him an heir of my own to come home to. This has been far too delayed, made worse by his doting on another woman.
I don’t catch her sickly sweet scent on him as he brushes chilled kisses down my neck. He bathed before he came to me.
“Did you know I would have thrown you out if you came to me stinking of her? Why do you let her fill my home with that overbearing scent?”
“She wants to be like you.” He mumbles against the shape of my collarbone. “In every regard she wishes to be as you are.” I feel him take in a long breath as he finds the space between my breasts.
“You smell like summer. That’s what people say about you. You smell sweet and spiced like the finest summer wine and she started perfuming herself with a cheap imitation of your scent.” His grip has loosened enough that I find my hand buried in his thick braids despite myself. He hasn’t undressed me but the thin silk of my nightgown does little to mask the feeling of his lips pressing against my sternum.
“You sound as though you loathe her and yet she is pregnant. Twice over, in fact.”
“There will never be a woman as alluring as you, sundew.” I pray he doesn’t feel the way my heartbeat stutters. A simple platitude won’t be enough to erase the harm he’s done. Still I let him push the lace-trimmed skirt of my dress further up my hips as his face nuzzles into the softness of my belly. His hands find my waist beneath my nightgown, squeezing as if he can will a child inside me without truly touching me.
“If you’re so allured you have a very strange way of showing it. I’d say you’re just as enamored with that blue bitch.” He laughs and looks up at me, eyes shining like pearls.
A fanged grin finds his lips. “Everyone calls her that.”
“Are you drunk?” I sneer. “Of course they do! The only one with any fondness for her is you and the opportunistic idiots of your court.”
“She gave me a child,” he says, suddenly sobered. “What would you have me do?”
“You are asking me what should be done with your mistress? She’s your indiscretion and you’ve hardly thought of what I might have to say in any of this. I don’t care if you were thinking of me while you gave her your first child. She isn’t me and her child certainly isn’t mine.”
“I missed you.” Nathaniel says, nipping at my thigh as he bares it to his fanged mouth.
“That’s impossible. You didn’t send a single letter and came home with a whore on your arm and a child for your nursery. You didn’t care enough to miss me.” I don’t mention that he hardly knows me enough to miss me either.
“I admit my mistake, Cosima, I do. It was wrong of me to put aside our marriage because I was away from you. But she had to suffer my wrongdoing, too.”
“How could she possibly have suffered? Unless…” I use my hand in his hair to force his eyes to mine. His lips are wet with a string of spit connecting his greedy lips to the bruise forming on my thigh. “Did you force her?”
She seems rather happy with her predicament but it isn’t uncommon for women to make a nest of nettles if that’s all that is available. Perhaps her contentment settled in after she was forced into such a position. Nathaniel blinks owlishly, sinking back between the plush of my thighs with a shake of his head.
“She came to me willingly and I indulged like the fool I am. It was a moment of weakness. She was a siren and I was bewitched by her song. It’s no excuse but it is the truth. And even so she suffered.”
I won’t be so easily placated. “Were you cruel to her?”
“Cruel in a different sense. I never raised a hand to her, didn’t push her beyond what she offered. But I’m sure beneath the smugness of having caught a conqueror between her legs she loathes me. Truly and deeply.”
“Why?” If he hasn’t forced her, hadn’t made the bedding painful and doted on her then as he did tonight, then what does she have to loathe. Unless she truly wishes to be in my place. Foolish to think I could be taken off my throne so easily. The children help her cause but if Nathaniel keeps indulging as he is between my legs I’ll surely have one of my own to challenge hers as heir apparent. First born doesn’t naturally mean a proper heir. There’s grace in her son being regarded as illegitimate in the eyes of the court. A child of my own would be recognized from birth as true born without any need for legitimizing formalities.
“I called her by your name.” I remember Meredith’s hand at dinner, how her little fist had clenched so quickly when Nathaniel called me by my given name. She’s had to hear it from the moment she fell into his bed. It must sound like a curse to her, poisoning her ears so that she couldn’t forget who was truly on his mind. But even that isn’t enough.
“Do you want to know every detail? You seem so consumed by it. Would you like me to tell you how I turned her on her stomach and kept her quiet so I could imagine it was your voice whining my name? I didn’t want to see her face and know it wasn’t you beneath me.”
I scoff. “She looks nothing like me. If you were going to imagine you could’ve at least found someone that favored me more closely.” He hums and the sound sings up my spine as he noses past the final barrier of my underclothes. My knees try to knock together as his mouth finds the wet heat between my legs but his shoulders are already there to stop them.
“I wasn’t looking.” He groans. “She came to me and I accepted her service. Blonde or brunette, it wouldn’t have mattered. It was never about them. It was about you. It was about this.” He presses a chilled kiss to my thigh hanging over his shoulder as his thumbs spread my folds to his lecherous gaze. His tongue is like ice as it drags through the wetness gathered between my legs. I gasp at the feeling, body trembling with stirred lust and a touch of chills as he teases a finger inside me. I’ve been loyal. For all his shameful behavior I’ve held fast to my vows. The only fingers that have been between my legs are my own as I waited for him to come home. He groans as I tighten around the single digit and the sound pools hot and heavy inside me.
“So fucking tight.” Nathaniel curses as my cunt squeezes around his finger. He’s careful of his pointed nails, moving slowly as he presses in and out. “It’s all mine isn’t it? Always has been.” He simpers. I yank at his hair, trying to pull him away from the mess making of my sheets with his damnable tongue and fingers. He sounds so proud knowing only he has defiled the temple of my body in such a way. It reminds me that he hasn’t given me the same honor.
“Bastard!” I huff. He lifts his head, eyes looking somehow brighter as his cheeks glow with a sheen of my arousal. He looks roguishly pleased with himself.
“So disrespectful.” He teases, swatting at my thigh with little intent to harm. “Tell me to stop and I will, but I won’t fit unless you open for me.” He slides another finger inside, pressing them up against the spot that sends a lightning strike up my spine as his thumb draws tight circles over my clit. I pant his name, somehow wholly uninterested yet desperate for his touch.
“You’re insufferable.”
“Then it’s good that my touch brings you no suffering. I can hear you, sunlight. I can hear you trying to keep those little sounds to yourself. Be good and give your Emperor what he wants. Let me hear you.” Stubbornly, I bite my lip to keep my whining at bay. Nathaniel allows my silence for only a moment before his fangs dig deep into my thigh.
“I’ll bleed, you monster!” My insult only makes him sink in deeper until I feel heat welling around the frigid press of his mouth.
“Monster, am I?” He grunts, bloody teeth bared at me. “You think I’m a monster?” I realize, belatedly, the error of my words. I hadn’t meant it as an insult. It was an indelicate slip of the tongue. He can’t expect that I’ll be careful about my words when he’s digging his teeth into my skin.
“I only meant that it hurt.”
“It hurts?” He teases, mocking my discomposure. “No, you liked it.” He pulls his fingers from inside me, licking the wetness from each one as he presses my knees into my chest. His pants, already slung low on his hips, are darkened with a spot of wetness as he presses the shape of his cock against me.
“Fuck, Cosima.” He groans gratefully. “Stay there.” He holds me still with one hand on the back of my thigh as the other struggles with the ties of his pants. The moment they’re shoved just low enough he’s pressing into me, body shaking with restraint as he waits for me to relax around him. My hips shift traitorously, pulling him deeper and he loses himself in an instant. The breath rushes from my lungs as Nathaniel falls over me, cold breath puffing against my throat as he holds himself up on shaky forearms. He bullies his shoulders under the crook of my knees, folding me in earnest as he lays his weight over me. The pleasure pinches the air from my lungs just as much as the pressure of him sagging against my chest.
My arousal hangs in the balance, simmering like embers as I wait for Nathaniel to move. My body has already accepted him inside, my arousal surely wetting his hips where they’re flush against my skin. He’d been so eager just a moment ago, nearly bullying me in preparation and yet the moment he’s gotten what he wanted he falls still. His body is trembling, almost shivering, and his breath is shaky as his lips ghost across my throat. I feel the sharp drag of his fangs as he tries to say something but can’t. I move my hips again, more purposeful now. He’s already gotten me here so I might as well take my pleasure from him. He hardly makes it easy. He’s like a slab of stone atop me, whimpering breathlessly with each short buck of my hips. It’s pitiful. Not nearly enough to please me.
“Move,” I seethe, “or I’ll throw you out.” Nathaniel laughs but it’s mirthless, like a grating sigh as he pulls away from me.
“I can’t move.” His voice sounds stronger the moment he pulls away but I want to smack him for it.
“All of that and you can’t even satisfy the wife you’ve been craving for so long? How am I meant to believe a word you say when this is how you act when I give myself to you. Get out!” I snap, already sitting up and pulling my soiled nightdress back down my thighs. The fabric has gone sheer where dampness has gathered and he knocks my hand away before I can wrangle the clinging fabric over the fullness of my hips. I nearly flinch when his fingers find their way to my neglected clit.
“Do I look like a man that is unhappy with the woman in his bed?” He doesn’t of course. His cock is drooling a puddle of precum onto his stomach. It doesn’t matter.
“You are in my bed,” I correct him. “And I am very unhappy.”
“Then come claim your happiness, sundew. I’m yours to take.”
“Shut up.” I sneer as I ruck my dress back up to my waist, feeling like a whore as I cage my knees over his hips and guide his twitching length back inside me. His head falls back against the pillows the moment our hips meet again and a guttural moan falls from his lips. I tighten myself around him, and his hands snap to my hips as if to keep me anchored while he gathers the dregs of his sanity. His indiscretions stain the moment as I wonder if he made these sounds for that paramour of his. He was like this on our first night, too, writhing and clawing at me like an animal in heat. Now his hands are cold as his talons bite into the meat of my hips. My name falls from his lips in breathy pants, each higher than the last as his hips buck to meet me on each downward stroke.
“Come with me.” He says desperately. One hand leaves my hips to rub feverishly at my clit. It sends sparks up my spine but it won’t be enough to meet him in the middle.
“Not inside.” I implore, already slowing my pace as his muscles begin to tighten. If he hears me he doesn’t answer. Instead he wraps himself around me, pulling me tight to his chest once more. We share our breaths as his lips brush against mine. It isn’t a kiss but he’s trying as his tongue finds mine between the swift canting of his hips.
“Please.” I taste the word more than I hear it. His eyes are open as he kisses me, glowing like twin flames as they sparkle with tears. “Please.”
“You have your sons.” I remind him. It’s cruel given his current state but no less deserved. He was wrong to lay with that woman, and misguided still to bring her and her bastards into my home.
“My sons,” he agrees quickly. “Not yours. They’re not yours. I want an heir, Cosima. Let me fill you with a prince. Take my love.” I shake my head, already trying to wrestle away from his embrace.
“I don’t want the type of love you have to offer me, Your Majesty.” He lets me go then and I let him slip out of me, masking my own displeasure as my cunt clenches emptily in his absence. His cock twitches pitifully before he spills his seed onto his stomach. It’s wasted without a womb to fill but he’s made his choice, so this is mine. He’s whimpering again and for a moment I think he’ll truly cry over being made to cum without a place to put it. Now it is simply a mess to be cleaned up.
“You’ll have no heirs from me.” I tell him as my fingers press inside my cunt. I can be rougher than he was with my blunt nails and I make a show of riding my fingers to the edge, thumb circling my clit as I shiver through an orgasm. One that he did not give me. I wipe my hand on his pants before getting out of bed. The sun will rise soon and I want a few hours of sleep before I must face the court again. Before I have to smile and feign kindness. My ruined nightgown is tossed to the floor after I use it to mop up the mess dripping down my legs. When I finish wiping away my sweat and finding a new sleeping gown, Nathaniel still hasn’t moved from my bed.
He looks almost pathetic laid out in the middle of my lush bed with his pants shoved halfway down his thighs and his cock going soft against his stomach. I watch him as I dab the sweat from my skin with a handkerchief.
“You can leave now. You’ve gotten what you wanted.” I watch his eyes go dark for a moment as he blinks up at the ceiling.
“I have nothing that I want.” I daintily drop the used handkerchief on his chest like a lady shyly hoping a knight will take her favor.
“And what is it that you want, Your Majesty?” He sits up at last and cleans the sweat and spunk from his chest before tossing the rag aside.
“My wife.”
My temper flares again. “I’ve done nothing but my duty as your wife.”
“Is that what that was?” He sounds saddened and I feel my mask of indifference begin to slip once more.
“I am the wife you’ve made me.” I say hotly. “I do not want to be your wife if it means this is what I’ll become. You should’ve left her and her whelps in the same snowy keep she crawled out of. If I see her again–” I turn my back to him before I say something treasonous. He’s said she was only a warm body beside his, the first he found that could comfort his longing, but how am I meant to believe him when he brought her and her child here? A man will say anything sweet when he is in bed with a beautiful woman and Nate surely knew to deny his feelings for her while between my legs.
“You want her gone. I know it, my love, I swear I do. What would you have me do to fix this?” Kill her. The words burn at the tip of my tongue but I can’t part my lips to say them.
“Truly?” Nate wraps his arms around me, pressing kisses against my shoulder.
“Truly. Whatever your wish, sunlight, I’ll do it. I was wrong. I know it. Let me try to make amends.”
“Send her away. The whore and her bastards.”
“That is all?” He sounds relieved.
“Do you want me to say I want her drawn and quartered? Do you want me to wish violence on your son? I am not an evil woman. You’ve rotted me with jealousy but I won’t wish harm on innocent children. But that woman? I want her out or I will make her life miserable. I can promise that.”
“May I ask for payment for my efforts?” His arms ensure that I don’t go far when I try to rush to my feet in a fit of anger.
“Payment?”
“For my penance.” Nate agrees. “Only a small price, sundew. I only want to sleep beside you tonight.” My eyes flicker to the uncovered window. It will soon flood with the blushing light of sunrise. I only need to lay beside him for a few moments before sleep takes me and then only some short hours after that. He’ll likely be gone when I wake. If this is the price to get that damnable woman out of my palace I will pay it every night for the rest of my life and if Nate has his way that is nearly a certainty.












