The Empire (The Lover's Opalus) (9 page)

* * * *

Lanus did not allow her to escape him. After Rucha was tucked safely in her bed he sought Raeche out again, entering her room using the curtain. Of late, it always had a narrow opening at the end. Top to bottom, the rooms had the smallest connection, the smallest acknowledgment of connection.

“When you think of your would-be lover, remember your hands are not clean, Raeche. I had no choice.”

“You could have sent him away.”

“I sent him to the only place that is outside the Empire.”

“South of the Death White Border?”

A guttural growl came from his throat. “You mock yourself, Empress.” He continued, “I could not show any mercy and I could not send another. I am a man, Raeche. You are my woman. Mine. He was foolishly blinded by your beauty and you were foolishly blinded by a need to rebel. If I had not cut him down, you would have lain with him. I believe it to my core.”

“Of course,
husband
, you have proof
indeed
of what I would have done.”

“Indeed.” He used the word frequently and would not stop though she mocked him.

“Rucha is your daughter and the musician was never my lover. You took his place.”

“I took
my
place,” he stepped forward, clamping his fingers around the bare skin of her upper arm. She had to crane her head to look him in the eye, he stood so close. She ground her teeth together and considered biting him. “I wore his skin but I took
my
place. Do you honestly believe I would ever let you get with child from another? You who know better than any of what I am capable?”

“You are clumsy with the Spirit of Change, how did you do it?”

He leaned down closer to her face. A menacing grin crossed his lips. “It is not much of a riddle.”

Raeche gasped. To say “riddle” within the borders of the Empire was a curse upon all of them. She shook her head, trying to think. “Taritana?”

“Indeed,” he repeated.

This Raeche had reasoned as well, especially after the Personal’s attempt at confession so many days ago. Taritana had been born and raised in the palace. Her loyalty and love had always belonged to the Emperor, despite the solemn pledge she had made to the Empress. The Personal to the Empress would have never made an overture or reached so far for her infatuation. Instead, she would perform her duty to the Empress with exactness. She would do as the Empress said… then she would relay any indiscretion at all that could challenge the Empire to the Emperor.

Raeche had been surprised when Taritana passed her Galan’s missive. She had wondered why the Personal had not realized it was more than met the eye. But her Personal had noticed.

“I think I shall request that
my sister
lie in my bed when I take a knife to her throat.”

“You will not.”

“I can do as I like. She looks on you with excessive favor. I am Empress. It is important you remember that. Never forget. No one, to
my
borders and beyond, should forget. I am a beast, too, Lanus, and I desire my own blood-song.”

“Raeche.” His voice softened as it sometimes did. Sometimes he appealed to her and made her a weak woman. “I would never take Taritana and she would never be able to honor herself or her ancestors if she were to indulge in such a fantasy. Send her away if you like. Perhaps to her sister, Dahouina. I am certain after we gave that softling to Praytor that her sister and self-appointed protector would snap at the opportunity to ease Ina’s way. Although in that she would also be dishonored, I would have her live. I would ask that you do not dip your hands in her blood. She is a servant of the Empire.”

His words did not matter. Raeche did not have it in her to kill the woman. She had witnessed the heart of the Personal. Even with her intensely controlled anger toward the Empress, it remained pure.

The Empress did feel a modicum of guilt about Taritana’s sister. Raeche had not wanted to hasten Dahouina’s marriage to Praytor. She was neither oblivious to the Personal’s attempts at delaying the inevitable nor impervious to the suffering the softling would experience at Praytor’s hands. But she was the Empire and, until they could discreetly rid the girl of Praytor, this solution would have to do.

That settled, Raeche’s violence redirected to her husband. Her husband who stood so close that the sparks of Spirit tickled her skin and heated her body. Before he could pick the thought from her mind, she clutched his hair and pressed her mouth to his. She held tight, using her tongue to part his lips. She wanted him to lift her, press her against his body, carry her to the bed, or even the floor, and come inside her body. She wanted this more than she wanted to breathe.

Though his lips responded and drew pleasant sensations from every possible nerve in her body, he did not touch more than her mouth and his pace was slow, tasting her in a way that made her press her thighs together. She was dazed, but he was controlled.

Raeche stepped away from him, her chest heavy, but when she felt his Spirit envelope her and saw the green storm in his eyes, she knew he had buried his desire, not tamed it.

“It is not unnatural for a woman who has known the pleasure of a man to desire it again.”

“Is that all you have to say, Lanus?”

“I know what you have been feeling, little dark one. I know the thoughts constantly raging in your mind, the things you are curious about, the desire. It is natural.”

“Natural. Yes, I suppose wanting my husband is natural.”

“You want your husband?” His laugh held no humor.

“I would have believed that to be obvious, Lanus. I know you pick thoughts from my head at will. You must know that I desire you.” This answer clearly did not please him.

“I know well what you desire. You are not welcome in my bed, Raeche.”

“We did not use a bed, Lanus. However, that matters little. You are certainly welcome in mine.”

Lanus squinted and the expression was a new one for Raeche. She did not know what it meant.

“I will not come to your bed, either.”

Anger chased heat over her skin. “If I cannot have you, then I must be granted someone else. Where is your Personal?”

“My brother would fall on his sword rather than come to you while I lived–”

“Yes, he hates me–”

“As for someone else–would you have the blood of yet another man, ten more men, a thousand more men on your hands? Are you comfortable with their deaths because you will not wield the sword?” His eyes lazily roamed her body, setting her afire from embarrassment and desire. “Is the ache there so deep?”

Raeche considered possible answers. None of them seemed as if they would satisfy her husband, so she told the truth. “Yes it is. I thought to be rid of it by lying with you and reminding myself of the pain of coupling with you. Yet it has grown and the pain ebbed soon enough this last time. Perhaps it is perverse of me but sometimes when you are angry with me, I am…darkly affected. I ignore your words preferring to watch your mouth. I forget your message and feel like touching your hair or your arm. I feel like walking behind you, climbing onto your back and going where you go until you pay attention to nothing but me. I have never felt this for another man. I cannot imagine I ever would.”

“Lies have always come so easily to you. You did feel it for another man.”

“No, Emperor, I did not. I betrayed you with this fantasy of Galan, but I never felt for Galan or Galan the Impostor what I feel now.” She clasped her hands to the sides of his head, demanding a Lock of True Eyes.

Lanus grabbed both her wrists in the swipe of one hand, refusing her gaze.

“What are you afraid of, Lanus?” she asked. “What is your greatest fear?”

He squeezed her wrists then growled before dropping them and stepping away from her.

Raeche advanced, feeling the stir of dark courage that came before she did something truly stupid. “Once your greatest fear was that, even with an Empire as dowry, I did not want you. I no longer dwell in the Spirit of Fear, Lanus, so I see.” She put a finger to her eye above the red splotch. “I wonder what it is now…your greatest fear.”

“My greatest fear is for my daughter. Perhaps that is where you should concentrate your energy.”

She did not want to let go of her slight advantage, yet his mention of Rucha halted her. She pressed a hand over her heart. “What is wrong?”

“What has been set into motion in the Empire cannot be stopped. At least, not yet.”

“Lanus?”

He shook his head, chewing his lower lip while he flexed his fingers.

She came to him, and he no longer studied the tension between them, so he allowed her to run her hands over his arms. “Tell me.”

“I wish that I could, Raeche. I am not always sure of what I sense. Sometimes it is like the low register of a timra playing in the air around her.”

“You have said much the same of me.”

He actually smiled. “Yes, there is something about you, sharp like a poisoned sword. Like the tongue of the timra. But it is different with our daughter. Hers is a live timra and it hisses and waits to strike. You rarely use the Spirit you have harnessed but I must ask if you have felt this.”

She shook her head fast, blinking to stop the feel of acid in her eyes, swallowing to stop the feel of acid in her throat and chest. “I have not, Lanus. But I am not as strong as you think. I have no control over the Spirit inside me. You know I was never a good student.”

“But always a beautiful one,” Lanus said softly.

Her heart sang even as it broke. “Beauty is insignificant.”

“So casually said because you have always had it. Beauty has never mattered to you.” He reached out and stroked her hair behind her ear. The touch was gentle and certainly born from the Spirit of Impulse. “I am called a fool for my inability to look away from you.”

“None would dare call you a fool, my Emperor.”

His lips parted in a hard smile as he continued to stroke her cheek. It seemed as if he could not stop touching her. First her hair, then her cheeks and jaw, her shoulder, her hair again, her chin. He pulled her into a close embrace. He smelled of the East Forest, though he should not have. Raeche knew he chose the scent and his smell was of her home. Sometimes it made her sad. Now, her sadness,
their
sadness, was constructed from worry over what this omen her husband spoke of meant for their beautiful daughter.

“The Spirit chooses to hide her fate and neither of the Codices speak of her yet,” Lanus confided. “They will not speak of her until her ninth birthday.”

“This Spirit Timra you sense, is it coiled to strike now?”

“No.” He coughed, clearing his throat. “I sense that it does not strike until she is ready to become the Empire. But it is strong and it laughs at me. It taunts me in the way of the Death White Border.”

Tears dotted Raeche’s cheeks because to laugh at Lanus was to laugh at the Empire. Not even the Spirit mocked the Empire. Only one entity did. The South, the Poachers and Riddlers beyond the Death White Border. “Lanus, I love her, and you love her. We will use that love to hold the Spirit of Protection in our hearts until the Codices do speak of her.”

Lanus nodded but did not speak.

“Come with me to the altar, then. If I cannot see it for myself, you must share this burden with me.”

“No, Raeche, I can carry this–”

“You have told me that I am the Empire. Do not forget it now.”

Rather than answer, the Emperor capitulated with a bow of his head meant to show respect absent of deference.

She grabbed his hand and covered the avla eggshells. The room grew dark as she led him to the tall window facing north. They stood before it, hand in hand, and Lanus whispered to the Spirits to allow him to share his premonition with Raeche without harming her or drawing undue attention to his daughter.

In minutes, the transference was done. Raeche’s heart had been branded with an iron of dread and her body wrapped in ice. She let Lanus draw her to the long tufted seat near the window. Lanus sat and allowed her to climb into his lap where they held each other and watched the stars dance through the sky to the sad ballad of their Spirits.

“Do not go to the South,” Raeche whispered. “Leave the border to your brother for a while.”

Lanus nodded and before long began to drift off to sleep. His eyes opened when Raeche spoke softly into his ear.

“I do not know why there is such darkness within me,” she confessed.

“Darkness lives in us both.”

“Yours is not like mine. Taritana and Valor are right to want to protect you and Rucha from me.” When Lanus started to argue, she plunged forward. “There are some moments when I feel as if I am not even of the Empire.”

“You are–”

“No, please, you must listen to words I have never had the courage to speak. I am not unaware that my way is strange amongst the controlled and powerful royalty of the North. Sometimes I thirst for confusion and conflict. Mayhem.”

His eyes were on her lips as she spoke. Those invisible sparks rolled off him like lava. His body grew hard against hers and Raeche wanted to take him into her, to consume him–her desire and love were so strong.

“Thirst for me,” he rasped.