The Empire (The Lover's Opalus) (12 page)

Inside, the vanity glowed white-blue in the dark. Raeche crept closer. She held out her hands, letting them hover over the top. Her palms tingled. When she laid them flat against the vanity a roar of warmth rushed through her and she almost faltered. She did not let go because she craved this sensation, this new joy.

The child sank onto the dainty seat and rested her cheek against the desk. A smile stretched her face. Tears dotted her skin. Her mother had been selfish to keep her away from it.

When she recovered, she held her hands over the items again. Which should she investigate first? She picked up the brush, intent on seeing the carvings up close for once. It too glowed blue-white. She ran her fingertips over the scene depicted–the slaughter of a great beast with a short snout, large, intelligent eyes, thickly-muscled shoulders heads and heads above its murderer. The scene grew a lump in her throat.

She put the brush down and reached for the mirror hesitantly–she did not want to see another depiction of the Death of the Aurus. Before she touched it, she noticed a third object in this matching set. A blade. The dagger had a curved bone handle and rested in a scabbard of the same hard material. She took it in hand. When she unsheathed it, it glinted at her. Raeche gasped in awe.

Then she jumped in her seat as the lights of her mother’s chamber were thrown on with a startling hum. She held up a hand to shield her eyes.

“Get away from there!” her mother snarled, her face all sharpness and dark beauty.

Raeche leaped to her feet and dropped the knife, nicking herself in the process. The first finger on her right hand wept blood onto the surface of the vanity. Raeche jerked the wound to her lips.

Her mother rushed to her side and her fingernails dug deep into Raeche’s shoulder. This first act of violence, the first act of true interest her mother had ever shown her, astonished her.

Instead of pulling her away, though, her mother surprised her by turning her back to the vanity, though she did not allow Raeche to touch it again. Raeche already missed it.

The little girl’s mouth dropped open as she watched her blood being absorbed by the desk until she could no longer be certain it had been there.

“Now it has you,” her mother whispered. “Now you are as Spirit-cursed as I. Your fate is sealed, Mother of the Empire’s Destruction.”

* * * *

“The following Light, Annikah had the vanity sent away. She said she had it destroyed but I knew the truth.”

“Then it would be my greatest honor to retrieve it for you, to give it to you as a wedding gift.”

“We have been long wed.”

“Yet I still war for your favor. You still demand a sacrifice.”

Raeche rewarded the sentiment by placing a gentle kiss on his lips.
 

Lanus squeezed her then let fingertips trail over her neck.
 

Then she told him, “My mother’s greatest use of Spirit as far as I can determine was to send the desk away. No one aided her in removing it. I have been unable to locate it since.”

“We have master Spirit Wielders at our beck and call.”

“Yes, and none of those I have consulted can reach these objects. Even when I provide the trace, they follow so far and then encounter Spirit Silence.”

“An obstacle?”

“Of some sort, else they would not be able to begin tracking it at all.”

Lanus frowned. “If you desire it, it will be yours. I will bestow this gift upon you on the day we say the vow.”

His certainty warmed her.

Chapter 14

“This is insanity, Lanus.
Insanity
. Your court will not tell you, but I, as your brother, not as your court, not as your right hand, not even as your Personal, will tell you. You cannot let her lead you into destruction.”

Lanus clenched his jaw as his brother spoke. “You blame Raeche?”

“Before you draw your blade, brother, or summon the Spirit of Lightning to incinerate me where I stand, breathe easy. I know this folly is surely your own.”

“Indeed.”

“You have long loved her,” Valor stated. “That is something you could never hide from me.”

“I would be a fool to try to hide anything from you.”

“Does she even know? Does she even know what you do for her, how you–”

“She knows.”

“What does she do for you?”

“That is none of your concern.”

“It is if you rush to your death for it.”

“I am not going to die.”

Valor changed his tactic. “Even for you this is a barbaric ceremony.”

“It is merely words.”

“And knives. But you and I both know the words cut deeper than the knives. They will either bind you to her blissfully for eternity or destroy both of you, Spirits as well as flesh. More than words, else it would not be so important.”

“Nothing you can say will change my mind about this.”

“What of the Empire? Lanus, you and–unfortunately–Raeche are the sum of the Empire. It is wrong to risk the land and the people for a foolish rite that means little.”

“Do not speak of her as if she were not here.”

Valor coughed. Raeche, who sat to the side obscured by shadow, merely continued to watch.

Lanus continued, “It means much to Raeche and to me. There has been nothing but distrust between us as long as we have shared the throne. Distrust will continue between us, no matter how deeply we might see into the other’s Spirit. If she does not love me as I love her, then perhaps I do not want to survive the saying.”

“Then what of your daughter?”

Lanus could tell that his brother had saved this strike for last due to its accuracy and sharpness.

“Do you abandon her so easily?”

“Rucha will be our Empire. She will surpass me. Feed this land as I have not. My daughter will breach the South.”

Valor’s mouth worked but there seemed to be no suitable words.

“In her youth, I can think of none better than you and Taritana to rear her in our stead, were it necessary. It is not necessary. I do this for Rucha. I will not give her a broken Empire.”

“It is only broken should you choose to call it so,” the Personal observed carefully.

“My daughter has given us permission.”

“Of course she has, you are her parents. She believes in this bedtime tale.”

“What if you succeed?” Taritana, who had been silent and still as she watched from her seat in a shadowed corner, finally spoke. She wore a dress dark like alteberry with her blond hair piled high on her head in fine curls. Usually her hair waved down her back to her hips. For just a moment, Lanus wondered at the change.

“We will succeed,” Raeche told her as she materialized next to Lanus, lacing her fingers through his. Lanus noted that her control over many types of Spirit had grown exponentially since she had allowed herself to take instruction from him.

“If you do, what havoc you will you wreak from the West to the North to the East? Every young, overeager and over-stupid couple with the Spirit of Romance in their eyes will desire to emulate the Imperial couple. They will be saying the Amu’Wey, failing and dying with the Spirit torturing the souls who have mocked it.”

The Empress looked up at the Emperor. “Perhaps we should keep the ceremony quiet, Emperor. Taritana speaks, as always, with a cool head.”

Lanus, seeing apprehension in her expression, leaned down and lifted her into his arms in a strong embrace. “My love, our Empire will be stronger for this. It is our duty to do this publicly. The world we inhabit is not nearly as private as we sometimes think.”

Her brows furrowed. “Lanus.”

The Emperor turned once more to the Personals. “You both have made me painfully aware of how much the Empire regards life in the Imperial apartments. Raeche and I are meant for each other, our Spirits are linked, we will not fail. We will surely emerge stronger for it.”

“But–”

“
And
we will perform the Amu’Wey in front of all who would witness it, before the Lovers’ Opalus.”

One of Taritana’s hands fluttered up to her head as if she were afraid her curls would fall. Valor’s cheeks were splotched with dark red.

Raeche spoke then. “The Emperor and I were born for each other. Our Spirits are already linked. We will give the Empire a new memory of that place, one that is grand enough to eclipse their speculations and remembrances of it.”

* * * *

“They are both careless, adolescent, irresponsible idiots,” Taritana observed.

Valor had not meant to but the quick estimation made him laugh out loud.

“It is not funny.”

It was not, surely there was never anything less funny than their current situation, but Taritana made him laugh sometimes when she should not.

“Gather to you the Spirit of Sobriety, Valor,” she instructed tersely. “Soon you could become the Empire and your humor is certainly unbecoming.”

Valor shrugged, unable to summon a rebuttal. Her words should have sobered him but they did not. Valor, Validity to the Empire, now knew something he had not known before. Lanus and Raeche loved each other.

* * * *

Before Dark kissed Light, Raeche kissed Lanus. When he stirred and his lips moved on hers, Raeche trembled and tightened her hold on him.

“You are always so warm,” he whispered. “It is delicious.” He licked her lower lip before suckling.

Driven by his loveplay, Raeche slipped lower against him to kiss his throat, to taste the broad planes of his chest while he rubbed locks of her hair between his fingers. “You smell delicious, like the East Forest.”

Lanus raked her gown up over her head, taking with it the slip beneath. She leaned over him, stomach to stomach, chest to chest, skin to skin.

“Raeche,” he whispered, stilling her movements gently. “Raeche, tell me what you want. You can have anything. Anything.”

“I do love you, Lanus. I love what you have given me–a daughter and an empire. I have always loved you.”

“Not always,” he argued.

She pushed at his pants and he lifted himself to allow her to rake them down. “Always, even when I was so frightened of you I drowned in it.”

“Not so frightened that you did not taunt me.”

“Perhaps not.”

They spoke no more. They touched and kissed until their skin sang, then Lanus drank from Raeche to ensure she was ready for him once more. She squealed, moaned, and rode the waves of ecstasy lapping at her until she thought she would die. Then Lanus let her sit atop him, taking control of his entrance into her body. Her slow, tentative movements tortured them both as she eased him further and further inside. Lanus’s face showed strain as she moved until he jerked her forward so he could suckle her full breasts.

Almost by accident, the shock from that contact caused Raeche to bear down on him, causing them both to shout out. Lanus locked his arms around her, then drove up into her over and over until they were drenched in sweat, out of their minds, seeking that final precipice off which they could leap into the bliss of release. Every muscle in Raeche’s body contracted. She stiffened, unable to move. Then she shook. So did Lanus, who dug his fingers viciously into her rib cage. Raeche did not care. Her release had come and stars danced behind her eyelids as she felt her body spasm at its core, her orgasm heightened by the strength of Lanus’s.

Later, she pressed kisses to his sleeping eyes then stumbled around the curtain carrying her clothes.

Taritana’s eyes grew as round as Raeche had ever seen them. The Personal stood at the entrance to her bedroom holding a parcel of some sort and a pitcher of cold juice.

Raeche was unsure what to do, so she just stood there.

Finally, Taritana said, “Your mother will be arriving before Dark.”

The Empress dropped her clothes. “She does not have my permission to come here.”

“She has the Emperor’s.”

“The Emperor cannot negate one of my decrees. I daresay he would not.”

“I must remind you that you did not
make
a legal decree. You would have had to come to court in order to do that.”

“Why would he invite her here?”

“The Emperor does what he must to ensure the stability of the Empire.”

Raeche’s eyes narrowed. There was a message here. Perhaps if she slowed down, she would have it. “I had not realized the Empire was
un
stable.”

“Again, if you came to court, you might see that–”

“The Empire is not unstable.” Raeche put her hands on her hips.

“No, but there are some…rumors.”

Raeche raised both her eyebrows and leaned toward Taritana. She pressed her long nails gently into the flesh of her Personal’s forearm. “Do tell.”

Taritana moved her arm away. “Empress, perhaps you would like a bath, some clothing.”

“Perhaps I would like to wake the Emperor and get a clear understanding of what has come to pass.”