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On the way out, I catch Zosines’s eye. Memnon’s blood brother wears a knowing smirk, and when he sees me looking, he lifts his cup as though to toast good luck.

I grimace, tearing my gaze away.

We leave the rowdy sounds of the dining hall for the quieter hallway. Eventually, the noise falls away altogether as we move deep into the castle, until the only sounds that remain are the lapping of the waves and the cry of a seabird beyond the palace.

You’re unusually quiet, Memnon says.Did you not have a good time?

It was all right.I hold off on revealing what Zosines said to me and why it got under my skin.I’m just happy to be alone with you.It’s the one thing we rarely get, and right now I savor it like it’s a sweet.

Memnon reels me in, wrapping an arm around my neck and pressing a kiss to the crown of my head.Me too, Empress.

Memnon weaves us through the labyrinthine halls of the palace until we get to a portiere, its wine-red drapes already drawn back. Beyond them, the room is cast in darkness. It’s not until Memnon forms a ball of light and sends it drifting into the room that I see the shelves and shelves of stacked scrolls.

I gasp at the sight. There have only been a few times I’ve seen this many texts in one place and never at camp. Adjacent to the wall of scrolls is a table with a familiar wax tablet and stylus resting on it.

“My reading room,” I say, as I’ve come to call the tent Memnon sets up for my studies. “You set one up for me here.”

His eyes crinkle. “How could I not?” he says. “Once we fully move in, this place will be crawling with Sarmatians, and you will no more have your peace here than you did at camp.”

He glances at the room around us, which has been painted a deep red and trimmed in lines of sage-green and golden-yellow. “I’ve placed a ward on this room to hide it from all eyes but ours, so when you want solitude and a hidden place to study, you will not have to rely on ley lines.”

I move over to the scrolls, my fingers hovering in the air close to them. The reverence I feel stops me from actually touching the papyri. This is what Zosines did not seem to understand. There truly are so many things I yearn for, things poets and philosophers, rulers, and scholars have written about. I do not exist solely to procreate, nor does any other woman.

Rotating away from the wall, my eyes land on Memnon. Memnon, who has always valued me for who I am and not what I offer.

I cross back over to him and throw myself into his arms.

“Thank you,” I whisper against his neck, pulling back enough to press a kiss to his lips.Thank you.

Too good. He’s too good; this is all too good.

Memnon’s hand comes up to my face, his thumb stroking my skin. “This isnothing. Now, are you going to actually open the scrolls, little witch?” he says, a smile on his lips. “I know you want to.”

I grin at him, backing up before returning to the wall of scrolls, the writings beckoning me.

However, once I reach them, I find that I really can do no more than touch the rolled texts, my heart pounding loudly.

Memnon comes to my side and, unlike me, he has no such qualms. He takes a roll of papyrus out and unrolls it.

“Read this to me,” he says, not bothering to look at the language written on it. Instead, he moves to a nearby cushioned chair in the corner and settles himself into it, the wooden frame groaning a little at his weight.

I glance down at the text, noting that it’s written in hieratic, a script version of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I start from a random point in the text. “‘Thy heart is weary. Thy soul is in thy hand. The sky is revealed. Thou fancies that the enemy is behind thee; trembling seizes thee…’” I glance up from the text to see Memnon smiling at me, a soft look in his eyes.

“You really are a natural at this. But I expect nothing less from my mate.”

I flush under his praise.

“Please,” he says, “continue. I want to hear how well-read my wife has become.”

I move over to him then, the scroll still in hand.

“‘Thou findest a fair maiden who keeps watch over the gardens.’” I sit down on Memnon’s lap, straddling his legs. “‘She takes thee to herself for a companion?—”

Oh, it’s that kind of story…

I knew I chose well, Memnon says, his hand drifting under my kurta and tunic. Then lower still.