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Chapter Forty

Marc

I keep my mouth shut and my expression impassive through Aurelia’s reassuring speech to the court, through her overseeing of the construction efforts on the palace grounds outside and her mingling with the nobles in the parlor, through dinner and other entertainments.

All the while, memories of glowing red omens float in the back of my mind, alongside her soft but steady voice.

“I swear before you on my life and my daughter’s that Cotea and all the other conquered countries will get your freedom of rule if you help me push back this threat.”

Every time the words come back to me, I have to restrain my jaw from clenching. Part of me wants to grab her in front of everyone and shake more answers out of her.

Part of me wants to shrivel up like a shrub wilting in the winter chill.

I do neither, but my wife is nothing if not perceptive. The moment her maids have left her chambers at night, she turns to me with her arms folded over the bodice of her nightgown. “What is it?”

I meant to confront her. I should have expected that she’d initiate the confrontation first. It gets us to the same place anyway, doesn’t it?

I don’t see any point in beating around the bush. “You aren’t planning on preserving the empire. You’re going to break it apart.”

Her deep blue eyes only show the slightest flicker of emotion. I can’t tell if she’s even surprised that I know.

“You overheard my conversation with King Stanislas. How?”

Calm as ever. So little rattles this woman. This time, my stomach twists through my automatic pang of admiration.

I gaze back at her, equally unyielding. “There’s a hidden area behind the mirror room where people can be stationed to make a sudden appearance or simply follow discussions unseen.

Axius would normally have been back there, but he took you at your word that you wanted the conversation to stay private.

I assumed there was nothing you’d say that you wouldn’t mind me being privy to.

After Sabrelle started conjuring her omens… ”

I worried about Aurelia’s safety. I lied to my supposed colleagues and slipped away so I could protect her.

And got to hear her offering up the territories my ancestors conquered centuries ago in simple barter.

Aurelia’s mouth tightens. “I suppose you needed to find out eventually, but that isn’t how I’d have wanted it to happen. I probably should have told you sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

No apology for the scheme itself, no explanation. Just acknowledging her plan as an unshakeable fact.

My hands do clench then, despite my best efforts. “You kept it from me because you knew I’d disagree. My foster brothers—they all know, don’t they? They made the offer for you in person with their visits. And all the while you acted as if you were only doing what was best for Dariu.”

All the while she acted as if she’d come to trust me.

She gave me her body and perhaps her heart, but not everything. Some part of her still lies out of reach, and I didn’t even realize.

The shriveling impulse comes back. I stifle it.

I may not be emperor to the people of this palace any longer, but I know who I was. I know what responsibilities I shouldered. I haven’t tossed them aside.

“Marc.” Her voice is so gentle it spears right through the center of my chest. “I am doing what I think is best for Dariu. For all of us. This isn’t what I pictured to begin with.

I thought I could transform the empire into something that allowed all the kingdoms within it to flourish.

But in our tour across the continent, I saw so much…

It became clear that the systems that stifle the outer territories are too deeply entrenched.

And they harm the people of Dariu too. We’ll be stronger as an ally rather than as the tyrannical force we are now. ”

“The people of Dariu are never going to accept this!”

“They will. If the other kingdoms come to our aid in our time of greatest need and I frame the drawing back of our authority as a reward, they will. I’ll ensure it comes with benefits for everyone that are more concrete than the impression of superiority.”

Too many thoughts clash in my head. My father’s lectures on just how superior we are . The dissidents who’ve slaughtered our soldiers and spat in our faces. The false smiles the other royals offer me.

Aurelia moving among them, turning those expressions into something warmer. Earning cheers from the crowds both here in Dariu and abroad.

What if she’s wrong? How will we ever recover?

What if she’s right ?

That last question brings a tinge of bitter bile into the back of my mouth. “This is the way it’s been for centuries. We won the right to rule fairly. My ancestors proved we were the strongest, that we could rally in the face of the Great Retribution.”

“Yes.” Her agreement somehow stings as much as her arguments.

“But that was centuries ago. Everyone has rebuilt. Half of the continent proved they could shrug off your family’s control a hundred years ago, and they seem no worse off for it.

What did you, or your father, or your grandparents, or your great-grandparents do other than maintain a system put in place ages ago? ”

“If there isn’t any need for change?—”

“How can you say there isn’t?” she asks.

“Look how easily Linus terrorized every other kingdom around us. My whole life, I’ve watched Darium soldiers do the same on a lesser scale throughout Accasy.

Most of the people of this empire live in fear, not prosperity.

They aren’t giving Dariu their best, only what it takes to most easily survive. ”

The conversation I overheard between the nobles weeks ago comes back to me. I have to restrain a flinch.

It isn’t just the outer territories where people live in fear. I hated the thought of ruling that way.

Still, to throw everything we’ve built away…

My lips part, but I don’t know what I can say that won’t make this situation worse.

I don’t even know what outcome I want.

Just looking at Aurelia, at her lovely face with its kind eyes and the slight furrow of concern that’s formed in her brow, twists me up even more .

The words tumble out. “I need—I need space to think this through.”

I need to get away from the woman who’s consumed so much of my being that I can’t pick apart what’s really me anymore.

I brace for her to insist that I stay under her watch, for the tables to turn so she’s more guard than I am. But apparently she trusts me more than I’ve assumed.

Or else she believes there’s no real damage I could do to her cause regardless.

She nods, with a smile I can only call sad. “Of course. You’ve devoted an awful lot of your time to me these past few months. Take what you need for yourself.”

The compassion in her response only sets me more on edge. I dip my head in return and stride out of the room.

The guards stationed outside blink at me.

“I’m feeling a little under the weather,” I say hastily. “It’s better for the empress if I sleep in the dormitory rather than nearby.”

They accept my explanation without question. It was more odd that I spent so many nights watching over her from within her room than that she go without.

And she won’t be without. No doubt Bastien or Lorenzo—or both of them—will be joining her soon enough.

I can’t even be mad about that. I gave them the highest permission there is to stay by her side.

On the lowest level of the palace, I march into the guards’ dorm where I’ve only spent a fraction of my time since my immense demotion. I lie down on my cot, yank the blanket to my shoulder, and close my eyes.

I thought I’d stew in my thoughts for a while, navigating through them until I determined the route that feels right. I must have been more exhausted than I realized. Sleep rolls over me in a heavy wave and drags me down .

Fatigue might not be the only force acting on me. In the depths of my doze, familiar images that I thought I’d left behind flood my mind.

Aurelia flees down the palace steps, her dress billowing behind her, shrieks and wails rising from an unseen crowd all around us. I fling a knife, and the blade buries itself in her back.

As blood spurts from the wound, she crumples at the base of the steps. Cheers erupt. A warm rush of approval wraps around me.

Civilians careen toward my wife’s fallen body. They tear apart her limbs and raise the bloody chunks to their mouths. As they feast, the city grows taller and brighter around us.

Then I’m standing on a battlefield, armies in uniforms of half a dozen colors arrayed before us. Aurelia, back on her feet, sweeps her arm toward them—welcoming them. They charge into our midst, severing throats, stabbing guts, until my vision is hazed with red.

A lightning bolt spikes down from the sky and rips the empress in two. The enemies disintegrate around me. Sobs of relief rise up from my people.

On and on the dreams come, blood-soaked and vicious, presenting Aurelia as a monster to be slaughtered. I must toss and turn with them, because when I finally wake up, my sleepshirt is damp with sweat and my blanket is tangled around my legs.

I slump back on the bed for several minutes as the frenetic thudding of my pulse evens out. Nausea pools in my gut.

When the nightmares first came during the coronation tour, I blamed them on Linus’s mad schemes. Aurelia and my foster brothers suggested they might have had a divine source .

Does Sabrelle sense that my faith has been shaken, and this is her way of prodding a potential opening?

I close my eyes. The dreams were never quite this emphatic or insistent before.

I spent my whole life swearing to bring glory to the empire. To defend it to my last breath. Am I abandoning that promise if I stand by Aurelia now?

What would Father have made of her claims? It’s easy to picture him sneering at the idea of cooperating rather than dominating.

We have a legacy to uphold. The gods themselves deemed us worthy of shepherding the empire.