Page 8 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons (Empire of Vengeance #4)

By the time the formal dinner ended, I was thoroughly drunk and thoroughly miserable.

I made my excuses and stumbled back toward my quarters, the Academy corridors blurring slightly around the edges.

The alcohol hadn't numbed the pain the way I'd hoped; if anything, it had amplified everything, making my emotions raw and overwhelming.

I'd barely made it through my door when I heard footsteps in the hallway behind me. I turned, expecting to see a servant, but instead found Valeria silhouetted in my doorway.

"May I come in?" she asked, though she was already stepping into my sitting room without waiting for an answer.

"Valeria." I tried to focus on her face, which swam slightly in my vision. "What are you doing here?"

She had changed from her evening gown, now dressed in a gold silk gown that left little to the imagination. Her dark hair was piled high in an elaborate style that probably took her slaves hours to achieve, and her smile held the predatory edge I'd grown to despise.

"Jalend," she purred, moving to the wine table and helping herself to a goblet. "You look absolutely dreadful. When was the last time you slept?"

"What do you want, Valeria?"

She pouted prettily, a calculated expression that had probably worked on every other man she'd ever encountered. "Can't a friend visit without ulterior motives?"

"We're not friends." I took another sip of wine, hoping she'd take the hint and leave. "And you always have ulterior motives."

"So suspicious." She moved closer, close enough that I could smell her expensive perfume—something cloying and overpowering that made me think of funeral flowers. "Perhaps I'm concerned about your wellbeing. You've been quite the hermit lately."

"I've been busy."

"Brooding, more like." Her fingers trailed along my arm, and I had to resist the urge to shake her off. "It's not healthy, all this solitude. A man has needs, after all."

She moved closer, reaching out to touch my chest, her fingers trailing down the front of my formal tunic, I realized with sudden clarity what kind of techniques she wanted to discuss.

"I don't think—" I started, but she pressed a finger to my lips.

"Don't think," she whispered, rising up on her toes to bring her mouth close to my ear. "Just feel. You've been so tense lately, so serious. Let me help you relax."

For a moment—just a moment—I was tempted.

The alcohol made her offer seem almost reasonable, a way to forget the pain of Livia's betrayal, to prove to myself that I could be as casual about physical intimacy as she apparently was.

Valeria was beautiful, willing, and here.

Why shouldn't I take what she was offering?

Then her lips were on mine, and the brief temptation curdled into revulsion.

Her kiss was a performance—skilled, practiced, and utterly empty.

It held none of the hesitant fire of Livia’s touch, none of the raw, desperate connection that had made my world tilt on its axis.

But even as she pressed against me, her hands working at the fastenings of my tunic, all I could think about was Livia.

The way her skin felt under my hands, the sound she made when I kissed the sensitive spot just below her ear, the way she looked at me afterward like I was something precious and fragile.

This wasn't what I wanted. This was a transaction, and the price was a piece of my soul I wasn’t willing to sell.

"No," I said, my voice low and thick with alcohol and self-loathing. I pushed her hands away from my chest and took a stumbling step back, putting distance between us. "I think you should leave."

“But Jalend,” she began, her tone shifting from seductive to petulant. “I only thought—”

“I don’t care what you thought,” I cut her off, my own pain making me cruel. “Get out, Valeria. Now.”

“What is wrong with you?” she hissed. “I’m offering you a night you won’t forget.”

“That’s the problem,” I said, my voice low and unsteady. “I don’t want to forget.” I wanted to remember every moment with Livia, even the painful ones, because they were real. They were mine. This… this was just an anaesthetic, and I was done being numb.

“Get out, Valeria,” I repeated, turning my back on her to pour another drink, my hand shaking.

The predatory smile on her face faltered, replaced by a flicker of surprise and then anger.

"You're a beautiful woman, Valeria, but this isn't... I'm not..."

"Not what?" Her voice had taken on a hard edge. "Not interested in me? Or not available?"

The way she said it made something cold settle in my stomach. There was calculation in her eyes now, a predatory intelligence that reminded me uncomfortably of certain courtiers in my father's palace.

"It's nothing personal," I tried.

"Oh, but I think it is." She circled me slowly, like a cat stalking wounded prey. "Very personal indeed. Tell me, Jalend—what's so special about our dear Livia that has you turning down willing women?"

My heart stopped. "I don't know what you mean."

"Please. I have eyes. The way you look at her, the way you've been avoiding her tonight like a spurned lover..." Valeria's smile was razor-sharp. "It's quite obvious to anyone paying attention."

"You're imagining things."

"How disappointing. I'd heard rumours about your... preferences... but I hoped they were exaggerated."

"What rumours?"

"Oh, nothing terribly scandalous. Just whispers about your fascination with a certain dragon rider." Her smile turned razor-sharp. "Hardly a noble, practically a commoner. How deliciously democratic of you."

The casual cruelty in her voice made my jaw clench. "Be very careful, Valeria."

"Or what? You'll defend her honour?" She laughed, a sound like breaking crystal. "How chivalrous. Though I do wonder what she's told you about herself. Commoners can be so... creative... with the truth."

There was something in her tone that made my blood run cold. Knowledge. Certainty. The kind of satisfied malice that came from holding secrets over someone's head.

"What do you know about her?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"Enough." Valeria moved to the balcony, gazing out at the harbour with studied casualness. "Enough to know that your little dragon rider isn't just spreading her legs for you. But then, I suspect you've begun to figure that out for yourself, haven't you?"

She was fishing, trying to get me to reveal what I knew. But her confidence suggested she had her own sources of information, her own reasons for watching Livia. The thought made me sick.

"Get out," I said quietly.

"Oh, did I strike a nerve?" She turned back to me, eyes glittering with malicious delight. "How fascinating. You really don't know, do you? Here I thought you were simply slumming with the help, but you actually care about her."

"Get. Out."

"Such passion." She moved toward the door, pausing to look back over her shoulder. "Do give my regards to your dragon rider, won't you? When you see her next. If you see her next."

With a final, contemptuous glance, she swept out of the room, leaving the scent of her perfume and the poison of her words hanging in the air.

I slammed the door behind her, the sound echoing the hollow crack in my chest. The brief, sordid encounter had done nothing but sharpen my pain, leaving me more alone and hopelessly in love with a woman who was destroying me.

I poured myself another drink—a large one—and sank into the chair by my window.

Outside, the Academy grounds were peaceful in the moonlight, showing no trace of the violence that had torn through them weeks ago.

But the scars were still there, hidden beneath carefully tended gardens and fresh paint, just like the wounds in my own heart.

I thought about Livia's secrets, about the men she'd loved and lost. I thought about my own deception, the truth about my parentage that I'd never dared reveal. We were both living lies, both hiding from truths too dangerous to speak aloud.

But while her secrets were born from necessity, from survival in a world that would destroy her if it knew who she really loved, mine came from cowardice.

I'd had a dozen opportunities to tell her the truth about myself, and I'd chosen silence every time.

How could I be angry with her for keeping secrets when I was doing the same thing?

The hypocrisy of it made me sick, but not as sick as the growing realization that it didn't matter anymore. Even if I told her everything—about my father, my identity, my growing horror at the Empire's actions—it wouldn't change the fundamental truth that Valeria had forced me to confront.

I wasn't special to Livia. I was a temporary distraction from her grief, a pleasant interlude in a life shaped by loves far deeper than anything she felt for me. And when she moved on—as she inevitably would—I'd be left with nothing but memories of what I'd thought we had.

The wine made my thoughts spiral darker, dwelling on images of Livia in the arms of her lovers, of the way she must have looked at them with real passion instead of the careful affection she showed me.

They'd known her completely, had seen past all her masks and defences to the woman beneath.

They'd earned her love through shared danger and absolute honesty.

What had I earned? A few stolen kisses, some gentle conversations, the privilege of believing I mattered to someone who was simply too kind to tell me otherwise.

By the time I finished the bottle, I'd convinced myself that ending things with her was not just necessary but merciful.

She deserved to mourn her lost loves without the complication of my unwanted feelings.

I deserved to salvage what remained of my dignity before she inevitably tired of whatever game she was playing with my heart.

What else hadn't she told me? What other secrets was she hiding behind those extraordinary eyes?

The questions burned in my chest like acid, eating away at the trust I'd thought we were building.

I wanted to confront her, to demand answers, to make her explain why she'd let me fall in love with someone who might not even exist. But I was afraid of what I might learn, afraid that the woman I'd given my heart to was nothing more than an elaborate fiction.

Worse still was the growing realization that I had no right to demand honesty from her when I was living my own lie.

Every moment we'd spent together, every whispered endearment, every tender touch—all of it had been built on the foundation of my deception.

I wasn't just Jalend the dragon rider. I was the Emperor's son, heir to the throne that was built on the bones of her people's suffering.

If she ever learned the truth, she would hate me. And I would deserve every moment of that hatred.