Page 41 of Realms of Swords and Storms (Empire of Vengeance #3)

I couldn't sleep. Again. The darkness of my chamber pressed down on me, as suffocating as the thoughts that wouldn't leave me in peace. My body ached with exhaustion, but my mind refused to quiet, spinning through the same torturous circle that had become my nightly ritual.

Tarshi.

Even thinking his name sent a wave of conflicting emotions through me—disgust, desire, self-loathing, and something else, something deeper that I refused to name.

I rolled onto my side, punching the thin pillow into submission, as if I could beat my thoughts into silence through sheer force of will.

It hadn't always been like this. Once, the world had made sense.

The Empire was cruel but orderly. The Talfen were demons, monsters who had destroyed villages and led to the destruction of my own village and the deaths of my family and left me with nothing but rage and a promise to protect the one person who mattered.

My hatred had sustained me through years of slavery, through the blood-soaked sand of the arena, through every horror the Empire had inflicted.

That hatred had been clean, pure, righteous.

Until Tarshi.

I closed my eyes, but the darkness only made the memories more vivid. His hands on my skin. His mouth, hot and demanding. The way he looked at me after, when we both lay spent and breathless—that strange mixture of defiance and vulnerability that made something in my chest ache.

"Fucking half-breed," I muttered into the darkness, the familiar insult falling flat, hollow.

Because that was the problem, wasn't it?

He wasn't the monster I needed him to be.

In the weeks since I'd begun our sordid encounters, I'd searched for the demon in him, the taint of evil I'd been taught to see in all Talfen.

I'd pushed him, provoked him, practically begged him to reveal the monster hiding beneath his skin.

But all I'd found was a man. A complicated, stubborn, passionate man who looked at Livia with such tender devotion that it made my throat tight. Who fought beside us with unflinching courage. Who somehow managed to retain his humanity despite a lifetime of being told he was less than human.

And that terrified me more than any monster could have.

I sat up, swinging my legs over the edge of the narrow cot, and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until I saw stars. If Tarshi wasn't the demon I'd been taught to hate, what did that mean for everything else I believed? For the justifications I'd clung to my entire life?

The Empire had taught us the Talfen were monsters, that the war was necessary to protect humanity from their demonic taint. They'd used that fear to justify every atrocity—the burning of villages, the enslavement of populations, the public executions of anyone suspected of Talfen sympathy.

I'd watched my family die. Had held Tarus, Livia's brother, as he bled out in my arms. Had sworn on his cooling body that I would protect his sister with my life.

And I had blamed the Talfen for all of it.

Because that was easier, wasn't it? Easier than admitting that human beings—my own kind—could commit such horrors against each other without demonic influence.

But if Tarshi wasn't a monster...

I stood abruptly, pacing the small confines of my chamber. Five steps to the wall, turn, five steps back. A cage of my own making.

What was happening to me? I had never shared Livia’s hatred of the Emperor, had honestly believed that the Empire needed to take steps to eradicate the Talfen threat, and that included wiping out traitors and sympathisers.

I blamed the Talfen for the Empire destroying our home, and yes, I had blamed Tarus and Livia’s parents for bringing the Empire’s wrath down upon us.

Forged in fire, tempered by loss, hardened by the arena.

I didn't question. I didn't doubt. I definitely didn't feel this.

.. whatever it was... for a half-breed gladiator with defiant eyes and hands that knew exactly how to break me apart.

And yet, here I was, my certainties crumbling like sandcastles against the tide.

The worst part wasn't the desire. That, at least, I could understand—a base, animal urge that meant nothing.

I could hate myself for it, but I could understand it.

No, the worst part was the other feelings, the ones that crept in during unguarded moments.

The grudging respect I felt when I watched him train.

The unwilling admiration for his steadfast loyalty to Livia.

The strange, unfamiliar warmth that spread through my chest when he looked at me with something other than contempt.

I was starting to care about him. And that thought terrified me more than any imperial threat.

Because if I cared about Tarshi, what did that make me? A traitor to everything I'd ever believed? A hypocrite who condemned the Talfen with his words while craving one in his bed? Or worse—a man who'd built his entire identity on a foundation of lies?

"Fuck," I whispered, the word a prayer and a curse in the silent room.

And then there was Livia. Gods, Livia. The thought of her finding out about Tarshi and me made my stomach twist with dread.

Not just because of the sex—though that would be bad enough—but because of the hypocrisy.

For months I'd been warning her away from him, telling her he was dangerous, tainted, not to be trusted.

All while I was meeting him in darkened rooms, taking everything he offered and giving nothing but contempt in return.

She would hate me for the deception. For the lies. And she would be right to.

But the alternative—telling her the truth—was unthinkable. How could I explain what I barely understood myself? How could I tell her that the man I claimed to despise was the same man who haunted my dreams? That I craved his touch even as I recoiled from what he was?

I couldn't. So instead, I'd pulled away from her, made excuses, kept my distance. Better that than risk her seeing the truth in my eyes.

And now there was the resistance to consider.

Tarshi was deeply involved—I'd seen the signs, followed him to meetings, watched him whisper with known sympathizers.

Part of me screamed that I should report him, but the Empire had enslaved us both.

Had forced us to kill for sport, had treated us as less than human.

Had destroyed everything I'd ever loved for a reason that very slowly I was starting to doubt.

And reporting Tarshi would mean reporting Livia too. She was as deep in the resistance as he was—perhaps deeper. The thought of her in Imperial chains, facing execution for treason, made my blood run cold.

So I kept silent, trapped between competing loyalties, between duty and... whatever this was that I felt for them both.

"You're a fucking coward," I told myself, the words bitter on my tongue.

Because that was the truth of it, wasn't it? I wasn't protecting anyone but myself. I was hiding—from the truth about the Empire, from my feelings for Tarshi, from the inevitable moment when Livia would see me for what I truly was.

A coward. A hypocrite. A man so afraid of his own heart that he'd rather live in hatred than face the possibility of something else.

I moved to the small window, pushing open the shutters to let in the cool night air. The academy was quiet at this hour, most of its residents long since asleep. In the distance, I could see the lights of the Imperial palace, cold and remote as the stars.

The resistance spoke of a different kind of world—one where birth didn't determine worth, where the Talfen and humans could coexist without fear, where power didn't flow from the barrel of a gun or the edge of a sword.

It was naive, of course. Idealistic nonsense spouted by people who'd never had to make the hard choices, who'd never seen the darkness that lurked in all of us.

And yet...

And yet I couldn't stop thinking about Tarshi's words the last time we'd been together.

I'd been particularly cruel afterward, had said things designed to cut deep, to maintain the distance between us.

And he'd looked at me with those dark, knowing eyes and said, "One day, you'll have to decide who you really are, Septimus.

Not who they made you, but who you choose to be. "

The words had haunted me for days. Because he was right.

For all my talk of strength and conviction, I'd never made a true choice in my life.

I'd been a weapon aimed by others—first by my grief, then by my masters, then by the Empire itself.

I'd embraced their hatred because it was easier than forming my own judgments, their cruelty because it was simpler than finding my own path.

What would it mean to choose? To look at the world with clear eyes, without the filter of Imperial propaganda or my own defensive rage? To see Tarshi not as a half-breed or a demon, but simply as a man?

I already knew the answer. I'd seen glimpses of it in our most intimate moments, when the barriers between us fell and there was only skin against skin, breath mingling with breath.

In those moments, I could almost believe in the world the resistance fought for—a world where what flowed between us wasn't shameful or tainted, but simply human.

A world where I could touch him without hating myself afterward.

But that world didn't exist. And I wasn't strong enough to help build it.

"Enough," I said aloud, turning from the window.

This endless circular thinking was getting me nowhere.

I needed to act, to break this pattern of indecision and self-hatred.

And there was only one person who could help me find my way through this moral quagmire.

Livia.