Page 53 of Shadow Throne King

“Tell me about Empress Koque,” I said. “Who was she to you?”

“You performed impossible magic to ask me about Empress Koque?” Tallu asked.

“Well, we could use our time to get the intimacy you so wanted to keep private.” I grinned, reaching out to cup his chin, tracing my thumb up the rough shadow of a beard on his face. “Only, I fear that when I reached… climax, I might lose my concentration, and the Dogs would get an earful.”

My heart rate began to rise, and not just from the sharp prickle of scruff against my fingertip. I had never used ice magic like this, although I had seen Naî do it often. I felt it like a physical force, physical exertion. As though I were beginning to run across the tundra. My chest constricted.

I forced myself to breathe normally. I had done worse. Once, when I was training, Yorîmu demanded I run the length of the palace roof over and over until morning dawn turned into sunset and the moon crested the horizon.

Tallu turned his head, pressing sweet kisses against my fingertips. With his eyes closed, he began to speak. “I have very few memories of my mother. She died when I was very young, no more than four or five. I remember feelings more than anything. The way it felt to be cradled in her arms, how soothing it was when she combed my hair with her fingers, the song she would sing to me before I went to sleep. I remember the soup she made for me when I was very ill and a cake she once made for acelebration. The cooks were frantic—the empress in the kitchen—but she ignored them all because she wanted to make it for me as her nursemaid had made it for her.”

My heart pounded in my chest, and the drumbeat of my own racing pulse sounded in my ears. How long could I maintain this? Naî was able to do it for hours, and surely I had more strength than her. She was a child.

“Then she was dead.” Tallu paused, blinking slowly and looking away. He shook his head. “After that, when my father returned from the north, I was taken on campaign with him. He said that it was the only way to undo my weakness. He claimed I had been allowed to hide for too long behind her skirts—that was why I mourned her so greatly. I was sixteen when my father took Koque as his empress.”

The throb of my own heart in my ears made it almost impossible to hear his next whispered words. “But I had met her long before. She had been my father’s lover for some time. His marriage to her was simply a formality. I remember her in the palace, in the empress’s rooms nearly every time we returned from battle. Perhaps she was his lover when my mother was alive. I never asked. She would have been very young then, but that would have fit perfectly with my father’s predilections.”

“What would have happened to Empress Koque when my sister arrived?” I asked.

“I have no idea what my father intended. We did not speak of it; no one did. Then again, it would be more than ten years before your sister came of age. Perhaps my father assumed Koque would die in childbirth before then or be assassinated.” Tallu stopped again.

“Was she kind to you?” The question ached inside me. I tried to imagine Tallu’s childhood: told that mourning his own mother made him weak, told that in order to be a man, he needed to crush his enemies under his heel.

Then to be faced every day with the woman who had usurped his mother in the rooms his mother used to occupy.

“She was very kind,” Tallu said finally. “Koque treated me as her son, although I imagine she was no more than a decade or so older than me. When you are young, ten years’ difference turns one from a child to an adult. She treated me as her son, and I thought she loved me. I am not sure what I will do if I see her alive again.”

He stopped there, closing his eyes, his dark lashes just touching his cheekbones. My heartbeat was so fast I was sure it would break my rib cage, and my muscles twitched as if I had run for too long or lifted something too heavy.

“Tallu—” I released the ice magic, gasping harshly, my whole body reacting. I felt bile rise in my throat and tried swallowing it down, only to choke on the taste of it.

Tallu’s eyes flew open, and he sat up again, dragging me into his lap, his strong arms lifting me so that I was upright and wouldn’t drown in my own vomit.

The bed curtains flew open, both Dogs alert, their blades drawn. “Your Imperial Majesty?”

Tallu’s title alone was enough of a question. He didn’t look away from me. “Get Prince Airón some broth and water. Something he ate disagrees with him.”

The Dogs hesitated, and Tallu ordered, “Now!”

One of the Dogs stayed, and the other left for the door, returning a moment later with the news that the servants would bring it. After the Dogs forced them to taste it, they presented it to Tallu. He raised the spoon to my lips, my own hands too shaky to drink it myself.

His russet eyes were fixed on my face, and I looked away, feeling hot with embarrassment.

“You must be careful, husband,” Tallu said. “You must be very careful. I have no desire to lose you. Not when it is entirelyunnecessary.”

His words were pointed, and the set of his jaw showed that he truly meant them. They were not just for show.

So doing ice magic came with a physical toll. It made sense. That was why Naî had told me I needed to practice, to strengthen the skill.

A child who was just learning to balance was not asked to run the length of the Silver City. A wolf pup who just learned to take the harness was not asked to pull the entire sled on a hunt.

I put my hand on his knee, continuing to sip the broth he fed me. It was salty, tasting of bone and meat. And I could feel my muscles relaxing one by one, no longer quite as jittery.

When I had finished the bowl and another, the liquid sloshed uncomfortably in my stomach, but I felt mostly recovered. I looked up, finally ready to meet Tallu’s eyes.

“You will not lose me,” I said. I wasn’t sure why the words felt true, even though they were an impossible promise. “And I will not be so foolish to do that again.”

Tallu nodded tightly, raising his hand to cup my cheek. “Let us sleep.”