Page 11 of The Second Marriage

As if he had been doing anything but thoroughly ignoring the retainers in favor of his book. Taral didn’t roll his eyes, but he came close.

He found food in the kitchens and decided to forgo the bath, uncomfortably aware that Sejun would sit there and watch him bathe with no hesitation or shame. The windows of Iniya’s solar were lit, and he considered going up there to pick a fight about the dowry goods, but that could wait for tomorrow. She would agree in the end; she always did. His senseless agitation would have to find some other outlet.

He sat beneath the fig tree for some time, listening to a distant owl call in the darkness. One God soothe me, he prayed, but no soothing came. At last, the night chill drove him back inside.

Sejun had undressed to his inner robe and was sitting near the bed, still reading his book with a candle at his elbow. Taral didn’t see how anyone could read for so long without growing bored or developing a headache. What a peculiar habit.

“You’re back,” Sejun said, smiling at Taral as if he were happy to see him. “You found some dinner, I take it.”

“Yes.” Taral scanned the room. His belongings had been arranged much as they were in his old room. How strange to see his familiar things alongside Sejun’s. He had moved to his own room when Iniya decided, at the age of nine, that she was too grown up to continue sharing with her baby brother, and he had slept alone ever since.

He knelt at the room’s small altar, his own modest one but with a new statuette of the One God perched on top, cast in bright, untarnished brass. He was aware of Sejun’s eyes on him as he performed the evening greeting, but he didn’t turn to look, even as he heard the rustling of fabric that meant Sejun was undressing. His pulse quickened, but he kept his gaze lowered as he kissed his fingers and pressed them to the statue’s feet.

Even as his heart lingered in Barun, his body yearned for Sejun. But that was how it was meant to be. He was married and bonded to Sejun, for whatever unknown reasons the One God had, and everything that Sejun made him feel was just as it should be.

He rose to his feet and turned. Sejun lay in the bed, in Taral’s preferred spot by the windows, with the shutters open to let in the cool night air. He wore nothing but the blankets haphazardly pulled up toward his waist. Taral could do nothing about Sejun’s intent staring as Taral removed his own robe and folded it to place in his wardrobe chest. After a moment’s hesitation, he removed his inner robe, too.

“You’re beautiful,” Sejun said, his eyes not on Taral’s body, as Taral had expected, but instead lingering warmly on Taral’s face.

Taral wasn’t, in fact, beautiful, but he said nothing to reject Sejun’s praise. His pulse fluttered as he blew out every candle but one and knelt to join Sejun in bed. Sejun watched him, one arm folded beneath his head, instead of reaching for him as Taral would have liked—so that he could pretend he was only doing as his husband wanted; that he was being accommodating and dutiful.

“Blow out the light,” Sejun said, and Taral turned and did. In the darkness that followed, Sejun’s hand found Taral’s bare shoulder. Taral let his body have its way and moved across the bed into Sejun’s arms.

CHAPTER6

Sejun’s family went home in the morning. Now that the dowry had been delivered, the marriage protocols were almost complete. In ten days, his family would return with the standard offering of two yaks and one cart of liquor, and then Sejun would be formally transferred into Tadasho’s care and protection.

Those ten days were meant to be a time for the new couple to settle into their marriage and for the man—it was usually a man—to adjust to his new home. No work was expected of the newlyweds, and in fact they risked the ire of disapproving relatives if they dared to do anything but lie around simpering at each other.

Taral was dreading it.

“We need to sell some of this immediately,” he said to Iniya, surveying the opened crates littering the solar. The contents of some were sparser than he would have thought, and as he didn’t suspect Merek of trying to skimp on the dowry, he instead suspected Iniya of trying to stash away some of the jewelry and fine woven cloth.

“You aren’t supposed to be worrying about this right now,” Iniya said. She was holding the baby on her lap, and leaned forward now to press her nose to his, making him burble again with laughter. “Don’t you have a husband to woo?”

Taral breathed in slowly through his nose and exhaled again. “Our payment to Shershon is already more than a year late. They’ve been gracious enough not to strip Tadasho bare, but with each day that passes, our debt accrues more interest.”

Iniya continued to make silly faces at the baby. “I’ll handle it, Taral. I’ll send Ujesh out tomorrow. Merek sent a chest of coins, and I’m sure that will be enough to cover what we owe.”

Taral took another slow breath. Iniya had no idea what they owed. Whatever sum she settled on would be nothing more than a guess. “I’ll speak with him about it. And then I’ll do my duty and lounge in bed for the next nine days.”

“That sounds like an excellent plan.” Iniya beamed at him, benevolent again now that she had gotten her way. Taral, despite himself, returned her smile, basking as he always did in the warmth of her happiness with him.

He left the citadel in a familiar state of frustration. He loved Iniya, and she was a good queen in that she cared for her people and was generous and kind. But she shared many of the traits that had led their mother before her to so badly mismanage the kingdom’s finances: an utter disregard for practicalities, a childlike optimism that everything would work out in the end. And Taral was the fool who insured that things did, mostly, work out, which only served to reinforce Iniya’s beliefs about the world.

He calculated sums in his head as he returned to his room, then stopped short as he opened the door. The room was empty. In his distraction, he’d forgotten that he had been relocated.

As an omega, he had always known he would remain in Tadasho even after marriage. This was his home and would be forever; he wouldn’t suffer the disruption of leaving all his kin and starting over in a new place. But there were changes even so, and more than he had expected.

Sejun was still in bed. He rolled over when Taral came into the room and yawned as he scratched at his bare chest. “Taral? Is it late?”

“No. Rather early. I was with Iniya. She’s always up before dawn because of the baby.”

Sejun laughed and rubbed at his face. “Unfortunate. Are they all like that?”

“The first two slept more than this one, it seems.” Taral hesitated a moment, then went back out onto the colonnade and asked a passing retainer for hot water. Between yesterday’s ride and the evening’s activities, he was sorely in need of a bath. If Sejun wanted to watch him, Taral would simply have to exert himself not to blush.

He went back into the room. Sejun had sat up and placed a pillow between his back and the wall, and reclined there watching as Taral did some unnecessary tidying up, moving things from one place to another. The servants had placed his grooming supplies in the same chest as his clothing when he preferred that they sit separately. That was obviously a very important matter that he needed to correct at once.