Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I sat through a long and tiresome meal across from the man I had taken as my husband, my eyes trailing over the signs of age which plagued him.
The small lines around his eyes, the dusting of silver marking his once onyx black hair, the dull look to his once bright gaze.
Though of course that dullness likely had more to do with the effort involved in trying to keep up with a young and virile queen at all hours of the day and night.
It was quite the challenge to try and match the pace of an ageless soul after all.
I tapped a sharpened fingernail against the edge of the glass chalice I drank from as I waited for him to finish his meal.
For years I had taken opportunities like this to spread my legs for him, taken him hard and deep and let him fill me with his seed in the hopes of producing the fully legitimate heir which would have made all I was aiming to achieve here so much simpler.
But after months turned into years, and years became a decade and no amount of fucking him ever came close to producing a child, I’d had to admit defeat in that plan.
I’d even attempted fucking other men to be certain the problem was with me and not him and had been gifted the same result.
It was hardly surprising really. I had been devoured and reborn at the whims of the goddess of death and pain.
She had gifted me a single life in the form of my son all those years ago, but he had been born of her own dark seed.
And Kahn was a creature bred for doling out pain and destruction in her name.
He was hers just as surely as I was. But that only meant my plans had had to change.
There was a reason I’d allowed Princess Austyn to live all these years.
Had I produced an heir of my own, her life would have ended soon after to clear the way for the ascension of my own flesh and blood.
But without that option, I still had a way to seal my ties to the throne.
She would marry Kahn and give me what I wanted that way.
I only wished I wasn’t being forced through the farce which was the pageant.
But the traditions and will of the people of Osaria had to be upheld, at least in part, while I tightened my hold over them.
Even with the will of a goddess on my side, I wasn’t powerful enough to force so many into line all at once.
I still had to play games of politics. I still had to think of appeasing the surrounding kingdoms despite their allegiance to the emperor and the throne he sat upon.
They still had to have their opportunities to put one of their own on that throne – or at least they had to believe the chance had been there.
“Perhaps we should retire, My Lord?” I suggested loudly, pushing myself upright and drawing the attention of my husband’s slowing mind.
His brows pulled together the way they always did when I asserted my control over him a little too obviously by making requests which were clearly demands, or even by simply telling him what I expected him to do.
Deep down inside, he was still the man who had been born to rule.
and exerting my will over him was no easy task, the effort involved in maintaining it endless.
The heavy pulse of the dark gifts I’d been given swept through my veins as I tightened my hold on his will, my finger twitched just the slightest amount from the exertion it took.
Herdat still didn’t hold the strength she had before she had been lost to us. She needed time and worship, sacrifice and blood to regain her grip on the world, and that meant the power she gifted me always began to fade between my visits to her temples.
Emperor Tarim straightened his spine, that defiance in his eyes flaring before my hold on him forced it to dim and he nodded instead, rising with the grace of the man he had once been and moving towards me to escort me back to our rooms.
I took his arm and moved to walk in his shadow, the sticky heat of the day fading beneath the light of the moon and a cool breeze sweeping through the open palace windows.
We headed into our room and Tarim turned to me the moment the door closed, his mouth seeking mine, his addiction to me and the pleasure I could offer him still so potent.
My control hinged on that need in him. My body a tool designed to keep him in line and our joining a way for me to tighten my grip on him even while the magic I wielded ate into his flesh piece by piece and worked to steal him away.
Not yet though.
As it stood, without him I would be nothing but the widow of a man who had once ruled all. I still needed him. Until the wedding between my son and his daughter, I still required his presence.
I let him tug me to the bed as my tongue moved over his, his fingers pulling the fastenings of my dress apart and making my breasts spill free of it.
I moaned in a low and throaty way as his cock drove into my hip, then pushed him back so that he fell onto the bed.
Tarim stared at me as I pushed the dress the rest of the way off of my body and I moved to take a glass of wine from the table where servants had left it waiting for us.
With my back turned to him, I slipped a small vial from the hidden compartment in the edge of the table and poured several drops into the deep red liquid.
I hid the vial within the compartment once more then headed back to him with the wine in hand, meeting his gaze as I came to stand before him before tipping the glass back and allowing it to wash over my breasts and stomach, leading the way to the valley between my thighs.
Tarim didn’t hesitate, shifting forward and gripping my arse as he ran his tongue over my flesh, lapping at the spilled wine and making my nipples pebble from the feel of his mouth worshiping me.
I tipped my head back, moaning softly as he drank the wine from my skin and closing my eyes as I offered up a prayer to Herdat despite knowing she cared not for such petty things as pleasure. This act was not one designed by her hand.
Tarim’s grip on me tightened as he rocked back and I looked down at him as he blinked up at me in confusion, shaking his head a little as if trying to banish some dizziness.
I cocked my head in feigned innocence. “My Lord?” I inquired, false concern lacing my voice which was hardly even needed as his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell on the bed unconscious within the next heartbeat.
I turned from him dismissively, moving to the washroom which adjoined our bed chamber and using a sponge dipped in the honey water that had been left out for us to bathe in to wash the wine from my skin.
Tarim would likely sleep late into the morning, his memory foggy when he woke and any uncertainty easily swept aside when I climbed into his lap and rode his cock until he forgot all about the strange period of time he had lost track of.
Tonight, I had work that needed attending.
I moved to the closet, taking a thick, bottle green cloak from it and wrapping it around my naked form, fastening the buttons to conceal my body within it and drawing the hood up to cover my head and hide my features in shadow.
I opened the hidden door behind the tapestry to the left of the bed and slipped into the dark passageway there silently, padding down the cold stone stairs on bare feet and relishing the bite of discomfort they offered me.
The stairs twisted downward steadily before letting me out into another passage, only the gifts of my goddess allowing me to see my way without the aid of a torch or lantern.
I headed along it before opening another hidden door, this one not far from the kitchens where even at this time of night, servants worked tirelessly to make certain that the royal family and any guests we may feel like entertaining remained well fed.
I turned away from the kitchens, sweeping through the servants’ corridors until I made it to an exit which let out close to the stables.
The gravel out there cut into my feet, making me wince and smile at the pain, knowing this was the kind of service my goddess required. This and so much more besides.
A small, covered carriage awaited me to the side of the stables, the discrete wooden contraption more fit for a merchant’s wife than the empress of Osaria, but then that was the point.
It was already hitched to the poorly bred horses that had been purchased especially for this purpose, and the guards all believed it was used to transport the emperor’s favourite whore in and out of the palace.
I had been the one to facilitate the arrangement and they believed I was fully engaged in whatever acts took place between him and the woman we purchased, but they also knew better than to ever do more than look into the carriage and ensure that only a single, cloaked woman entered the palace upon the carriage’s return.
They were not permitted to speak to her or search her, nor look upon her face.
And they never thought to look into the carriage when it left to collect her.
Nor when it headed out once more in the morning under the pretence of returning her to wherever she came from – if they had, they would have realised the thing was empty then.
But men were always willing to believe in some lewd fact about their betters, so it wasn’t a hard ruse to keep up.
The single carriage driver who knew the truth of these outings could be trusted implicitly thanks to the power Herdat had gifted me, and so my trips into the city remained a secret.
I climbed into the carriage without so much as greeting the man who sat atop it waiting for me, pulling the door shut behind me and ensuring the curtains were drawn across the windows so that no one would catch a glimpse of me.