LI Sisters
It’s long after midnight when Magnar comes to get me.
By that time, the other queens have learned a lot about my marital life, and are quite in love with the Agnidari men.
When he executes a gallant bow, asking if he may be allowed to kidnap me to bed, they all clap and applaud him, most of them quite drunk.
“I think I made some friends,” I whisper as he carries me up the stairs. “How was your night?”
“I managed not to kill anyone, though my hands itched,” he says darkly. “If not for you, I would revisit my war plans. With those idiots in power, taking the remaining seven kingdoms can’t take longer than three years.”
I shiver. “Do you fancy becoming an emperor?”
“Relax. I’m done with war. Four kingdoms on top of Roharra is already too much trouble. See, conquering a land is easy. Making it thrive and prosper is the hard part.”
“And you want all your kingdoms to thrive,” I whisper with a small laugh.
Magnar shrugs. “Of course. What else is there?”
Stupid men who like to humiliate their wives and threaten to cut off their toes, I think to myself. Kings who are no better than boys. Men who waste tax money on horses they never ride.
“How are you so amazing?” I ask, burying my fingers in his hair.
Magnar opens the door to our apartment with a small laugh. “Oh, you’re drunk. Good. I’ll take advantage of you.”
I sigh with pleasure, letting myself forget the atrocities of the evening and just be happy with my men. “Please, do.”
We end up sleeping on the floor, all of us together in a nest of blankets, pillows, and couch cushions.
We’re woken around noon by a loud gasp from our maids, who have come to bring coffee and pastries for breakfast. Khay throws a pillow off his face and another off his chest, rubbing his eyes, and they gasp again. He’s wearing only his underwear.
“Girls, don’t go into conniptions,” I mutter, covering my bare breasts with someone’s discarded shirt. “Please, leave the food. We will wash after we eat. Thank you.”
“We’re going shopping!” Arvi announces, gathering his clothes after the maids leave.
“Come on, Raduna. You wanted to look at the exotic plant seeds, didn’t you?
And I want to buy some fancy knives. Oh, and jewelry for my laruna.
All she has to wear is that ugly as fuck pin Khay gave her. She needs nicer things.”
“Hey, it’s not ugly, it’s artistic,” Khay grumbles, trying to untangle himself from the blankets and Magnar’s legs.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Magnar groans. “Pet, stay with me. Please.”
“Oh, yes, pet,” Arvi says with a snicker. “Protect the big Tyrant, because he’s afraid of all the humans he can’t kill.”
“Yes, I’m fucking terrified,” Magnar says evenly, tugging me closer to his side.
“And she’s my fierce protectress. Will you stay with me?
The first Gathering is in a few hours, and I expect it to be a thousand times worse than a council meeting.
We can shop tomorrow. I’ll buy you everything you want. ”
Arvi and Raduna leave to get ready. I smile, stroking Magnar’s hair.
“But I have everything I want right here. Yes, I can stay in. Maybe I could talk to Molly when you’re in the meeting. Oh, poor girl. Her husband is a cruel bastard.”
“Which one?” Magnar asks. “They are all bad in one way or another.”
“Xander of Lovar,” I answer with a shudder.
“Ah. He spent the evening boasting about all the maids he’s fucked since coming here. Tiring man. When he asked how many I had, and I said I only fuck my wife, he choked on a nut and had to be rescued. Fuck, I could take Lovar with such a king in charge. If only Trista weren’t in the way.”
I giggle, running my hands up his back. “So that’s why we’re here? So you can size up the competition?”
Magnar is quiet, and Khay turns to us with a curse.
“What?” I ask, still smiling. “Is that it? Really?”
“No,” Magnar says at length. “But you asked why we’re here, and I promised myself I’d always tell you the truth.”
My smile freezes, and I pull away to look at his face. “What… Is it a secret?”
Khay comes closer, his dark blue hair disheveled. Magnar rubs his face avoiding my gaze. “Not a secret. Just something difficult and painful I was hoping to handle on my own.”
“I don’t understand.”
He sighs, looking into my eyes reluctantly. “You’re dealing with your own pain. Trying to do whatever you need to love me. And this… Well, Khay’s reason not to tell you is his own. Mine is that I am ashamed of myself.”
“Ashamed?” I shake my head, dread pooling in my stomach. “What are you saying? What’s going on?”
“There is only one thing I want to negotiate during the Gathering, only one thing I need from those kings, and once I get it, they can all go to hell,” Magnar says viciously.
“Truth is, we have everything already. And you, love—I didn’t need to marry a human princess by the time I found you.
Having you helped, it let us come here, but I would have done just as well without you. You were a gift no one expected.”
I shake my head, fear tightening my chest. “What are you saying? You… You don’t need me?”
Magnar hisses, pulling me closer when I try to sit up.
“No, I’m saying it wrong. Of course, I need you. I love you. You’re my wife. It’s just that I don’t need you for practical reasons. In the beginning, I let you believe you were a practical choice. That I had to marry a princess from the Eleven to get my seat.
“But at that point, I was resigned to never finding a living princess. I understood perfectly well that kings and queens of the Eleven would rather slaughter their daughters than give one to me. I was going to conquer them all. Then we came to Farneer, and you were alive. Your father’s prize, too precious to kill. My prize.”
“So why did you marry me?” I ask, shaking my head in confusion. The touch of Magnar’s hands on my back and Khay’s fingers sifting through my hair alleviate my fear.
“Partly because marrying a human princess had been my goal for so long. When I understood you were a princess and so beautiful, I thought, why not? Why not let it be easy? Why not make my father proud in the afterworld? Why not rest, at last? I made you marry me for very selfish reasons. I was cruel. I should have given you a choice, but I wanted you so much, I didn’t, because you’d never have chosen me. ”
“So you didn’t marry me for a seat at the Table of Kings?”
Magnar sighs, and Khay chuckles, though it’s stilted and devoid of humor.
“Yes and no. I knew having a seat would make my goal easier to achieve. I chose the easy way. That’s why I’m ashamed. But I was… I am… Just so goddamn tired.”
“So what is your goal?” I ask, completely confused.
“I am going to demand the other kings return all Agnidari women to us,” Magnar says, his face tense, his eyes turned away. “It’s a coward’s way out. They should be slaughtered, their women raped. It’s the only way to avenge my people’s suffering. Khay’s suffering.”
I gasp softly, that day of the conquest blazing through my memory.
“You said we took your sisters,” I whisper. “Why… You never talked about it again.”
Khay laughs sharply. “You never asked. It doesn’t matter.
I don’t fucking mind and I don’t think it’s cowardly.
Whatever brings them home the fastest is the best way.
But Magnar is honorable to a fault. After they were captured, he vowed to me he would take them back and punish those who hurt them.
His father had just died, and we received news of my sisters being taken a day after Magnar’s coronation. ”
I gasp from shock. “Oh gods, that is terrible! You… It’s been ten years, and you haven’t found them? Not in Zanvar, Serilla, even Farneer?”
Khay shakes his head. “They must have been taken to one of the kingdoms farther north. Magnar promised me he’d avenge them. I let him out of his vow, because I love you, my lady, and you don’t want to see other women raped. He still wallows in his guilt.”
“Of course I don’t want to see women raped, they aren’t responsible for their husbands’ crimes!” I exclaim. “And often those same women suffer because their husbands are cruel beasts. It’s unjust.”
“And what happened to my sisters was just?” Khay asks, a world of suffering in his cold eyes.
“Of course not. But punish those who actually hurt them. I don’t oppose that at all. I’ll hold your sword for you and wipe blood from your brow after you’re done.”
Khay shakes his head, the coldness seeping out of his expression until only sorrow is left.
“I don’t even care for vengeance anymore.
I just want them to come home, or to know that they are dead if that’s the case.
Ten years, Caliane. They’ve been gone ten years.
Arhissa, Tasha, and Viriel. My sisters.”
Oh gods, Khay has suffered all this time, and I love him, and I never knew. I feel angry and hurt that he would hide such a huge thing from me.
“But why didn’t you say anything?” I explode. “Because I didn’t ask? Khay, I barely remember the details of that day. I lost my father and had to marry a man I believed to be the living devil!”
He looks away, his face hardening before his dark gaze finally settles on me.
“Because I’m ashamed, too. You were right, okay? Your maids didn’t hurt my sisters! It just… I was so angry all those years, and I fucking enjoyed seeing human women crying. Just like my sisters must have cried. And then I fell in love with a woman who showed me how stupid it was to think that.”
He gets up and paces, kicking pillows out of the way, his hands combing through his hair in anguish.
“I have this nightmare sometimes, and only one thing happens—you say ‘None of those women hurt your sisters.’ And I don’t get it at first, and then I do, and I’m horrified.
And sometimes I dream that someone wants to get revenge on me or Magnar, and they take it out on you, and it’s horrible, Caliane. We did that. I did that.”