Chapter 9
Theron
Theron had delighted in the glimpses of his kitten’s claws, often wishing to see them on display again.
Aurora had such a charming vicious streak.
And last night, he’d witnessed a new side to her.
The pain she’d given him, the cruelty of her actions, the humiliations she’d heaped on him—he’d not known how badly he’d craved them until that moment.
While he preferred the dominant role, a small part of him had hungered for someone willing to punish him.
Not with pleasure, but with pain. He’d had lovers who were either willing to submit or to play the role of harsh mistress, but not one who enjoyed both.
As eye-opening and enjoyable as the experience had been, it had also been profoundly destabilizing.
In the early hours of the morning, he’d woken to the horrifying realisation that she had once again snuck past any defences a wiser man might have erected.
He’d given her power over him in a moment of passion.
The last time he’d done so, he’d woken with a blade to his throat.
With her true loyalty unconfirmed and the trust between them in a state of repair, the vulnerability of the previous evening excited him as much as it made him ill at ease.
How much worse could she hurt him now that she’d seen that side of him?
His aunt had said the rewards of showing her his full self would be worth the risks, but she was hardly infallible, and nothing about his relationship with Aurora was orthodox.
Theron tried to take comfort in the fact that before the day was done, he would be in Aureum.
If Batea had done as she was told, there would be a mountain of beastly heads decomposing on the far side of the Colonnades.
His marital problems would be solved when Aurora saw the proof of his honour, and then they would discuss how best to send the remaining Viridians on their way.
Order would be restored, as would the full might of his magic.
He also tried to take comfort in the fact that Aurora had decided she wished to ride in his lap today, head resting against his chest. She was warming to him as he’d suspected she would once she allowed him to seduce her.
Having her against him, trusting and sweet, was as much a balm as a curse. This close, she confused his thoughts.
In one moment, he feared what new betrayal she would enact on him, proving once again his father’s words—that he could be a good man or a good king, but never both.
In the next, he yearned to run his fingers through her silky hair and accidentally graze her sensitive ears just to watch them redden. Then purr something naughty so she would flash those scandalized peridot eyes at him, biting her pretty lip as she tried and failed to regain her composure.
So much rode on the next few hours going as he’d commanded. Perhaps it would have been wiser to base the foundation of his marital happiness on something fully within his control, rather than on the actions of his cousin, no matter how loyal she was.
“Theron?” Aurora asked, surprising him out of the tumult of his thoughts.
“Yes?”
“How does one…control how much magic one is using?”
“You wish to begin your lesson early today?” he asked, unable to suppress a smile. “Does that also mean you wish to partake of my…charms early as well?”
“We can…discuss that later. It seems you were correct about how to connect with my magic. But if I’m to use it for more than a single moment, I need to know how to apportion it.”
“You’ve only just begun connecting with it, Aurora. You need to pace yourself.”
The look she gave him was pained, as if she wished to say something but held back.
“What if I don’t have the time for that?”
“Have you seen something, my little fairy?”
“No, but…”
“But…?”
“What if…what if something happens to you because I don’t have the power to stop it?”
His heart ached yet overflowed with warmth. Was this strange feeling one of the rewards his aunt had spoken of?
“You’re not responsible for my life, my little fairy—I am. And whatever Fate has woven into the Tapestry for me, I will face as I’m meant to.”
“I can’t accept that.” She shook her head.
“You must, else your power, no matter how much control you have over it, will drive you mad. There is no magic strong enough to overcome She who weaves the Tapestry. Many have tried, and none will ever succeed.”
It was what his aunt had told him the night Tisander died. And what she continued to tell him in the years after. It was a lesson he was still learning.
One Aurora seemed unable to accept, if her look of defiance was anything to go by.
“Then I must be the first.”
Theron chuckled and held her close. So ambitious, his wife.
“Your magic, like mine, has the power to transform lives—save them. With that power comes the temptation to try to bend Fate to our will—to be deities in our own right. But Aurora?” He tipped up her chin so she was forced to meet his gaze.
“We are not gods. We cannot control Fate. And not every tragedy is our responsibility to avert or ameliorate.”
Just as his magic recoiled from certain death, she too would find obstacles her magic could not surmount. She was quiet for a time, her gaze boring into his, a kaleidoscope of frustration, concern, curiosity, and warmth.
“That is a very strange thing for a king to say.”
“Not even a king can conquer death.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not a king. Now teach me how to use my magic.”
Determined little mouse.
Theron sighed. It seemed she would need time to accept her limits.
“Right now, your magic is like water that fills an amphora. Every amphora has a hole in it, allowing us to access and drain that magic. Except your current approach is like pouring water into an amphora that’s missing the bottom entirely.”
Aurora groaned.
“That sounds about right.”
“The next step, once you’ve connected with your magic and can summon it freely, is to visualize your amphora with a smaller and smaller hole as time goes on, limiting the amount of magic that comes from it, and fine-tuning what you can do with fewer resources.
The goal is to use the least amount of magic possible to the greatest effect. ”
“So I need to visualize an amphora with a small hole in it?”
Always trying to get a step ahead. She must have given her tutors many a headache.
“You need to properly connect with your magic. You can’t skip steps and expect to be proficient. Or did you begin writing before you’d spoken your first word?”
“But what if the greedy side of me wants it?”
Theron bit back a smirk. Cheeky woman.
“Perhaps the intelligent side of you will give it something shiny as a distraction.”
“Or maybe the mean side of me will bite you in frustration.”
“I think the mischievous side of you would thoroughly enjoy the consequences of that.”
Aurora giggled, placing her hand on his chest. A moment of companionable quiet settled over them. He hoped he would have more of these moments. But he couldn’t let go of the nagging feeling that things would soon change—and not for the better.
He might have sent Batea a letter demanding she destroy her beasts, but he’d received no reply.
That in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary.
His cousin rarely bothered to write back when she could simply see through the task she’d been given.
What was strange was that the letters he’d received about Aureum being on the brink of chaos had stopped arriving the moment he’d left Boreas.
He’d expected to get at least a letter or two from Polydorus, the most gifted of his advisors, inquiring about what reception his new bride was to get upon her arrival to Altanus.
Then again, all his letters likely had to contend with Orithyia’s spy network as well as Flora’s now that he was on the road and no longer at a fixed address.
He would have to question Myrina. If she’d continued to receive her mail while on the road, then and only then would he let this dread have its way with him.
Aurora pressed her hand harder against his chest, breaking him from the trance of his thoughts once more.
“I wasn’t…you weren’t upset with last evening, were you? We should have discussed what you like and don’t like before I just…grabbed your hair.”
“I had a feeling your claws would come out, and if you recall, I said I would voice any objections if I had them. Did I ask you to stop? To be gentler?”
“Well, no, but I worried you might have indulged me even if you didn’t particularly enjoy it.”
“Aurora.” He tilted her jaw up with a thumb so that their gazes would meet.
“Yes?”
“Let’s make a deal, shall we?”
“What kind of deal?”
“Pick a word you would never say to a lover while you were being intimate.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Something simple and easy to remember.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Hmmm,” she hummed, thinking it over. “Inkpot.”
“Good. As for me, I’ll choose the word scroll.”
“And now?”
“Now, if you ever say the word inkpot, or I say the word scroll in the middle of making love, we can assume the other has crossed a boundary and the play must stop until we’ve spoken about why we wish to stop and whether or not we wish to continue.”
“But what about things that don’t make you want to stop, but you don’t necessarily enjoy?”
Triads tits, was she going to make him spell it out?
He looked around, heat creeping into his ears as he ensured there would be no one close enough to hear what he said next.
It was hard enough finding Aurean attendants discreet enough not to spread gossip.
The very last thing he needed was for some idiot Viridian to get wind of this.
“I enjoyed the pain, Aurora. I liked it when you were cruel—when you acted as though you were training a beast.”
“Truly? I wasn’t…off-putting?” she asked, cautious hope in her eyes.
“No. Quite the opposite.”
“I might not always wish to be cruel, though. Maybe only occasionally.” Her brow knitted.
“And I might only wish to be your obedient beast occasionally.” He smiled, hoping to ease her tension.