Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sarai trudged inside Aoran Tower, noting the darkness underneath the door to Kadra’s study. Just as well that he wasn’t home. Having him see her break again was just embarrassing at this point. She’d spent years without a single tear, and now she had a fountain of them.
To think that an eternity ago, when she’d first entered this study, it had been with the intention of ruining Kadra. It felt ridiculous now.
Dropping the illusion, she watched her joints shift, those hated scars crawling over her fingers like white vines. A strangled sound left her throat, part sob, part scream. She slid down the length of the door, tucking her chin to her chest, and wept into her knees, drawing in painful drags of air.
Memories flitted behind her closed eyes of her and Cisuré sneaking out bottles of Cretus’s wine, giggling together and planning the future they’d intended to seek in Edessa. She stared at the new void in her life with incomprehension and mounting anger. Years of friendship shattered, and for what?
After what felt like hours, her eyes ran dry. She got up, sapped of strength.
The stairs were a vaguely formed blur in the dark. With her luck, she’d likely lose her footing and tumble down. She padded to one of Kadra’s couches instead. Sinking onto it, she jumped upon encountering a muscular thigh beneath her own. A hand clamped around her mouth, smothering her half-formed scream.
“Your night vision is surprisingly poor,” the hand’s owner informed her before letting go .
Clutching her chest, Sarai glowered. “Kadra, light a candle! You almost took ten years off my life!”
How long had he been sitting there? She hadn’t heard anyone coming downstairs, and she’d been crying against the door. Which meant he must have been here all along. The dark closed around them, concealing her scars and swollen eyes. Her air filled with wine and the clean scent of his soap, warm skin and velvety fabric under her fingers.
She was also sitting on his lap.
“I’m sorry.” She stumbled off him, almost falling over a side table. “Goodnight.”
“Come back.” The quiet order seemed to caress her. He extended a hand into the suddenly electric space between them.
A heartbeat. Two. Her breath came fast. In the quiet of his tablinum, as the world slumbered beyond Kadra’s tower, all boundaries seemed to vanish. Her restraint broke. Reaching out in the dark, she took his palm in hers.
Between one breath and the next, his arm wrapped across her shoulders. Another fit into the crook of her knees, pulling her on top of him. He threaded a rough hand through her hair and drew her head onto his shoulder.
“Breathe,” he ordered.
Without thinking, she did just that.
“Good.” His lips teased her forehead. “Slowly now.”
The tension drained from her immediately. Turning into his neck, she sighed at his warmth, exhaling so slowly she felt like she was floating. His thighs tensed under her. He held himself rigidly as if he didn’t know what to do now. Perhaps he didn’t. She didn’t even know why he’d done it.
“I don’t usually break down every few seconds,” she whispered into his skin.
“I know.” His arms tightened around her.
A lock loosened from her ragged braid, and he brushed it aside, the gesture seemingly cursory. She wondered if it was purposeful—if they were both waiting for the other to say something first. In the weak moonlight shafting through the curtains, he was as pristine as ever—dark hair grazing his neck, robes unwrinkled. But he looked exhausted. The hollows under his cheekbones were more pronounced and there was a weary tension to his stubbled jaw.
He tilted his head toward her. “Cassandane mentioned that she made you an offer some time ago.”
“She did,” Sarai murmured. “It was a good offer. She said you had me in dangerous waters.”
Kadra’s gaze shuttered. “And?”
“She isn’t wrong.”
“I see,” he said in that same resigned, too-soft voice. “Will you be leaving tonight.” It was a statement.
Throwing caution to the wind, she brought her hands to rest on his chest. “I won’t.”
Kadra blinked, and she had the extraordinary pleasure of seeing him momentarily thrown. His shoulders relaxed in slow increments as though he still couldn’t believe that she wasn’t fleeing.
“Why not?”
“Like I told Cassandane, it’s a character flaw.” She managed a small smile. “I can’t predict how tomorrow’s trial will go, but I’ll give it everything.”
“If nothing works, throw this on me.” Sliding a finger under her chin, he tilted her head up, eyes locking with hers. “I’ll shield you.”
Her eyes burned at his sincerity. You don’t even know that they’re readying to dethrone you. This wasn’t a simple bit of public censure. They’d destroy him.
“I’d rather have Aelius’s head,” she muttered. “I’d Probe the truth right out of him.”
Something flashed in his eyes. “You may have a chance.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of all this? The violence, the games.”
“At times.”
“What do you do when you’re tired?”
“I drink,” he said dryly .
Sarai paused, recalling all the times she’d found him with a wineglass. He smelled like wine tonight too. She squinted at the dark shape on the table that looked like a bottle.
Him and Telmar. One used it to escape and the other used it to keep going. She wondered if those who thought Kadra unfeeling knew that he drank in the dark because he felt the weight of what he did.
“Why go against Aelius and Tullus at all?” she asked. When he remained silent, she guessed. “Is it because of Othus?”
If possible, Kadra grew even more rigid. By Temperance, he didn’t bend easily, but perhaps if she gave a little, he’d be willing to reciprocate.
She took a steadying breath. “I broke ties with Cisuré tonight. She’s so far under Aelius’s influence that I fear there’s no pulling her loose.” Her voice dropped to a thread. “But, in truth, we were probably doomed even before then.”
Amusement filled his eyes, and she elbowed his chest, earning her a grunt.
“Try not to gloat, damn it. She was all I had. Becoming your Petitor didn’t help our friendship a whit either.”
“I imagine not.” He didn’t sound troubled by that, and she frowned.
“Why do the two of you hate each other so much?” A thought occurred to her so terrifying that she stopped in her tracks. “Were you involved —”
“No,” he growled, sounding disgusted.
Unsure of what to do with the relief swamping her, she switched tacks. “Your turn. How did you become a Tetrarch?”
He refilled his wineglass. “You’ve heard of the supposition that I killed Othus.”
She nodded, wondering how he could remain so unfazed over the rumors. “I heard your relationship was … strained. But you were his successor.”
“No.” Wine swirled in the glass as he tilted the stem. “Another man was slated to top the election.”
“Dare I ask what happened to him? ”
A predatory light entered his eyes. “Augustus was a little too indiscreet about his proclivities. Involving children. Aelius was heavily involved in covering it up. Took a few counts of blackmail.” Kadra shrugged. “Some larceny to free the children.”
“And a bit of torture?” Sarai finished.
And just like that, the would-be-Tetrarch would have vanished from the ballot, leaving a surefire win for the most popular iudex in Othus’s former Quarter.
She shook her head in disbelief. “You absolute madman.”
“No diatribe?” He dipped his head dangerously close to hers. “Two and a half months ago, you’d have given me an earful.”
“And you wouldn’t have believed a word of it,” she mused. “We’ve always seen right through each other, haven’t we?”
A slow, fascinating smile curved his mouth. “It bothered you to no end at first.”
“Because you thought I was a fool!”
“Never.” The low tenor of his response sent a surge of hunger through her. “Not once.”
Seeking a distraction, she seized his wine bottle and took a sip. And promptly gagged.
“Gods, that’s vile. ” Cretus’s infamous Violet Snowgrape Delight, bottled in the Month of Seas, Year 548 of the Tetrarchy, had a new contender for sheer acridity. Desperately wishing for a glass of water, she swallowed and shuddered as the aftertaste reared its head again. “You drink this willingly?”
He looking thoroughly amused. “A connoisseur, I see.”
“A connoisseur, you are not! Seven years as a barmaid and I’ve never had anything this awful.” She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Has the mighty Kadra of Edessa never tasted good wine?”
Watching her shove both the glass and the bottle out of his reach, something extraordinarily playful unfolded on his face. “Drenevan,” he said softly .
She stilled, night concealing her scarlet flush. Blood thrummed in her fingertips. He’d given her his name that very first night too, in the garden folly. By the look in his eyes, he remembered it.
“I couldn’t. It’s strange enough calling you Kadra, when everyone else puts such respect into their Tetrarch’s titles.”
“We’re only people,” he said with a wry smile. “With far too much power.”
Sarai laughed. “I’d drink to that if your wine wasn’t poison.” She tentatively took the hand that wasn’t around her shoulders. He gave her an inquiring look when she squeezed it. “The next time you feel the need to drink, I’ll join you.”
Rough fingers closed over hers. “Why?”
“Because I’d like to think we’re … friends,” she said hoarsely.
“Friends.” He sounded unused to the thought.
“You can’t tell me you’ve never had a friend, Kadra. That’s ridiculous.” For all his cruelty, he was no loner, well loved by much of the public, and respected by his vigiles.
“I have people I speak to.”
Damned man. “To be friends is to not betray each other even when you have the power to. That’s what you’ve been asking of me this whole while, isn’t it? To choose you.”
“Yes,” he said starkly.
At long last, it all made sense, why he’d wanted her on his side, why he’d ordered her to his tower . She’d resided in hell for a long time, but this man had entrenched himself in its frozen depths.
“Then we’re friends,” she vowed.
He smiled softly. “Is that a declaration of allegiance?”
She tsked. “It’s determination to save you from blood poisoning, that’s what. I can’t have you dying when I’ve earned the enmity of half the Tetrarchy. Shield me, damn it.”
With a rough chuckle, Kadra leaned back on the couch, pulling her with him .
“I don’t know if I should thank you or stab you,” she muttered. “But I would’ve made the same decisions even if you weren’t here. Though the consequences would have been much worse if Aelius or Tullus had been my Tetrarch.”
All sardonicism vanished from his eyes. “Don’t thank me, Sarai.”
“Don’t play the monster, Kadra.”
He looked thoughtful. “I’ve never played at it.”
“You’re an infuriating man, Kadra.” She took a deep breath. “But I don’t think you’re an evil one.”
She knew evil. Had seen it in the crevices of many a soul. But it wasn’t the sum of the man holding her, who looked startled by the prospect that he wasn’t evil.
“And when did you decide that?” he asked softly.
Barely a handspan away, his cavernous eyes were even more all-consuming up close, but the perennial cruelty inhabiting them had vanished in favor of unadulterated hunger. Temples tightening, he stared down at her, and she ached to close the distance, to step closer to the abyss.
Her breath hitched. “After Helvus died.”
“The day I became a hav?d sadist.”
“I took issue with how you went about it. Not why you did it. And now … I can’t even bring myself to loathe the former.”
“Why?”
Sarai wet her lips. The answer he sought hovered on her tongue and she would have given it were it not for the grim set of his features. There was hunger there, but heavily walled behind gates he seemed to have no intention of opening.
“You know why,” she said quietly. “You know me.”
“I do.” A strange bleakness laced the words. “From the second you stared up at me at the Robing.”
A ragged breath left her. “I should head upstairs,” she said after a moment .
“Stay.” It wasn’t a demand. He slipped a hand beneath her hair. Tilting her head up, he pressed his thumb against a knot at her neck, easing it in a slow stroke.
A fierce fondness rose above her yearning. “Bribing a Petitor, Kadra?”
With a droll glance, he worked into her shoulder, and she admitted defeat.
“I suppose I can,” she muttered, and his teeth flashed in a warm smile.
Unsure of where to rest, she awkwardly leaned against his shoulder. He cradled the back of her head and brought her into the curve of his neck. His arms tightened, secure as iron. And for the second time in as far as she could remember, she finally felt safe. Cared for. She closed her eyes against the burn of tears and slipped her arms around his chest. This was enough for now. This soft peace would sustain her another day.
As the seconds passed, she felt him relax in slow increments, his heartbeat dwindling to a sedate pace that her pulse unconsciously followed. The cares of the city beyond their walls faded.
As her eyes drooped, she felt him stroke her hair. A hoarse breath sawed out of him when she curled into his neck. Between one breath and the next, the world faded to midnight.