Chapter 13 #2
The boats finally ground into the shallows beneath the same cliffs from which Imani had first seen the battle. Soldiers jumped over the sides into knee-deep water to secure the vessels while planks were thrown down for the wounded.
Imani followed Ellisar ashore. Together they crossed the wet sand and began ascending the narrow stone stairs etched into the cliff, the wind cutting sharply off the water.
As they reached the upper landing, the return column was already forming along the coastal road. Wounded soldiers were being loaded into wagons while those able to walk assembled behind officers and standard-bearers. Farther inland, the road curved away from the sea toward Vathis.
One inclined his head and said softly, “My queen,” his eyes briefly moving to the crown before returning to her face.
Another stepped closer, his tone dangerously light. “You return alone?” he asked. “Or is there… someone who claims the place beside you?”
Imani narrowed her eyes at the implication.
A queen would eventually be expected to choose someone to stand beside her, and the moment Ellisar publicly recognized her claim, every unattached male with political ambition had acquired a reason to consider himself.
Ellisar was not her mate. She had chosen no one.
But with the High Sentinel already standing at her side, people were apparently willing to imagine possibilities before either of them had spoken them aloud.
A third didn’t speak at all, but his assessment was thorough. It was the first time she felt the weight of the male gaze not as a threat but as a political maneuver. This was positioning. Alliances were forged not through loyalty but through proximity to her power.
Before the exchange could deepen, Ellisar stepped in. The movement was deadly in its elegance. He placed his larger form between her and the officers, altering the impact of the landing. He glanced at the general who had spoken. Though his voice wasn’t loud, it carried finality.
“That won’t be necessary,” Ellisar said. “Her position is not a subject for casual discussion. Anyone seeking a political audience with the queen will do so formally.” He dismissed them with a careless wave. “Return to your duties.”
Just like that, the iron cage closed around her.
Access to her was not theirs to negotiate.
But other people were already treating the vacant position beside a newly proven queen as political territory.
Ellisar’s instinct to control access to her might protect her from opportunists, but she had no intention of allowing protection to become authority over her choices.
Protection was one thing. Deciding for her was another, and Ellisar would learn the distinction.
Imani touched his arm, forcing him to look at her. “I don’t need you deciding who gets to speak to me. I can handle myself just fine.”
“It isn’t about what you can handle,” Ellisar said, his tone bordering on boredom. “It’s about what I will allow.” He looked out toward the city as he added, “And that isn’t changing.”
Tension followed them as they moved away from the officers.
As they continued their march, the pattern began to form in Imani’s mind.
Proving herself hadn’t gained her freedom, but it had made her noticeable.
Visibility became an opportunity, provided she knew how to use it well.
More power attracted more power, and as she grew more valuable, her space to move shrank.
The returning column began moving inland. As Imani fell into step beside Ellisar near its front, she glanced back toward the sea. “You knew I could do it,” she said.
Ellisar continued upward beside her. “I thought you could.”
“That isn’t the same thing,” she shot back, hotly.
“No.”
She waited for more, but he gave her none. Frustration flared, cutting through the dregs of her adrenaline. “You’re infuriating.”
“I’ve been told.”
Imani almost smiled despite her annoyance at the man. “And now?”
Ellisar dipped his head to look down at her. “Now everyone else knows what I suspected.”
She pondered his response, keeping pace with him effortlessly, and he seemed in no hurry to lose his place next to her either.
He stayed a breath away, his steady presence pressing against her side. The silence between them was taut, vibrating like a drawn bowstring.
The journey back consumed the remainder of the afternoon, and the returning column carried the story inland. Soldiers moved at different speeds—mounted officers, supply wagons, wounded men sent ahead—and every group that reached another checkpoint or patrol repeated what had happened on the sea.
When Vathis appeared ahead of them, daylight had faded completely and lanterns burned along the walls. The gates opened for the returning column, and by the time Imani passed beneath them, word of the battle had already reached the streets.
People stepped aside sooner, as well. They bowed a fraction lower, their gazes lingering to measure her before dropping away. Awe mingled with unease, but beneath both ran the same calculating current: How could she be used? How could she be won?
She walked beside the twelve-mark High Sentinel with careful ease, keenly aware of the undeniable truth beneath the pageantry.
They entered the High Sentinel’s manor silently, and the room promptly responded to her arrival. Conversations halted or quieted, and individuals moved aside before she even took a step. No introduction was necessary as everyone acknowledged her instantly.
And Ellisar? He had given her space because he wanted everyone else to see a queen capable of standing without him.
Imani understood the gesture. She simply had no intention of ruling alone if she could convince someone as capable as Ellisar to stand beside her.
If he would not step closer on his own, she would find a reason to make him.
* * *
Imani did not speak to Ellisar again before they reached the estate. Intentionally.
The final stretch through Vathis had required enough restraint without giving him another opportunity to explain why, in his opinion, every ambitious male within twenty feet of her needed to be managed.
She had walked beside him because she refused to trail behind, not because she had enjoyed the position.
At least, that was what she told herself.
The High Sentinel’s estate rose above the surrounding streets in pale stone, its tall windows glowing warmly against the deepening evening.
When they crossed the front terrace, most of the returning soldiers had peeled away toward barracks, infirmaries, or whatever celebration Ellisar had promised them, leaving the entrance crowded instead with officers, servants, and messengers carrying reports from the coast.
The doors opened before them. Ellisar was intercepted almost immediately by two officers holding folded dispatches, one speaking before he had even crossed the threshold. He listened, asked a short question, then disappeared toward the western corridor without looking back.
Imani continued upstairs alone. Three turns into the residential wing, where the noise from the entrance had faded into the softer sounds of servants moving through adjoining rooms, she realized she was still matching the pace he had set.
She slowed as fresh annoyance flared in her chest.
Ridiculous.
She had spent half the afternoon pushing back whenever his protectiveness crossed into deciding for her, only to discover that somewhere between the cliffside and the city gates, her body had simply adjusted to moving beside him.
“Interesting,” a female voice murmured behind her.
Imani stopped and swiveled around to find her friend leaning against the archway ahead, arms folded, blue hair loose around her shoulders. Her wings rested close to her back, their edges catching the lamplight from the wall sconces.
She folded her arms across her chest. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You said interesting in that irritating little pixie voice.”
“I did.”
“Then say whatever unbearable thing you’re clearly dying to say.” Imani resumed walking, nearly stomping her way to her room.
Esa pushed away from the archway and fell into step beside her. “You looked comfortable.”
Imani nearly missed a step. “With what?”
“Standing beside Ellisar.”
“I was arguing with him.”
“I noticed.”
“Then what exactly was comfortable about it?”
Esa lifted one shoulder. “Half the soldiers coming back from the sea had already decided the High Sentinel looked very natural beside their new queen. You did nothing to discourage the impression.”
Imani turned so quickly that the hem of her dress caught around one ankle. “He is not my mate.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You were about to.”
“I was about to say you looked comfortable.”
Imani scoffed, but Esa’s mouth twitched, making Imani want to scoff again.
“He tried to decide who was allowed to speak to me,” Imani said.
“I noticed that too.”
“He is controlling.”
“Sometimes.”
“Overprotective.”
“He’s a male Norn elf… aren’t they all?”
Imani gave her a pointed look. “You are being remarkably unhelpful.”
Esa pressed on, undeterred by Imani’s glare. “You walked beside him the entire way back.”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves you didn’t stab him.”
“I considered it.”
“I’m sure.”
They reached Imani’s rooms at the end of the corridor, where tall windows overlooked Vathis and the lights below had begun to multiply across the city. Imani stopped with one hand on the latch.
Esa ran her fingers down the wood grain of the door and gave Imani a secretive smirk.
“What?” Imani demanded.
“You’re thinking about him.”
“I’m thinking about how irritating he is.”
“Still thinking about him.”
Imani opened the door harder than necessary. “He acts as if proximity gives him authority.”
Esa followed her inside without invitation, closing the door behind them. “And yet he backed off when you claimed your own space.”
Imani reeled on her.
Esa had already wandered toward the settee, apparently far too comfortable in a room that was not hers.
“He did not back off,” Imani argued, pushing loose strands of hair off her face.