Chapter 15
Chidinma had useful hands. Somadina noticed this early—she was efficient with buttons and didn't pull or fuss. She dressed him the way she did everything else in their short marriage: in silence, with competence, her eyes always down, which he considered a sign of respect.
He appreciated that.
A wife who didn't chatter meaninglessly in the morning was worth more than one who was merely beautiful.
She was both, which was convenient.
The knock came as she was fastening the last clasp at his shoulder.
"Enter."
Chukwuemeka came in without ceremony; he still carried the awkwardness of a commoner, not yet accustomed to the performance of power.
He bowed. "Okpalaeze."
Chidinma stepped back. She didn't leave because Somadina hadn't told her to.
"The Akwaugo," Somadina said. "How does she seem this morning?"
Chukwuemeka's expression was neutral. "She seems to be preparing quite thoroughly. My men say she’s been awake since before dawn. She's treating it as a proper presentation."
Somadina picked up a heavy gold ring from his dressing table and slid it onto his finger. "You think she'll play along."
"It appears so. Perhaps she's come to her senses."
Azul coming to her senses was not something Somadina entirely trusted, but it was the most convenient interpretation of the evidence, and humans were always more likely to take the path of least resistance.
"Keep your eyes on her," he said. "Through the banquet and after. If at any point it looks otherwise, we’ll always have another option."
Chukwuemeka nodded. He understood. Words need not be overexplained. Despite his background, Somadina had to admit he’d stumbled upon a man of rare talent for strategy.
Somadina glanced at Chidinma, who was looking at the middle distance with an expression that indicated she was listening to nothing in particular. "You may go," he said to her.
She bowed and left without a word.
Somadina looked at the door she'd closed behind her.
She was a good wife indeed.
Chidinma walked through the corridors at a steady pace; haste was unbecoming.
The compound sprawled around her, red earth and whitewashed walls, servants pressing themselves against the walls as she passed.
She did not acknowledge them; her expression was harsh enough to scare any new maids in her court.
Her hands trembled slightly at her sides.
She pressed them flat against her wrapper until the shaking stopped.
In her chamber, the air was close and perfumed, calming her fraying nerves. Her reflection watched her from the polished bronze mirror across from her bed—same high cheekbones, same downcast eyes that Somadina mistook for submission, same mouth that had not spoken a single unnecessary word to him.
The knock came softly at her door. She did not turn. "Enter."
Her personal servant, a girl of perhaps fourteen named Ifeoma, slipped inside with a basket held before her. "Mistress, the Mal-kai have arrived. The trader said they came through the eastern route, fresh this morning."
Chidinma turned. The basket contained flowers—if such a word could apply. They were beautiful, deep blue, with honey-like filaments. Their scent was subtle, almost nonexistent, which was their most dangerous quality.
"The Akwaugo's chambers," Chidinma said. "See that they are placed there. Instruct her servants to place them in water so they open fully."
Ifeoma's brow furrowed. "Mistress? These are—the trader said they were for—"
Chidinma looked at her.
"Yes, mistress." The girl's voice came out small, and then she fled.
Chidinma watched her go, then moved to her dressing table.
The bronze mirror showed her a woman she recognised but did not particularly like.
She opened the small wooden box at the corner of her table.
Inside, nestled on faded velvet, lay an armband in the shape of a viper.
Chidinma slid it onto her upper arm. The metal was cool against her skin, as if it had missed her.
In the mirror, the viper's eyes gleamed.
Then, a shadow emerged from the corners of her room, stepping out from the dark as if it were one with it. "A message from Madame Varkesh," the figure said, holding out a letter, one with the sigil of the viper.
Azul awakened with the first cockcrow.
There was lots of thinking to be done and she preferred to do it in the dark, before the day imposed itself.
She had decided long before that day, only motivated by her rendezvous with the Great Khan, that she would seduce her husband.
Not for Somadina, nor for her father, but for herself and for the fourth path.
She turned the logic over as Nkiru worked through her hair, oiling and combing.
Meanwhile, Azul schemed. A man like Ragnar Valthorne did not need to love her—love was too soft a word for what she needed, too easily confused with possession.
What she needed was simpler and harder to obtain: his respect.
The respect of a dangerous man who had decided she was worth keeping.
Not as a decoration, not as a political instrument, but as something he valued in the way he valued his own blade—because to lose it would be to lose something irreplaceable.
That, she could work with.
Ragnar Valthorne could have any woman he wanted.
She had no particular feeling about that.
The Steppes had different conventions, she understood, and she was not so small as to make herself a prison when she could make herself a throne.
What she needed was the position behind him, the space, the backing, the name.
With that, she had room to breathe.
Without it, she was simply a girl being sent to die in a foreign country.
Azul planned to fully take the role of his main wife.
In Oblivia there were numerous costumes and ideologies.
The idea of a main wife that stood above the rest was universal.
She had access to rights and safeguards concubines did not, which explained why many main wives did not care who their husbands slept with in their own time.
As in Rome, do as the Romans do. He simply has to be devoted to his values, she thought, watching in the bronze mirror as Nkiru finished the last braid.
I can cultivate his devotion to suit my needs.
She trusted her beauty as much as she trusted her brain.
All men had weaknesses; this one was no different.
She had seen the whip scars. She had pressed her fingers into his wound and watched him kneel and not looked away.
She had held a blade to his throat and found him interesting rather than frightening.
That was the truth of her, and she would not perform otherwise.
If he was the man she thought he was, that honesty would be more disarming than any performance could be.
And if she was wrong about him…
Azul looked at herself in the mirror. The woman who looked back was composed, her face hidden by a heavy pearl veil, dressed in deep green that made her eyes seem lit from within.
It was a gamble she’d have to make, to assume that Ragnar was inclined to a woman like her.
You can stay, she had told him, If you want. I don't mind.
She hadn’t said those words by mistake; she wanted to see just how far a few hours had pushed his heart.
He stayed until dawn; she was a light sleeper, and the little snake alerted her once he was gone, emerging from its hiding place.
Six hours.
Not once had he tried to touch her, nor did he sleep or move from his position, and in her wake, her hairpin was missing.
A smirk graced her lips.
Ragnar Valthorne had spent two days deciding he felt nothing in particular.
The sedative had left his system slowly, the way a tide goes out over shale. By the second day he could ride without his vision doubling. He made up his mind to simply not think of her, and so he prayed fervently to Ukhel, Lord of the Seven Gates, to cast her out of his mind.
And yet.
Ukhel had declined his prayers over and over.
General Thane, who had learned to read silences across nearly a decade of campaigns, rode beside him. When the Khan wished to speak, he would speak. When he did not, a wise man kept his tongue behind his teeth.
"The capital is an hour ahead," Thane said.
Ragnar grunted.
"The formal banquet isn't meant for three days. If we slow our pace—"
"Onwards."
Thane paused but said nothing further.
The gates of the Borjigin capital rose against the afternoon sky, red stone and iron bound in patterns that showed off the talent of their masons. Banners snapped in the wind—the serpent coiled around a sun disc.
Ragnar's eyes swept the walls. Eyes landing on a cluster of finely dressed people looking down at him and his men. It was then he saw her.
Gold and deep green robes shimmered in the light, a cascade of pearls veiling her face. She stood beside the wall, and his chest hammered.
My Khatun.
He would have to forget the girl, Azul of the Borjigin, and focus on the woman who could become his wife.
Whatever else his betrothed was, be it a liar, a schemer, or a woman with blood on her hands, she was composed.
Composure in a political wife was worth more than beauty, more than her dowry, and certainly more than love.
Love was not even a concept to Ragnar, especially not with marriage.
He dismounted, boots bringing up dust.
"Great Khan, Ragnar Valthorne." The Igwe descended from the walls to meet him—starting high, lowering himself to the level of a barbarian. "Welcome to the house of Borjigin. We are honoured by your early arrival."
"Igwe." Ragnar inclined his head slightly, unwilling to give him any more respect. "I trust my haste hasn't caused undue trouble."
"Not at all. We have prepared your chambers. The welcoming feast will be held tonight."
Ragnar nodded. His gaze moved past the Igwe almost of its own accord to the woman standing behind his shoulder.
She still hadn't looked at him.
"And this," the Igwe said, "is my daughter. The Akwaugo, Azul."
Azul?
She stepped forwards; the pearl veil swayed as she bowed.