Chapter 25
Thane hadn't intended to end up here. He'd intended to check the palace perimeters, speak with the night watch, and return to his own room for a few hours of sleep before dawn. That had been the plan.
"The Great Khan," Kaida said, each word punctuated by a sharp thrust. "He's really going to marry her?"
Her head was in the sheets, so her voice was muffled, the loudest sound in the room being skin against skin.
"He's an idiot, and now this issue with the viper—" He groaned. "Isn't helping the situation." Sweat dripped down his muscles; he took her with deep, delirium-inducing strokes.
Kaida struggled to speak, her legs losing strength with each passing thrust.
"Don't get weak on me," Thane teased, smirking. "Tell me about the viper; don't stop." He gripped her hips, pulling her in.
"The viper." She managed. "You've…seen the symbol, yes?" She took some time to breathe, cursing between breaths. "It's been appearing everywhere this past year. No one knows who it belongs to. But Nyraxa thinks—" A moan escaped her lips, and Thane steadied his pacing.
"Nyraxa thinks what?"
"Nyraxa thinks it belongs to someone in the Borjigin palace." Kaida gasped. "That place is a den of vipers if ever there was one. Someone's been sending messages. The question is who."
Thane's harsh grunts punctuated the room as Kaida's body tensed; she muffled her scream, pressing her face into his pillows. Thane slowed, panting; he looked down at the beautiful tanned skin underneath him, firm and muscular.
"Which Elder?" he asked.
Kaida took her time recovering. "What makes you think it's a man?"
"I—" Thane hesitated. "It's a symbol of power. A mark left on enemies. That's what men of the trade usually do."
Kaida laughed, rolling on her back and sitting up.
She scooted to the edge of the bed, taking her clothes so she could dress herself.
"Women have been playing this game since before your ancestors learned to ride.
We just don't get credit for it. Because when we win, it looks like luck.
When we lose, it looks like hysteria. And when we leave our mark no one thinks to look for a woman's hand. "
"Her," Thane said quietly.
Kaida smiled. "Now you're thinking."
"The viper belongs to her."
"We don't know that. Not for certain." Kaida settled back against the cushions. "But Lady Nyraxa has her theories. And she’s rarely wrong about these things."
The room felt smaller with him in it. Not uncomfortably. He moved to the low table where her Ukhel Dain board sat, pieces arranged in the positions she'd left them.
"You play," he observed.
"I'm learning." She joined him. "Someone taught me in the gardens."
"Someone being?"
"Dead."
"Ah."
"Yet to be avenged."
"You collect enemies the way Methuselah collected wives."
She rolled her eyes as they sat on opposite sides of the table, the board between them. Azul rearranged the board to its default, starting the game from scratch.
"Do you know how to play?" she asked.
"My mother taught me. Before she died."
When the board was ready, he gestured for her to make the first move.
"I don't know your skill level," she said. "I don't want to embarrass myself."
"I don't think you're capable of feeling embarrassed."
Azul paused, finding her ears were hot; somehow, him calling out her lack of humility left her stumped for words.
She moved a soldier. He countered. She moved a tower. He shifted a battalion.
The game progressed slowly, as Ukhel Dain usually did. From Azul’s calculations, a proper game could take days or months to complete—truly a game of war. With every move they made, the lamp burned lower, and the night deepened outside.
"You're aggressive for a beginner," Ragnar observed, blocking her attempt to encircle his stronghold.
"I'm aggressive in general."
"I've noticed."
She looked up at him. His eyes were on the board, but the corners were crinkled in amusement.
Her eye twitched. "What?" she demanded.
"Nothing." He glanced up. "I like it."
Her heart did something inconvenient, so she looked back at the board.
"You're trying to distract me."
"Is it working?"
"...No."
She moved her cavalry. It landed in a position that threatened three of his pieces at once.
His eyebrows rose. "That's not a beginner move."
"I have a lot of free time in this place."
"Apparently."
He studied the board for a long moment. Then, instead of countering, he reached out and moved one of his pieces to a completely different quadrant—a sacrifice play that opened up his defences but made her future murky.
Azul stared at the board. Then at him.
"You'll understand in three turns," he explained.
"You're sacrificing the battle to win the war?"
"Something I learned from watching you."
The words landed between them. She looked up, and he was watching her, not the board.
"My lord," she teased him. "What are you doing?"
"We are playing a game, are we not?"
Is this truly a game?
He was asking her.
She pursed her lips and moved a piece on the board.
"Your move," she said.
He looked down, and his eyes softened.
To lose the battle is to win the war. But she was allowing him to win the battle and, perhaps, the war.
She waited for him to see if he would conquer.
But instead, "I concede."
Her brows furrowed for a moment. "My lord, concession isn’t necessary."
"You played well," was all he said. "You played better than a beginner should." He glanced at her lips. "I’m afraid I would lose, no matter how long we played."
Deepening her breathing, she kept his intensity, unwilling to back down. "I had good instruction."
Something flickered in his eyes. "From your friend?"
"From watching you. You indicate your intentions. Not on the board; you're too good for that. Your eyes are all I need. I could read you after the few turns. Any move you wished to make, every distraction you fell for. My lord, are you truly not smitten with me?"
He was silent for a long moment. "Khatun, for someone who apparently can read my intent, you ask questions that baffle me."
She pressed her lips into a thin line. "I—" It’s not that she didn’t trust herself, but she felt out of her depth.
His intent was clear to read, but part of her felt it was only because he wished for her to see through him, that his openness was of his own volition. It made her second-guess herself.
"Khatun," he asked. "Do you truly not know?"
Why was he making her say it? Once spoken, it would make her subconscious believe it; she refused to delude herself that way.
Seeing she would not respond, he placed a finger on the stronghold, the most important piece, and forced it to fall to hers.
"There are no guarantees of the future from here, but I intend to return from the expedition."
Azul stiffened. His time had run out, and the chance that they would try to kill him were higher now that he was away from the palace.
He continued, trusting she would understand the meaning behind his words. "And when I return, I intend to tell you my wish. You told me I could ask anything of you, didn’t you?"
Yet he was promising to survive.
She nodded slowly. "Anything at all." It was the least she could do. "What is it you want? Is it the Grass Sea? The entirety of Oblivia? Anything, I will give you."
His eyes smiled. "Even if what I want is not something you’re willing to hand over?"
Azul felt her heart slow to nothingness.
Her hands clenched in her lap. The heat in the room was suddenly unbearable, pressing against her skin, making it difficult to think.
She looked away—just for a moment, just long enough to gather herself—and when she looked back, his eyes were still there.
Waiting, patient, hopeful in a way that made her chest ache.
"As long as you are patient with me," she said, "I—" She stopped. The words felt like they were being pulled from somewhere deep, somewhere she'd never considered unsealing in this lifetime. "I will not make you wait long."
He closed his eyes, inhaling as though accepting her answer. Once a beat had passed, he opened them again. "Very well. But Khatun, how should I survive in the meantime? While I wait. At the very least, I shall consider it a blessing. It will keep me alive."
She could hear her pulse in her ears, and her palms were damp.
"At least, seal our contract."
Reaching out, Azul looked up through her lashes. "Hand me your blade."
He did as instructed.
Unsheathing it, she took it to her hair, cutting off a lock.
She extended her hand once more. "I bless you with many more victories, Great Khan; you will not lose." She repeated the words said to him that day. And she supposed it set his soul on fire, for he took her bandaged hand and brought her wrist to his lips.
"Come back to me," she whispered.
He looked up at her, as if savouring the sight.
"As long as my wife wishes, I’m afraid, I must oblige."
Two processions formed in the main courtyard—one led by Borji, the other by Ragnar. Borji's party was smaller, though Ragnar had not come with many men at all. But those who rode behind him were considered the best of mortals, the best of beasts.
Ragnar sat on his black steed, dark eyes scanning the crowd.
The wives had gathered to see them off, a sea of white robes and veiled faces. The object of his affections was nowhere to be found.
"Great Khan!" Thane called, slowing his horse. "We should leave now." The faster they set off to meet Varok, the faster they’d be back.
They just hoped they wouldn’t be too late.
Ragnar looked around once more, hands tightening around his reins.
Thane called again. Ragnar's jaw tightened.
He turned his horse forward.
Something caught the corner of his eye.
A single petal drifted past. It was pale, almost white, spinning lazily in the morning air.
Then another. Then a third. He looked up, following their descent, and found the sky softly full of them, thousands of pale petals falling like the gentlest snow he had ever seen, catching the early light as they tumbled over the courtyard, over the horses, over the heads of men who had gone still and silent without quite knowing why.
He looked everywhere at once — the rooftops, the gates, the gathered women below.
Then he found the window.
She wasn’t waving, nor did she call to him. The petals fell around her and her hair whipped with the high winds.
Once again, a word resounded in his head, one he found himself thinking of more and more around her.
Tsenkhinn Narvaal.
Beside her, Nkiru was waving with the full commitment of her entire body, both arms, nearly leaning out of the window entirely.
Azul seemed to laugh at the girl, pulling strands of her hair back behind her ears.
Her smile stole his soul; his heart slammed against his ribs so hard he was certain Thane heard it.
Truly a vixen.
He held her gaze for one long moment. Then he turned to face his men with a smile under his mask.
Ragnar raised his voice.
"The Khatun blesses this war," he said. Not loudly. He didn't need to be loud. "She sends us off. Every man here rides under her favour."
A sound moved through the ranks—not quite a cheer, but something warmer than that.
Men straightened in their saddles. They were foreigners, but the fear that plagued the other soldiers inevitably affected them too.
Besides, there was something about being sent off by a beautiful woman that made death feel slightly less inevitable.
Even Borji, riding beside him, glanced up at the window with something fond in his expression.
Ragnar faced forwards.
He did not look back again.
He didn't need to.
His faith, in that moment, was infallible.