Chapter 41
The end of a man would always be his own lasciviousness, and Ragnar Valthorne had figured he had already met his end.
The old ancestral shrine was silent.
Ragnar walked through the corridors alone. Usually Nkiru would be there to announce his arrival, but the girl was still recovering from her injuries and Azul preferred her to sleep her time away.
So this was just him, and her.
He found her in her room by the window, her little snake taking up all walking space on the floor.
"My lord?"
She called out, golden eyes fixed on his face, waiting.
He stopped at the threshold.
He had fought through half the palace to get here.
Altansarnai's blood was still drying on his hands and there were men behind him who would need orders and a city that needed managing and Thane had been trying to reach him for the better part of an hour.
None of it had mattered. His feet had known where to go before his mind had finished deciding.
He stood before her and looked down at the damage — the cheek still swollen and bruised, the split lip healing badly, the way she held her arm slightly apart from her body. His jaw tightened. He slowly reached towards her face.
She didn't pull back.
His thumb found the edge of the bruise, barely touching, and stopped there.
"You're late," she said.
"I'm sorry." His voice came out rough.
"Mm." She tilted her head slightly into the pressure of his thumb. He was not certain she knew she did it. "I had the situation managed."
"I know, you did well." He crouched before her, bringing their faces level. Up close the damage was worse. The bruise spread from her cheekbone to her jaw. He did this. The thought was flat and cold and final. He is dead. It still happened. "Your arm."
"Ribs," she corrected. "The arm was voluntary."
He looked at her.
"Chidinma needed a delivery mechanism," she said, as though this were an ordinary sentence. "The needles were the most efficient option."
The needles were the most efficient option. He repeated it in his mind and felt something shift dangerously in his chest.
"Azul."
"My Lord."
"Stop that."
She paused "Ragnar."
He exhaled and lowered himself to sit beside her, his shoulder an inch from hers. Close enough to feel the warmth of her.
"Were you afraid?" he asked. "In his room."
She was quiet for longer.
"Yes," she said finally. "I was afraid; it made me so angry."
"You don't have to be angry."
"I know." She didn't look at him.
He looked at her hands in her lap. The left one loose and still. The right one she was cradling carefully. Small red dots on the inside of her forearm where the needles had been.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
"Everything hurts," she said simply.
"Chidinma said the orders came from the Khatun of the Valthorne," he said.
"Someone had to give them."
His heart fluttered. "You claimed the title."
"Was I wrong to?"
No.
She waited for his answer, her beautiful, golden eyes set fire to his soul. When he didn't say anything, she dropped the conversation.
"I will need to try and make the little snake small again, it bothers me it's so big, I can't take it anywhere without causing a fuss." She sighed. "I had to hide it in the Udamili, but I don't want to leave it alone in Tarsyn."
"Little snake?" He asked, raising a brow. "Doesn't it have a name?"
She looked away, ears reddening. "I'm not the best at naming things."
Perhaps, it would be better if he were the one to name their children. Well, if he could get that far before she killed him.
"Should I name it?"
"Go ahead."
A child was named for what the parents hoped they would become. A warrior earned their name through deeds. A creature like this—
"Dulguun," Ragnar said.
Brave, courageous, expansive, serene.
The serpent's head tilted up lazily. Its tongue flickered.
"Dul doesn't mind the name." Azul said, amused. "They said they wouldn't trust me to name them either." Her eyes sparkled as she talked, as though she were experiencing great happiness. One Ragnar was here to witness. "You should rest," she said. "You're still recovering from the fever."
"I'm fine."
"You were in a box for a day."
"I've had worse accommodations. Notably, your room."
She clicked her tongue, marvelled he still held a grudge for her crude actions. "Ragnar."
The way she said his name left him with no defences.
He conceded, and laid down, his head finding her lap, his body settling against the cushions on her ledge. Her fingers found his hair. He closed his eyes.
"The city will need managing," she said, above him. Her voice was quiet. "Borji will struggle, but in three months I will be ready to leave."
"You can worry about that tomorrow," he murmured. "You can stay here as long as you need."
"Aren't you afraid I won't return to the steppes with you?"
He shifted to look up at her. "I am afraid, but, what can I do? I am at your mercy."
"I will go with you, as promised. You will not return to your people alone."
He turned, face into her belly, and though he said nothing else, she knew he had taken her words to heart.
"I'm sorry about your sister, Khatun." He whispered.
Azul merely smiled, though it did not reach her eyes.
"I should've known." Was all she said. If she were Chukwuemeka, perhaps she too would use a dead girl's name as leverage.
Beneath her hands, his body let go of the last bit of tension it had been holding, and within minutes, he was asleep.
The banquet hall had been prepared for a king.
The long tables groaned under food the city had not seen in weeks. The Valthorne generals and their subsequent commanders occupied one side of the hall; the Borjigin nobles who had been spared occupied the other.
It was, Varok announced loudly, “An excellent feast!”
Despite the obscene temptations of human gluttony played before him, Ragnar had not looked at the food once.
He sat at the high table, his wine cup raised at intervals without being drunk from, his responses to the conversations directed at him technically adequate, and his attention entirely elsewhere.
Nyraxa leaned toward him.
"You're staring," she said pleasantly.
"I'm not staring."
"You have been staring since she walked in." She considered. "Before she walked in, actually. You were staring at the door." She tilted her head in confusion. "I genuinely cannot tell whether you want to kill her or—"
"Nyraxa."
"I'm just saying the line appears very fine this evening."
Across the hall, Azul slipped between tables, completely at home in a room full of people who had—until recently—most likely regarded her as a blight.
She wore red with stunning gold plates, cut to her figure.
Her hair was dressed with gold pins that caught the torchlight every time she turned her head.
The bruising on her cheek had been covered, though Ragnar knew it was there, and the knowledge sat in his chest like a coal.
Naturally, Somadina had paid, though his method of punishment was not one Ragnar would've considered, but if Azul wished for it, who was he to decline?
She laughed at something one of the Borjigin elders said, and the sound carried across the hall.
Ragnar's hand tightened on his wine cup.
"You're going to break that," Nyraxa observed.
He set it down.
"Has she looked at you?" Nyraxa asked.
"Once."
"And?"
"She smiled."
Nyraxa waited.
"Briefly," Ragnar added.
"Devastating," Nyraxa said, with complete sincerity. She reached for her own wine. "I'll pray for you."
The dance was announced after the third course.
Borji rose from his seat and turned to the Valthorne side of the hall. The hall quietened as he spoke.
"There is a custom among the Borjigin," he said, raising his goblet, "performed at the coronation of a new Igwe and at any gathering where something worth honouring has occurred.
" He paused, letting the translation settle.
"A woman of standing dances in the courtyard. The assembled company watches. And those who wish to honour her pave her path with coin.” He dropped his cup, a grin playing on his lips.
"The more coin thrown," Borji continued, "the greater the respect shown.
There is no ceiling on generosity. It is considered the highest public compliment a woman can receive in this city.
" He glanced once, briefly, at Ragnar. "I thought you should know the custom before it begins. "
He sat down.
Ragnar—who was listening rather attentively—turned to Varok.
"How much do we have," he asked, "that isn't already allocated?"
Varok considered. "Between the supply wagons—"
"All of it."
Varok blinked. "Great Khan—"
"All of it."
The courtyard was open to the sky, the night clear above it, stars visible past the torchlight. The assembled company arranged themselves around the perimeter.
Azul entered from the far end. The red of her robes caught every torch she passed, and the gold bodice made her seem as though she were made in the image of the gods. And she was—Ragnar thought—extraordinary.
The music began. She picked her starting pose, and as the beat dropped, so did she. Her body fell to the floor smoothly before coming up on her knees to dance.
It was nothing like anything he had seen on the steppes. Her body tracing patterns in the air that he didn't have the vocabulary to read. Her waist was like a viper's; her hips, wrapped with beautiful coin scarves, beguiled him.
The first coin hit the ground.
Azul smiled softly as she heard the familiar clink. She turned in her dance to look at her patron, a way of saying thank you. Like that, her attention passed to those who threw more coins; the louder, the longer her attention stayed.
But then she heard a loud crash.
She turned mid-movement, and for a moment her composure slipped. She looked down at the gold spreading across the courtyard floor—thousands of coins. She glanced up, confused, as she forced herself to keep dancing. They were from the Valthorne.