Chapter 41 #2
Nyraxa stood at the edge of the crowd with such a pained expression, as if she was watching something precious being taken from her. Azul looked up then, to the source of her honour. To the man who would receive her attention as long as he honoured her.
Ragnar stood watching her. She couldn’t quite see his eyes from her position below, but he could see her.
The gold kept coming.
It spread across the stone until the stone disappeared entirely. Her feet could no longer find stone. The courtyard had become gold from wall to wall, making the entire scene glow as though her hair were made of fire.
Something moved across her face that Ragnar had not seen before. It started at the corners and took over entirely. Bright, genuine and helpless.
She had been caught unprepared this time, and her reaction was one she had failed to account for.
She laughed.
Ragnar felt it move through him, forcing through every bone, every muscle, and every inch of his soul. Consuming him, dismantling him, destroying him.
This was the sound she made when something had gotten past all the management; it was the most beautiful thing he had heard in his life.
He was aware, with deep clarity, that he would spend however long he had left trying to be the reason for it as often as she would allow.
And oh, how badly he wished to kiss her.
Azul found Borji at the edge of the hall afterward, where he had retreated with two cups of wine.
He handed her one without being asked.
She took it. They stood together in the relative quiet of the hall's edge, the noise of the banquet continuing without them, and for a while neither spoke.
"You're going to leave, aren’t you?" Borji said eventually.
Azul looked at her wine. "You don't know that."
"I know. I've known since the shrine. Maybe before."
She was quiet.
He sighed in acceptance. "It doesn't matter," he said. "Wherever you go. Whatever you become. You'll be my sister. That doesn't—it doesn't change with distance. Or time. Or whatever comes next."
Azul's throat tightened.
"How do you know?" she asked. "You barely—"
"You kept the throne for me," he said simply.
"You didn't have to. You had nothing to gain from it and everything to lose, and you did it anyway.
" He looked at the hall, at the assembled company, at the evidence of the world his sister had built for him to inherit. "How else can I honour you, Kihaana?"
She looked at him.
He looked away, his eyes stinging. "Besides," he added, "I suspect you won't be so bored much longer. He's been looking at you like that all evening. If you only have one child, I’d be surprised."
"Like what?"
Borji's eyes moved back to her with a disgusted expression on his face. "I really don't want to explain."
Azul laughed, and the sound startled her slightly, coming out freer than she intended.
Borji’s eyes widened in surprise. Then, slowly, he smiled.
"Go," he said. "He's been waiting all evening."
She looked across the hall. Found Ragnar looking back, as he had been every time she'd checked, apparently incapable of doing otherwise.
"He's so obvious," she said.
"Terribly," Borji agreed. "It pains me to even see him."
A presence arrived at her shoulder—respectful distance maintained.
Ragnar inclined his head to Borji first, in acknowledgement of a man recognising whose company he was interrupting, and then to her.
"Khatun," he said. "If you're willing."
Borji rolled his eyes and downed his wine. "She's willing," he said.
Azul shot him a look.
He smiled dryly and raised his wine cup.
The courtyard he found was small and forgotten, just a square of stone and sky tucked between two wings of the palace, with a single torch burning in a bracket and the sound of the banquet audible but distant.
He had clearly found it in advance.
"My Lord, you wanted to dance?"
"I wanted to ask, but you were constantly preoccupied."
She looked at the courtyard. "There's no music."
An anxious look flashed in his eyes.
“No matter,” she said quickly. “I don’t need music. Just this once."
"Just this once," he agreed.
They were not well-matched for dancing—they were working from different traditions with different steps. For the first several exchanges, this was apparent. She told him so. He agreed. She corrected his footwork, and he followed suit.
"You're watching my feet," she said.
"I'm watching you."
"Watch my feet. That's what needs watching."
"Mm."
She looked up at him. The mask was in place, as it always was, and she had long since learned to read him around it — the quality of his attention, the set of his jaw, the way his hands held her like she was something he was being careful with.
"You're doing it again," she said.
"Watching you?"
"Looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
She didn't answer because she didn't have an answer that she was willing to give him yet. He seemed to understand this because he didn't press it.
They moved in the small circle of torchlight, the music from the banquet reaching them faintly, and after a while the steps stopped mattering and they were simply moving together in the quiet.
He slowed to a stop.
She looked up.
His hand, which had been at her waist, moved slowly. Giving her every opportunity, as he always did, before it settled on her face. His palm covered her eyes gently, blocking the torchlight, the courtyard, everything.
She heard him exhale, then the soft shift of the mask being moved.
His lips met hers.
She froze for a mere fraction of a second, but her arms grabbed his collar, pulling him into her with such ferocity it overtook them.
He wrapped his free hand around her waist, and she clung to him, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer as if she could merge herself into his skin and never be alone again.
The kiss deepened, hungry and desperate and full of all the things neither of them had said—the fear, the hope, the terrifying possibility that in each other, they had made a place for their hearts to belong.
When he parted, she was still in darkness.
“My lord,” she began. “You are yet to tell me your wish; ask anything of me, and I will give it to you.”
She awaited his answer.
It was then he asked, "Give me Oblivia."
Stay by my side forever.
“My lord, that is not a small thing to ask for."
“I know.”
"It would take years."
Years was exactly what he needed.
He should've simply nodded, but it took every ounce of will he had to lie to her. He didn't care about Oblivia, he only cared about her.
And so, Ragnar Valthorne dropped his head to his wife's shoulder and let out a small, exhausted laugh.
“Khatun,” he said, whispering into her neck. “I fear I have lost. Have mercy on me, and dissolve our contract. Marry me, of your own volition.”
Marry me.
Perhaps, this time, Azul found he had set her soul on fire. For she pulled him down once more, with tears in her eyes, and kissed him.
Long ago, before he declared himself Khan, Ragnar Valthorne had sworn before the open sky and the Eternal Blue Heaven—Tengri—that he, Ragnar Valthorne, would take only one wife in his lifetime.
One woman.
One marriage.
One bond until Ukhel claimed him.
To be continued.
Queen of Sheba – Volume 2