Chapter 52- Things We Never Ask
At some point during the journey, the rain stopped, and I did not notice until the silence changed.
For most of the night, the storm had followed us like a living thing, tapping against the carriage roof, sliding down the windows, softening the world beyond the glass until everything outside looked blurred and distant.
It made leaving feel less real somehow, as if the rain had wrapped the palace in mist and hidden it from me before I could fully understand that I was gone.
Then, slowly, the sound faded. The constant whisper of water against wood disappeared.
The carriage became quieter, and in that quiet, pale sunlight began slipping through the curtains in thin golden lines, warming the cushions, brushing over the folded blankets, touching the edges of Lillian's papers, and making the whole carriage feel strangely gentler than it had before.
I turned my head toward the window and watched the world after the storm.
The road was still wet, darkened by rain and marked by deep carriage tracks.
Droplets clung to tree branches and sparkled whenever sunlight caught them.
The fields beyond the road looked freshly washed, the soil rich and nearly black, the grass bent beneath water and slowly lifting itself again.
Mist curled low over the hills like breath rising from the earth.
In the distance, the mountains stood beneath the clearing sky, and birds had begun returning to the branches as though they trusted the world again simply because the clouds had moved on.
I smiled faintly at that.
Storms were not gentle, but they were honest. They came when they needed to.
They cried loudly. They tore through the air.
They frightened everything into hiding. Then they left the soil softer than before and gave flowers something to drink.
There was comfort in that, in knowing something violent could pass over the world and still leave life behind.
I rested my head against the cushion and tried not to think about the palace.
That lasted all of three seconds.
My heart still felt there. Not fully, perhaps, but enough.
A piece of me remained in the room with the half-empty bookshelves, the cold side of the bed, and the man who had stood beside the carriage looking like every instinct in his body demanded he follow me and every cruel necessity ordered him to stay.
I missed my husband already, which felt ridiculous because I had only just left him.
It had barely been long enough for the sun to rise, and still my body had started searching for him in small ways.
My hand kept shifting as though expecting his fingers to be there.
My shoulder felt too cold without his arm around it.
Even the silence felt wrong without his breathing nearby.
I missed him so badly it embarrassed me.
That was the strange thing about love. It could make a woman who had survived poison, politics, and attempted assassination feel undone by an empty seat.
Across from me, Lillian was waging war against a document.
She had been reading the same piece of parchment for several minutes, and every passing second made her expression more offended.
She squinted at it, moved it closer to her face, moved it farther away, tilted it toward the sunlight, then away from the sunlight, then sideways as though perhaps my husband's handwriting would become clearer if approached from a less traditional direction.
Finally, she leaned her head back against the cushion and groaned with such dramatic misery that I turned from the window.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
Lillian lifted the parchment as though presenting evidence of a crime. "No. I am suffering."
I smiled before I could stop myself.
She lowered her head and pointed at the page.
"I hate when he writes documents at night.
I truly do. I think he waits until the worst possible hour, stares at the page with one functioning eye, decides vision is a weakness invented by cowards, and then produces this.
" She shook the parchment once, disgusted.
"This is not handwriting. This is what happens when ink loses the will to live. "
A laugh slipped from me, soft at first, then warmer when she looked personally betrayed by my amusement.
The terrible thing was that I understood exactly what she meant.
Achilles had beautiful handwriting when he wrote during the day, almost offensively beautiful for a man who spent most of his life making war look orderly.
His letters were sharp, controlled, elegant, and precise.
There was something irritatingly graceful about the way he wrote, as though even his ink knew better than to embarrass him.
But at night, especially when he had worked too long, his handwriting slowly deteriorated into something far less imperial.
The lines leaned. The letters tightened.
Words began crowding one another like soldiers trapped in a narrow hallway.
By the final page, it often looked as if the alphabet had offended him and he had decided to punish it.
"I have noticed," I admitted, smiling as I thought of him sitting at his desk beneath dying candlelight, shoulders tense, jaw set, glaring down at parchment as if the document itself had committed treason.
"The more tired he becomes, the worse it gets.
He starts out with beautiful penmanship and ends the night writing like a man threatening the page. "
"Exactly," Lillian said, sitting up so quickly one of the papers slid from her lap.
"Thank you. Finally, someone understands.
He knows his eyesight is terrible at night, but does he stop working?
No. Does he ask someone else to write it?
No. Does he wear his glasses like a sane person who wishes to preserve the lives of everyone forced to translate his midnight scribbles? Also no."
I blinked.
The carriage seemed to go quieter around me.
"His glasses?" I asked.
Lillian froze.
It was small, just a slight pause in her breathing and a widening of her eyes, but I saw it. Her gaze flicked from the paper to me, then to the window, then back to me with the expression of someone realizing she had stepped directly onto a trap she had built herself.
"Oh," she said.
I sat up a little straighter, though the movement immediately reminded me that my body still disliked quick decisions. A dull wave of dizziness moved through me, and I steadied myself against the cushion before focusing on her again. "What do you mean, oh?"
Lillian winced. "I mean... oh, as in I may have just said something I was not supposed to say, and your husband is going to turn my bones into decorative objects."
I stared at her.
She cleared her throat and looked down at the parchment with sudden intense interest. "Lovely morning, isn't it?"
"Lillian."
She looked up with the reluctant expression of a woman being escorted toward her own execution.
Lillian sighed and rubbed the heel of her hand against her forehead. "I do not know everything. I should say that. I overheard things over the years, mostly from Mother and Elias, and sometimes from physicians who assumed children lurking in hallways were furniture. I know pieces. Not all of it."
I waited.
"His burn is not only skin deep," she said carefully.
"His face, yes, but also the eye. The lighter one.
It is damaged. That is why it looks that way.
From what I understand, it strains easily, especially in low light, and the strain makes the headaches worse.
There may be muscle damage too. I am not a physician, obviously, though I have stabbed enough people to have strong opinions about anatomy, but I know enough to say that your husband is constantly hurting more than he lets anyone see. "
I looked down at my hands.
The sunlight moved over my fingers, catching on the faint bruises still scattered across my skin. My hands looked too thin lately. Too pale. I curled them slowly into my lap and listened as her words settled into places I had not known were waiting for them.
The headaches.
His closed eyes in the throne room.
The way he sometimes sat completely still while nobles argued, one hand resting near his temple, expression so cold everyone assumed he was silently deciding who deserved death.
I had assumed it too at first. Later, once I knew him better, I thought he closed his eyes because he was irritated or thinking or trying not to murder someone before lunch.
Now I wondered if he had simply been in pain.
I remembered him waking some mornings with his hand pressed against the scarred side of his face.
I remembered how still he became during storms, how his jaw tightened when the weather changed, how he sometimes turned lamps higher late at night and continued working anyway.
I remembered making him tea, strengthening the herbs based on the medicines already prescribed to him, watching him drink it with that look of betrayal he gave anything bitter.
I remembered never asking how bad it truly was.
That realization hurt.
Not because he hid things from me. He did hide things, of course.
My husband could conceal pain with the dedication of a man hiding bodies beneath a garden.
But I had also allowed his silence to become convenient.
I loved him. I cared for him. I noticed when he was tired.
I made medicine. I worried. But I had not asked the questions he always asked me.
He asked where I hurt. He asked how badly.
He asked what helped. He asked whether I had eaten, slept, rested, swallowed, breathed.
He made my pain impossible to hide because he looked for it constantly.
I had assumed his pain belonged to him because he carried it so well.
That thought ashamed me.
"He hates talking about it," Lillian said more softly.
Her usual brightness had dimmed, not disappeared, but settled into something gentler.
"I think he worries people will look at him differently.
Like he is less capable. Less dangerous.
Less fit to rule. Which is stupid, obviously, because I have seen the man half-blind, half-starved, and actively bleeding, and he still managed to scare three grown soldiers into apologizing to a door they had opened too loudly. "
Despite myself, I smiled.
That sounded exactly like him.
My terrifying, ridiculous husband.
The emperor who could conquer kingdoms but apparently drew the line at wearing glasses.
I looked out the window, and the sunlight suddenly seemed too bright.
The idea should have made me sad, and part of it did.
I hated the thought of him hurting quietly.
I hated the thought of him forcing himself through pain because pride had wrapped itself too tightly around old wounds.
But somewhere beneath the sadness, something warm and absurdly affectionate bloomed.
Glasses.
My husband had glasses.
Hidden glasses, apparently.
Secret glasses.
Forbidden imperial spectacles.
I pressed my lips together because laughter felt terribly inappropriate.
And then my mind betrayed me completely.
I pictured him in his office, seated behind that enormous desk, black hair slightly disheveled from running his hands through it too often, sleeves rolled to his forearms, one scarred side of his face caught in shadow, the other lit by candlelight.
I imagined him wearing glasses low on his nose, looking up from a document with that cold, murderous expression he used when someone interrupted him.
I imagined him threatening a minister while adjusting them.
I imagined him glaring over the rim at me when I bothered him, pretending annoyance while secretly pleased I entered the room.
Oh.
That was unfair.
Deeply unfair.
I stared very hard out the window.
Lillian narrowed her eyes. "You are thinking something dangerous."
"I am thinking," I said carefully, "that my husband is stubborn."
"That is generous."
"And foolish."
"That is accurate."
"And perhaps," I continued, keeping my voice calm while my imagination became increasingly unhelpful, "he would look very handsome in glasses."
Lillian went silent.
Then very slowly, she smiled.
It was not Veronica's smile exactly. Veronica's smile made people consider confessing crimes they had not committed. Lillian's smile was brighter, more mischievous, less murderous, though clearly raised by someone who considered manipulation a family skill.
"Oh," she said again, only this time with delight. "Oh, you are dangerous."
I leaned back against the cushion, tired but suddenly amused in a way I had not felt since leaving the palace. "I am his wife."
"That is worse."
"It is."
Because the truth was, I knew my husband.
I knew he was frightening. I knew people saw him and thought tyrant, conqueror, monster.
All of that was true in its own way. He was cruel when cruelty served him.
He was brutal when brutality was useful.
He would burn a room down and stand calmly in the ashes if he believed it protected what belonged to him.
But he would also drink disgusting medicine if I held the cup long enough.
He would sit through my lectures while pretending he had not already surrendered three sentences in.
He would change policies because I asked with enough gentleness to make refusal feel like kicking a wounded bird.
He would complain, glare, threaten, and then eventually do whatever kept me happy if he believed it truly mattered.
And I knew that.
I knew the power I held.
I tried not to abuse it.
Mostly.
But I was not as innocent as everyone seemed to think.
Kindness is not the same as ignorance. Softness is not the same as helplessness.
My husband liked to pretend he ruled everything around him, but I knew perfectly well that if I looked at him with wet enough eyes and the right amount of silence, he would rearrange half the empire before admitting he had been moved.
Was that manipulation?
Perhaps.
Was I above using it if it meant making him wear something that eased his pain and fulfilled one of my newly discovered fantasies?
Absolutely not.
A wife must have principles.
I looked back at Lillian. "Do you know where he keeps them?"
She stared at me for a second, then laughed, bright and delighted. "You are going to get me killed."
"I will protect you."
"How?"
I considered that.
Then smiled. "I have my ways."
Lillian placed a hand over her heart. "That is horrifying."
She laughed again, then leaned closer as if sharing state secrets. "I do not know where he keeps them now, but if he still has the pair Mother ordered made years ago, he likely hides them wherever he keeps things he pretends not to need."
"That narrows nothing down."
"It really does not."
I looked out at the brightening morning and felt my smile soften.
The ache was still there. I missed him. I missed his warmth.
I missed his hand around mine. I missed the way he hovered when he thought I was not noticing.
I missed how terrifyingly silent he became when trying not to say something sentimental.
I missed lying in his arms and feeling the world become smaller, safer, less sharp.
I missed my husband so badly that it pressed against my ribs with every breath.
But now, beneath that ache, there was something else.
A thread of anticipation.
A small ridiculous mission.
A reason to return that was not only survival, not only duty, not only fear.
I wanted to go home. I wanted to find his glasses.
I wanted to ask him questions he would hate answering.
I wanted to make him tell me where it hurt and how badly and how long he had pretended it did not.
I wanted to sit in his lap while he grumbled about weakness and gently remind him that allowing his wife to care for him was not the collapse of civilization.
I wanted him to wear the glasses, first because they would help him, second because I wished to see him stop hurting, and third because I was almost certain they would check off one of my fantasies.
Only fifty more to go after that.
The thought made me smile wider.
Lillian watched me suspiciously. "You look pleased."
"I am planning."
"As long as your plan doesn't get both of us killed than i will gladly help ."
"well he won't hurt me so i know I'm fine ."
"great so I'll just pick out my casket now ."
I laughed softly and rested a hand over my stomach.
The child moved faintly, or perhaps I imagined it.
Either way, warmth settled through me. Maybe it was the sun.
Maybe it was the thought of my husband sitting at his desk in glasses looking furious and beautiful.
Maybe it was the relief of remembering that leaving did not mean losing.
Maybe it was simply the first clear morning after a storm.
Whatever it was, I held onto it.
My body still ached. My throat still burned. My skin still felt too fragile. Exhaustion sat heavily in my bones, reminding me with every breath that I was not well. Even smiling took effort if I held it too long. But my heart felt awake in a way it had not since the carriage left the palace.
I wanted to go back to him, crawl into his arms, press my face against his chest, and stay there long enough to make him regret ever allowing me out of his sight.
Then, when he was trapped and emotionally vulnerable, I would mention the glasses.
Carefully.
Sweetly.
With love.
And if that failed, I would cry.
A little.
For his health, of course.
The sun climbed higher through the clearing clouds, spilling gold across the carriage and warming the space between Lillian and me.
The rain had stopped. The road ahead gleamed wet and bright.
Behind us, my husband remained in the palace, probably already pretending he did not miss me, probably glaring at paperwork, probably squinting at some horrible document while refusing the simple mercy of corrective lenses.
I leaned back into the cushions, smiled to myself, and decided that surviving had just become even more important.
After all, I had a child to protect, a home to return to, and a stubborn emperor to force into wearing glasses.