Chapter 35 - Quiet Between Storms
By the time the doors of his office close behind us, I feel as though I have been holding my breath for hours.
The sound of the latch settling into place is small, almost delicate, and yet it cuts the noise of the throne room from me so completely that my entire body seems to understand before my mind does.
My shoulders drop. The tightness in my chest loosens just enough to hurt.
I walk three steps into the room and stop there, in the middle of his private space, and cover my face with both hands.
For a moment, I simply stand like that.
Breathing.
Trying to gather myself.
Trying to make the sound of my own pulse stop roaring in my ears.
His office is no different than the rest of the palace.
The walls are paneled in dark wood rather than stone, heavy shelves lined with books, ledgers, and maps stretching toward the ceiling.
A low fire burns in the hearth, and its light mixes with the afternoon sun filtering through tall windows, turning the room into a place of warm gold and dark shadow.
Ink and paper and smoke linger in the air.
Several swords hang on one wall, polished and ready, their metal catching the firelight whenever it flickers high enough.
It is a room made for a man who rules by calculation and violence.
Nothing in it is soft.
Nothing in it is accidental.
Behind me, I hear him move.
The sound of the door shutting.
The faint click of the lock.
Then his low chuckle, dry and amused and somehow still dangerous.
"You would have had less of a headache," he says, "if you had simply let me kill them."
I lower my hands slowly and look over my shoulder at him.
He stands near the door, broad-shouldered and unhurried, one hand still resting lightly against the wood as if he has all the time in the world.
The light catches the scarred side of his face, tracing the uneven lines of healed ruin.
There is no tension in his posture, no sign that the scene in the throne room disturbed him at all.
He looks as he always does after threatening half a room to silence, calm, composed, faintly irritated, as though the entire affair had merely interrupted more important work.
I sigh.
"Bloodshed cannot always be the solution."
He pushes away from the door and begins walking toward his desk.
"Yet, it remains my favorite one."
Of course it does.
I close my eyes briefly, then turn toward the windows and move there almost on instinct.
Outside, beyond the glass, the inner gardens stretch beneath the pale afternoon sky.
I can see the tops of clipped hedges, gravel paths, a fountain glinting in the light.
Everything below looks clean and orderly and calm, as though the world has not just watched my husband press a blade to my sister's throat and threaten to water the earth with her blood.
Behind me, I hear the scrape of a chair.
He sits.
Paper shifts. A drawer opens. Then closes.
When I look back, he is already at work.
Of course he is.
One moment, he is a blade held against my family's skin, and the next, he is seated behind a broad desk of dark, polished wood, sorting through petitions and reports as if cruelty and governance are merely different hands of the same clock.
That, more than anything, is why they fear him.
Not because he is violent.
Because he is efficient.
Because violence never rattles him enough to interrupt his day.
I lean one hand against the edge of the window frame and watch him in silence for a few moments.
The desk suits him. It makes him look even more like what people say he is a king built of iron and bad weather, someone too sharp to touch and too dangerous to trust. Papers lie spread before him in disciplined stacks, maps marked in ink and wax, sealed correspondence from people whose names likely matter very much to them and very little to him.
His sleeves are rolled just enough to show the lines of old scars crossing the backs of his hands.
One knife lies beside the inkstand, another tucked into the side of the desk within easy reach.
I think suddenly, absurdly, that even his stillness looks armed.
"We will have to eat with them," I say at last.
He does not look up right away.
"We do not have to do anything."
I let out a soft breath.
"You are right."
"I usually am."
The answer is so immediate and so effortless that under any other circumstances it might have made me smile.
"But," I continue, "it will look strange if husband and wife dine separately from their guests."
That makes him glance up.
His eyes land on me, dark and direct.
"Strange to whom?"
"To everyone."
I push away from the window and begin walking slowly through the room, trailing my fingertips across the back of one of the chairs, then the edge of a shelf.
I do it mostly to keep my hands busy. The energy from the throne room is still in me, not fear exactly, but something close to it, too much feeling with nowhere to go.
"People already watch us," I say. "They watch the way we sit beside each other in court, who speaks first, who looks at whom, whether we leave together, whether we stand too close or too far apart."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It is."
I keep moving, slowly circling nearer his desk. The office draws me in against my better judgment. I have never really been inside it before, not properly. I have seen it from the doorway, perhaps, or while passing, but not like this. Not with him in it, and I was allowed to wander.
There are books here I have never seen before.
A globe in the corner. A half-open cabinet filled with sealed bottles and small lockboxes.
Military reports written in hands so sharp they look angry even on paper.
A folded cloak draped over the back of another chair.
It all feels intimate in a way that startles me, though I would never say that aloud.
"If we begin eating separately from our guests," I say, "people will talk."
"People always talk."
"They will talk more."
He considers that.
His fingers tap once against the edge of the parchment beneath his hand.
"And that," I finish, "will become another headache."
He leans back slightly in his chair and studies me for a moment.
"You concern yourself too much with appearances."
I stop in front of the desk.
"I concern myself with consequences."
The answer comes more quietly than I intend.
His gaze sharpens just a little, though not in anger.
For a few moments, neither of us speaks.
The fire shifts in the hearth. A log settles inward, sending a rush of sparks up through the grate. Somewhere beyond the door, far down the corridor, I can hear footsteps pass and fade. The whole palace seems very far away from this room.
I lower my eyes briefly, then look back at him.
"I hope they behave."
The words feel childish the moment I say them.
Hope.
As though my family has ever done anything in my life to teach me it deserves the word.
He watches me with that same impossible stillness.
"If they do not," he says, "I will have to deal with it."
The answer is simple.
Cold.
Certain.
It sends a little shiver through me.
"You say that so easily."
He tilts his head slightly.
"It is easy."
I believe him.
That is the problem with him. Even his worst threats never sound like posturing. There is no performance in them. He says terrible things the way other men discuss weather or road conditions, as if bloodshed is simply another tool to be reached for when a problem becomes inconvenient enough.
My family does not understand that. They think that because he did not kill them immediately, they are safe.
They are wrong.
"If they step out of line again," I say softly, "you can not stop."
"You will not be able to save them."
I let out a slow breath.
"I know."
The room falls quiet again.
I do not know what comes over me then.
Perhaps it is the aftermath of the throne room still living under my skin. Perhaps it is exhaustion. Perhaps it is the dangerous, strange warmth that has been growing in me every time he looks at me, not like a queen or a burden or a responsibility, but like something he has chosen to keep alive.
Whatever it is, it moves through me before caution can catch up.
I step closer to the desk.
Close enough now that he has to turn his chair slightly just to keep looking at me properly.
His attention follows me immediately.
And then, before I can think better of it, I lift my hand and touch his face.
It is such a small thing, and yet it feels enormous.
My fingertips rest along the scarred side of his jaw, just below his cheekbone. His skin is warm. The line of old damage beneath it is uneven, familiar now in a way that still unsettles me. For one heartbeat, I only hold him there, my breath caught somewhere between fear and wonder.
Then I lean down and kiss him.
It is brief.
Soft.
Almost painfully so.
Just enough to feel the warmth of his mouth beneath mine. Just enough to prove to myself that the memory of the morning was real and I did not invent it out of loneliness and wishful thinking.
The instant I pull back, horror follows.
I step away too fast.
"I'm sorry."
The apology comes at once.
"It was thoughtless. I know I should not have—"
I stop because his expression has changed.
Not to anger.
That would have been easier.
He looks at me with something darker than that. More focused. More dangerous.
I force myself to keep going, because silence has never saved me.
"I just wanted..." My face grows hot. "One more kiss."
The words sound ridiculous out loud.
"I wanted to be sure I was not daydreaming."
For a moment, he says nothing.
Then he laughs.
It is not loud. It is not cruel. But it is enough to make my stomach twist all over again.
"And what else," he asks, leaning back in the chair as if this amuses him far too much, "do you daydream about that involves me?"
Heat climbs instantly into my face.
"I—nothing."
"A lie."
"I should go."
I turn too quickly.
I do not make it even half a step.
His hand catches my wrist before I can fully understand what is happening.
The chair scrapes softly against the floor.
Air leaves my lungs in a startled breath.
Then suddenly I am no longer standing at all.
I am in his lap.
The shock of it steals my words completely.
His arm wraps around my waist before I can move, holding me there with infuriating ease. He sits back as though this is the most natural thing in the world, as though I belong exactly where he put me.
"Leaving already?" he murmurs.
My pulse is wild now.
His hand rises to my face, fingers curving beneath my chin until he tips my head up to look at him.
"You forget something," he says.
His voice is lower now.
Rougher.
My throat feels dry.
"I'm your husband."
The words should not make me shiver.
They do.
"You may kiss me whenever you please."
And then he kisses me.
This one is not like the morning.
Not soft in the same careful, asking way.
There is still restraint in it, yes, he has not forgotten himself, and perhaps that is the most dangerous thing of all, but beneath that restraint is something hotter, darker, like a fire held behind iron doors.
His mouth moves over mine slowly, deliberately, and his hand slides to the back of my neck as though he means to keep me exactly where I am until I stop thinking about escaping and start thinking only about him.
Which, humiliatingly, happens almost at once.
I make a small sound against his mouth, too surprised to hide it.
His arm tightens around my waist.
The office disappears.
The throne room disappears.
My family disappears.
There is only the heat of his chest beneath my hands, the smell of smoke and leather and steel clinging to him, the steady, terrifying certainty of the man holding me as if the world beyond this room has no right to interrupt.
I kiss him back.
Slowly at first.
Then, with more confidence, when he makes no effort to stop me.
My fingers fist in the front of his coat. His mouth deepens over mine, and for one dizzy, impossible moment, I forget every reason I should still be afraid.
Or perhaps I do not forget.
Perhaps I simply want him anyway. Which is worse. Which is dangerous. Which feels so much like falling that I almost pull away out of sheer instinct.
He notices the change before I do.
Of course he does.
His mouth leaves mine just enough that I can breathe. His forehead rests briefly against mine.
"Still afraid?"
The question is quiet.
Not mocking.
Not kind either. Simply true.
I do not know how to answer.
So I say nothing.
His thumb brushes the line of my jaw.
"I know."
The words should shame me.
Instead, they loosen something in me.
Because he knows.
And he is still here.
Still holding me.
Still looking at me like I am something worth frightening himself over.
I do not understand him.
I understand even less what is happening between us.
He is still the man who could order my death before dinner and sleep well that night.
Still, the king whose silence terrifies rooms full of armed men.
Still, the blade everyone fears being noticed by.
And yet he is also the man who caught me when I fell, fixed my wrist instead of punishing me, asked before kissing me, and now holds me in his lap as though there is nowhere else he would rather have me.
I should know what to do with that.
I do not.