On her left hand, the orchid ring—the Abiding Ring I’d supposedly claimed along with her hand in marriage, for all the good it did me—bloomed in splendor, ruffled petals somehow sexual and magical.
The wig she’d donned to match the outfit was also ebony black—possibly the same one she’d worn for our wedding ball—but elaborately styled so that a long curl draped over one shoulder, the rest forming a coiling nest for the glittering crown of Calanthe. Lia’s makeup was all in stark black and white also. Even her lips had been painted glossy black, diamonds glittering at the corners of her mouth, at the two top points, and with a larger one centered in the full lower lip. The crown of jewels in the blues and greens of Calanthe’s gentle seas was the only point of color, besides the orchid on her hand.
Well, and the blue-gray of her eyes, a color that should have been misty but came across as crystal-shard-sharp as the beads on her gown when she assessed me from beneath diamond-tipped black lashes. Lia moved with swaying grace toward me, apparently unhurried, her expression as coolly composed as always. But I didn’t miss the tension simmering in her.
She paused a decorous distance before me, and I restrained the urge to bow. Yet another reason I’d hated court—or being with her in formal settings—was that I didn’t know the rules for how to behave. When it was just us, man and woman, me and Lia, preferably naked, I knew how to handle her. With Her Highness Queen Euthalia …
“Good morning, Conrí,” she said, her smoothly cultured voice sweet as flowers. “I trust you’re enjoying My gardens? It’s a lovely day for it.”
I barely managed not to wince, or apologize—especially not for refusing to waste time in court when it would only lead to another argument between us. Instead I gave in to the urge to acknowledge her beauty by taking her hand, the one without the orchid ring, bending over it and pressing a kiss to her fingers. As always, she smelled of flowers or the inside of a leaf, as if her petal-soft skin emanated the scent naturally. She curled those nails, sharp as thorns, against my palm in subtle warning. I straightened and gave her a long, cautious look.
“Good morning, wife,” I replied, not above needling her in return. Her eyes narrowed in smoky ire. “I understand there’s news from our illustrious imperial overlord?”
That narrow gaze flicked to Ambrose and back to me. “Indeed, Conrí,” she replied with decorous boredom. “His Imperial Majesty Emperor Anure has sent Me a letter.” She lifted her free hand, flicking the black-tipped nails with languid demand, the orchid ring’s petals billowing with the movement, and her lady Ibolya set an envelope in the cage of them. The light-gray paper had been folded in intricate lines, then embossed in darker gray with an image of Anure’s citadel at Yekpehr, the rocks jagged and menacing.
She spun the envelope to extend it to me, as Sondra might flick one of her blades. Lia’s expression remained opaque, eyes guileless. “While I hate to interrupt your idyll in the garden, perhaps I could trouble you with your attention to this.”
Oh yeah, Lia was pissed as hell. I could only hope it wasn’t all aimed at me.
2
With a wary look, Con took Anure’s envelope from me. I had to control the impulse to scrub my hand against my skirt to rid myself of Anure’s taint. Even though I’d kept his letter pinned in my nails and not touching my skin, I’d loathed having the vile thing near me, and I’d been hard-pressed not to show how much its contents had shaken my already tenuous composure. The ice I’d been carefully layering around my heart all these long years of ruling alone had begun to fail me. Too much stress. Too much Con and his hotheadedness.
Too many feelings I didn’t know how to control.
Thus, I was more than happy to hand the letter into Con’s keeping. If only I could as easily rid myself of Anure’s words. I’d been reading his crazed and cruel missives for years, but this one had exceeded them all somehow, crawling under my skin like a filth I could never remove. They corroded my already fragile barriers, making me feel weak.
I hated feeling weak.
And now Con just stood there, holding Anure’s letter instead of instantly reading it—assessing me as if he expected something more. Why wasn’t he reading the cursed thing? He’d been waiting for this moment, practically frothing at the mouth for action since our hasty wedding. Now, when he could act, he did nothing, staring me down.
I kept my chin high and expression composed, refusing to let him intimidate me. My wolf king hadn’t tamed much in the days since our marriage. Not that I’d expected him to, really.
As my consort, however, he could damn well spend a few hours in court to demonstrate he cared about Calanthe and respected my rule. Or at least give the appearance of doing so, to silence the snickers of the courtiers who already spun tales that I’d been coerced into this marriage and used by the erstwhile Slave King as surely as Anure had planned to do.
As Anure still planned to do. For every moment you make me wait …
If I had to be married, I should at least have the comfort of feeling a little less alone. There had been moments, brief glimpses here and there, when it seemed possible Con and I could be a team. When we actually understood each other. Those flashes of harmony shone with bright promise—usually during sex, admittedly—but vanished in the harsh light of morning.
In the final analysis, the two of us came from different worlds and I should have realized Con wouldn’t fit into mine. Even now he stood out in the gardens like a bloody sword thrust through a garland of jasmine. Scowling and seething, dressed in unrelieved black, and as always with his rough rock hammer strapped to his back and his bagiroca hanging heavily from his belt, Con was a warrior spoiling for a fight.
I could tell by the look in those golden eyes that he’d happily take that fight with me if I offered the opportunity. I toyed with the idea. I could needle him further to draw him into the argument he so clearly wanted.
No, I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. He had no business acting like the wounded party. He’d made me have to come to him, so it was up to him to make it up to me. As he’d yet to reply to me, I waited him out with cold expectation. He might have the strength to break me in half with those big hands if he chose, but politics were a familiar battleground for me and I knew how to wield my silences like a master.
“Perhaps, Your Highness,” Con finally said in his smoke-ruined voice, gravelly and deep, “we should discuss the contents of this letter in private.” He still held the envelope, not moving to open it, steady gaze on mine.
I jilted to a halt in my mental dance of triumph. I’d gained the upper hand by forcing him to speak first, but something was off. The beat of silence extended awkwardly while everyone waited on my reaction, their avid interest practically a scent in the air. Con and I were still new enough together that our protocols weren’t well worked out. It didn’t help that he’d turned out to be so obstinate about appearing in any formal capacity with me. Our public interactions were rare, frequently contentious, and apparently, endlessly fascinating to those around us.
When he’d first entered my court—had it only been a week? It seemed like forever ago—he’d requested a private audience and I’d used that impertinence as a weapon against him. No one had forgotten it, naturally. Then there’d been the very public argument over the Defense Council, which had added new fuel to the gossip wildfire. My court, ever lustful of new entertainment, watched all interactions between Con and me with gleeful anticipation of more juicy tidbits. I was loathe to fuel their hunger further.