Page 80 of Captive of the Stolen Empire

But something else, something that almost frightened me, urged me up Lucien’s stairs. Alone in my room with my thoughts or upstairs with someone who might make them fade to the back of my mind?

Lucien would be up there. I had no doubt of it. He’d never leave his door open otherwise, and the fact that it remained wide open meant only one thing.

An invitation.

My foot landed on the bottom step, a whisper of sound slipping off the stones. The smooth railing chilled my fingers as I gripped it, hanging on as I sealed my decision. His words from Trale haunted me day and night. Could he really want me? Not the heiress, not the captive, but just the worthless woman who remained?

The room looked much as I remembered, though possibly more books littered the shelves and tables. Lucien hunched over his desk, oblivious to my presence as he studied various pages in flickering candlelight. Pale streaks of moonlight crept across the floor from the open balcony whose curtains had been pulled back to let in the crisp night air. A soft gust raised chill bumps along my arms.

No armor graced his form. He was just himself. A man. Vulnerable.

The emperor’s first captain. Murderer. Torturer.

He should be the last person I’d ever go to for anything other than vengeance or my agenda, a knife in my hand to plunge it into his back. Yet at that moment, all I wanted was the man. The companionship. Someone who saw me, wanted me—Ilya. Not my title, my failures, or how they could use me.

I coughed lightly as my toes curled within the boots I’d worn on our journey.

Lucien jerked like a startled animal, head snapping to the side, before he relaxed against the back of his carved, wooden chair. “You came.”

His words filled the room, making it suddenly so much smaller than it had been moments ago.

“I did.”

Silence stretched, though my feet refused to move, and my thoughts failed to become words.

“Would you like to sit with me? Have a drink?” He hoisted a crystal glass from the table, the amber liquid within shimmering in the dim light.

As if we were friends or amiable companions. I nearly laughed.

Instead, I nodded, not trusting my words. He slid a book atop his papers and rose with fluid grace while gesturing toward a small seating area near a barely smoldering fireplace.

Amber liquid tumbled from a bottle into a fresh glass, one Lucien passed my way before taking the chair opposite the high-backed one I’d settled on.

Nerves tossed the wine already in my stomach like waves on the sea. I’d never been this apprehensive with him before. Not since the first night, when I thought his intentions far more sinister and cruel than they were.

I sipped at the liquid, and fire slid down my throat. Coughs racked me as I struggled to retain a hold upon the glass. A small amount of the vile substance sloshed over the rim onto my hand.

“Ilya, are you—”

“It’s terrible,” I wheezed.

Lucien’s shoulders shook as he fought the grin twitching his mouth. “It’s whiskey. They brew it in the small village to the west of here.”

“Disgusting. Horrid.” Nothing like the sweet wines they aged in Sorrena or the poor excuse for wine they served here. I held the glass at arm’s length, scowling as the last of the burning receded.

“Can’t let it go to waste.” Lucien took the glass. “You know, the first time I tried it, I had a similar response. Though I was only fourteen cycles or so. Our tutor used to talk about retreating into his room with his fiery sweetheart. We thought he’d trapped some poor woman in there, until Brishon snuck in a saw him talking to his whiskey glass. The next day, Zurina convinced him to steal a bottle of it. The three of us kept tasting it in different ways—gargling, sipping it upside down, talking to it like our tutor did—convinced that we must be doing it wrong because it burned so badly.” He laughed, the corners of his mouth stretching wide in a wry grin. “Our punishment wasn’t half so bad as the hangover.”

I forced a smile for his benefit. They really were a family, one that loved and cared for each other. One I aimed to destroy.

“You’re not yourself.”

“What do you mean?” I blinked, recovering from my spiraling thoughts.

“The fire that lives in your eyes, it’s dim.”

Not just mine. When I’d walked in, his shoulders had been hunched over his desk like the whole world threatened to crush him. I understood that. Too well. But what could I say?My friends think I’m a traitor. Reyna may be trying to play me.Neither of those would work. Lucien would end up asking too many questions that I couldn’t answer, not if I still hoped to aid the rebels.

The night pulled my attention. Wooded hills beyond the balcony were dark shadows upon the blanket of night and stars. “I’ve lost everything I once was. My whole life, I prepared to lead Sorrena and guide my people. But now, I have nothing. I am nothing.”

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