Page 124 of A Reign of Embers

It isn’t as if I need to ask his permission. All the same, a companionable warmth lights in my chest with the knowledge that I had it anyway.

We don’t need to fight anymore. Not when we’re both so dedicated to the woman sleeping here.

Not when we have so many greater enemies to conquer.

I step to the bed, every particle in me clamoring to gather my wife in my arms, but looking down at my scabbed and dirt-streaked hands hovering over the pristine covers makes me balk.

Scars still mark my knuckles from where I bashed my fists against my bedroom wall so many times—but they’ve become faint with time. I’ve no longer needed to flail out ineffectually against the empire’s horrors.

The woman lying before me showed me a better way.

Before I can push myself onward, Aurelia stirs. Her eyelids flutter open. She gazes at me for one dreamy second as if she isn’t sure she’s woken up yet.

Then she flings back the bedspread and throws herself at me.

I catch her in my arms and hug her close. Her wild but sweet scent fills my nose, flooding away all the stenches of the road. Her body with its mix of softness and strength melds perfectly against my taller frame.

Our mouths collide, and I lose myself in the heady pleasure of kissing her. Of confirming she is mine and I am hers.

I’ll do whatever she needs from me—but gods willing, let me never have to leave her side again.

When our lips part, her voice spills out in a murmured rush. “When I heard—I was so worried— Did Valerisse find out you’d come?”

“No. I discovered her soldiers looting the governor’s house before I could get in there. Saw the men they were stringing up and heard the talk about marching, and I knew I had to get back.”

No need to mention the close calls. But everything else I witnessed?—

“Your plans have been working,” I hurtle on. “The other gods—they’ve been regaling Valerisse’s military camps with omens, trying to unsettle them. Prospira, Jurnus, Inganne—maybe more I didn’t see. They’re on your side. And I heard the soldiers talking?—”

“Hey.” Aurelia touches my face, her dark blue eyes capturing my soul. “You can tell us everything in a proper briefing later. Right now… I just want to celebrate that you made it back to me.”

I can’t hold back my grin. “Sabrelle herself couldn’t keep me away. But… I’m not in the best condition for any major celebrating.” I cast a critical glance down at my travel-soiled clothes. “I can’t remember the last time I had a bath.”

A mischievous light glints in Aurelia’s gaze. “We can take care of that right now.” She glances over at Marc. “If my maids come early, tell them I asked not to be disturbed yet.”

He nods, his penetrating gaze clinging to her like it so often does these days. But he doesn’t raise any protest when she takes my hand and walks me to her bathing room.

My empress sets the water running into the marble tub, a dollop of soap frothing it, and reaches for my shirt. I’m not about to let her do all the work. We yank the stained fabric off together.

“Couldn’t wait to get me undressed, huh?” I tease automatically.

Aurelia’s hands still by my waist. She looks up at me, enough anguish surfacing in her expression to drown my playful inclinations.

“You’ve done so much for me,” she says, her voice gone raw. “Let me look after you a little?”

My heart skips a beat and then pounds harder, but there’s nothing unpleasant about the heady thumping. It’s adifferent sort of thrill than the carnal sort I’m most used to provoking… but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Aurelia has two other men she can turn to for anything she needs—three now, going by the more affectionate vibe I’ve picked up on between her and Marc since his marriage ceremony for us. I’ve never thought of myself as having all that much extended value to a lady even without competition.

But it mattered so much to her that I returned. That I’m here with her, alive and well—the simple fact of it, even if I had no news to share, even if all I do with her in this moment is give in to her bathing me.

And that’s why I’d run all across the continent, through enemy armies and under burning skies, in an instant if she asked it of me again.

So much love wells up inside me I can barely breathe. Thisisn’tgoing to be only a bath, no matter what she’d be satisfied with.

I kick off my shoes while she loosens the ties on my trousers. After shedding pants and drawers, I’m stripped of everything but the ring that binds my heart to hers, but you’d have to cut that off my finger to remove it.

I step into the rising water of the bath before any more stink of the road can drift off me.

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