Page 29 of A Reign of Embers

In the thin dawn light, Raul leans over to give Aurelia another kiss and pads over to the hidden panel in the wall. As he disappears behind it, Aurelia sits up on the bed with a swipe of her eyes.

I gather myself onto my feet. I have a short opening before her maids arrive to ready her for the day.

“I don’t think dismissing Sabrelle is the wisest idea,” I say.

Aurelia blinks at me. She slides out from beneath the covers and pushes her rumpled hair back from her face. The nightgown is chaste enough, but seeing it summons images from all the times I thought we came together in one bed or another.

Mostly hallucination, she said. And every bit of affection she actually offered me was feigned.

She folds her arms over her chest, which only emphasizes the curve of her breasts. “Is there any particular reason, or do you simply not like me ignoring your chosen godlen?”

I grimace. How long will it take before she knows I want to advise her properly, not based on petty concerns? “It’s a simple matter of practicality. It should be far easier to swayone godlen than seven—with the assumption that Elox already favors you.”

“If everything were equal, I’d agree. But Sabrelle has already proven particularly vengeful and resistant to my appeals. If she’s ten times as unyielding as any of her fellow divinities, I’m better off focusing on them.”

There’s logic to that statement. The idea still twists me up inside in a way I can’t quite pin down.

Perhaps it’s this. “Don’t you think it’s possible that catering to all the other godlen ahead of her will only turn her more against you? You can’t win a war against a god.”

Aurelia turns her back on me to head to the bathing room. “I’m trying to avoid any war at all. She’s the one turning this situation into a catastrophe.”

“It’s not that simple. Aurelia?—”

When she keeps walking, a noise of frustration escapes me. I stride after her. “You don’t know the sway Sabrelle can impose. She was a driving force in the creation of this entire empire. You have to listen to me.”

As I catch up with her by the bathing room doorway, Aurelia whirls on me. “No, I don’t. Not when you have a personal stake in appeasing her. I have plenty of other people to advise me.”

My temper slips its reins. I snatch at her wrist where the gold band still gleams, my voice coming out harsher than I’d have intended. “I have a personal stake inyou.I’m still your husband.”

Aurelia wrenches her arm back. The wedding band flashes in the wan light.

Her gaze turns to steel. “You’re no longer my emperor. I’ll listen to you and consider what you have to say, which is more than you or your brother offered me most of the time you held the throne. But I don’t have to agree.”

My frustration curdles in my gut. “I didn’t mean?—”

“You did,” she says, quiet but firm. “You still think you can order me around if it’s important enough to you. I know I can benefit from your understanding of the empire, but you need to remember that I make the final decisions now. I earned that right. Or do you no longer believe that?”

Heat flares across my face, pricking hotter beneath the strange scarring that covers so much of it. Reminding me that I don’t even look like the man she strove to marry, the emperor who reigned over half the continent.

Every part of this situation is a mess, down to the muddling of my features. How is she ever going to want me when I’m permanently stained for all to see?

When I keep making mistakes no matter how hard I try to prove myself.

My stubbornness prevents me from giving way completely. “I’m not ordering you. I just think the matter deserves more of a conversation?—”

Aurelia cuts me off with a shake of her head. “No. I’ve been considering what Sabrelle might want for weeks, and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I’m running out of time before Valerisse makes good on her threats. I have to try another way.Myway, for once. Go back to your post.”

The coolness of the command seeps through to my bones. I set my jaw and drag myself back to the apartment door.

I think it’s over, a brief squabble like others we’ve had before. Maybe my words will sink in and she’ll give them more weight once she’s mulled them over.

The maids arrive to fuss over her, and we all proceed to the dining room for breakfast. As we step into the large space, Aurelia turns toward her host of guards, her gaze singling out me.

“I don’t need all of you attending to me quite so closelyin here. Marc, why don’t you make a circuit of the room and watch for signs of ill favor.”

My spine jerks straighter even as I restrain a wince. She may as well have slapped me. It’s a dismissal, a declaration that she wants me farther away from her.

Fine. I can show all due respect to my empress.

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