Page 134 of Last of His Blood
Time passed. The level of wine in the bottle slowly fell, and after a little while, it seemed that he grew tired. Bastin blinked as the words on the page blurred and fumbled for his cup. His mouth was so dry.
“Husband.”
The word seemed to come from very far away. Bastin started, staggering to his feet as the Empress slipped through the doors of his chamber. How had she gotten there? Who had let her in? He had given strict orders…
“What…” he tried to say, and she moved quickly to support him as he stumbled backward and nearly fell. His knees kept buckling under him. “How—guards!”
“Oh, dear, are you unwell?” Esmene’s voice filled with concern as she helped him to his bed. Everything was wavering and rippling around him, and by the time he realized where he was, she was already pushing him down on the bed. Her hand caught his chin, forcing him to look up at her. “Are you dizzy?”
“…esss…poison…” he slurred. Colors streaked past his eyes, and he squeezed them shut, nauseated. “Call…my guards…”
“No. I don’t think I will,” she said serenely, and he felt her hands as if through a muffling layer of thick velvet, tugging him, touching him. Bewildered though he was, he still recognized Esmene Melun. She was not allowed to touch him. He did not want her to touch him. She should never touch him.
“St…stop.” His tongue felt thick in his mouth, his arms wooden as he tried to shove her away. She batted his hands aside as if he were a child.
“My, itdoeswork on you,” she laughed, and he realized with horror that she had undone his belt and was unlacing his breeches. His eyes reeled up to her face, dizzy and disbelieving. The stars would see this. His eyes were the eyes of the stars.
“You…drugged me?”he whispered, trying to focus on her face. The motion of her silver hair blurred and streaked before his eyes, as if to conceal this terrible reality from him.
“Yes,” she said, and, grasping his jaw, poured something into his mouth.
His memory of that night would always be confused. Whatever she had given him, it made it impossible to tell whether an hour had passed or a year, as if there had never been anything but this sickening whirl of fury and helplessness and unwanted pleasure. Again and again, she brought him to orgasm, and it seemed he had barely sunk into a drugged stupor before she was shaking him awake to pour more of that vile concoction down his throat. He choked. He tried to spit it out, but she fed it to him with her own lips, sealing his mouth so he had no choice but to swallow.
Was there an aphrodisiac? There must be, he had never wanted anything less. But he couldn’t stop his body from rising, thrusting away like one of the sacred breeding bulls of Sachar Veche even as hot tears streaked down his cheeks. There was a roaring in his ears like the screaming of a crowd, cheering, cheering…
He could not even control his tears.
When she finally slipped out of his bed, it was morning. His head was light, so light it felt as if he might float away and never come back. His eyes rolled over and found her, the shape of her face wavering like a candle flame.
“Kill you…” he rasped. His hands fumbled for his trousers, a blanket, anything to cover his nakedness, but all he could feel was the mess she had left on his body. His voice sounded weakto his own ears, a sick mewling. It was just like his father had sounded in the last days before his death. “I will…kill you…”
“That would mean war,” Esmene said, slipping a robe over her shoulders. “A war that you would lose. I hope we will not need to repeat this lesson, husband. Youwillgive me a child.”
Bastin rolled onto his side, turning his back to her.
She was right.
He was ill for days afterward. Oh, physically he had recovered by the next morning, but it took a further three days for him to come to grips with the fact that someone had done that to him. It was not…possible.He was a man. Men did not…
And it was blasphemy. Worse than blasphemy. She had…pollutedhim. He was sacred, he was supposed to be sacred. What she had done was so terrible, he would have been within his rights to demand her public and prolonged execution.
But first, he would have to tell the Temple what she had done.
Would they even believe him?
It was well known that he despised his wife. There was no physical evidence of the crime, except for the bites and scratches on his body; the bottle of wine and his cup had both vanished, and no one in his household had even known she was there. Or so they said. Had she bought them? Had she entered his palace some other way? Did he have sufficient power and influence to accuse the Empress, daughter of House Melun, and have her executed for her crime?
Could Emperor Bastin Agnephus, the sacred scion of Ospret Far-Eyes, Beloved of the Stars, even trust his Temple with the secret of his shame?
No. He could not.
Huddled in his chambers, he ordered all his servants and guards out and barred the doors. He could hear the bells of the Eternal Vigil ringing, the tones that signaled the change as onepriest took over from the other. The prayer of the Eternal Vigil had continued uninterrupted for seven hundred and eighty-three years, continuously imploring the stars to look down upon their Beloved, to safeguard and protect the Emperor of Argence. Through all the hours that Esmene had been defiling him, he had heard the ringing of those bells.
The thought that she could do it again drove him nearly frantic.
What could he do? Where could he go? Who could he trust? To think he had been so proud, so confident that he was slowly but surely building his strength, increasing the wealth and power of the Emperor until one day he at least might have the right of self-determination. He had moved people into key positions. He had forced the Temple to pay what he was due, he was building a core guard that he had believed was loyal to him, and he had been patiently fostering alliances among the Houses and Courts of his Empire, right under the noses of House Melun.
But when it came to it, when itmattered,he did not even have the protection of the Temple that was builton him.
