The Bitter Kingdom

The mayordomo clears his throat. We’ve stood here too long. Hector’s gaze on me is open and patient, as though he’s waiting for something. I don’t know what else to do, so I stretch up on my tiptoes and give him a light kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Hector,” I say, and I step inside my room.

The door doesn’t slam shut behind me, but I feel like it does, the bang too loud and too echoing, leaving me too alone. I should think about tomorrow’s parliament and prepare my arguments. I should go over everything I observed today and build my strategy around it.

But all I can do is stare helplessly at the other door to my right, the one that joins Hector’s suite to mine, thinking about the slight prick of stubble against my lips when I kissed him, the scents of oiled armor and shaving soap that always tickle my nose whenever he is near.

“When we reach Basajuan,” he said, “maybe I can get you to myself for a while.”

I should knock on the door. This is it. As good a time as any. We might not have another opportunity to be alone for weeks. I raise my fist.

I let my hand drop. Maybe he needs some time to himself. He’s probably as exhausted as I am. Maybe he wants to bathe. Or sleep.

Maybe he’s changed his mind.

I’ve just endured another battle. I killed again. I saw friends and family today I haven’t seen in more than a year. I learned that my father has died. It’s ridiculous that all I can think about is whether or not Hector wants me as much as I want him.

I whirl away from the door, recognizing my own foolishness, my own weakness.

The scent of jasmine draws me toward the tiled bathing area. It’s much smaller than my bathing atrium at home, and the tub is a round wooden creature with iron joints that are worn from so many rustings and polishings. But it brims with steaming water and floating rose petals. Two plush towels lie folded beside it, and hanging on a peg nearby is a lovely white dressing gown trimmed in lace.

I will bathe first, I decide, and then I will screw up my courage to knock on the door.

I shuck my boots, pants, and blouse, and step inside. The water is glorious—fragrant and soothing hot. I sink neck deep and scrub days of travel from my skin, from under my fingernails, from my calloused feet. I admire the shape of my legs. Days on the trail have rounded my calves, brought tautness to my thighs. I’ll never be elegant and willowy like Cosmé or Alodia, but I’m healthy and strong. I’m glad for what I’ve become.

I lather my hair and scrub my scalp, then duck underwater to remove the excess soap. Water sluices off me as I get to my feet. I douse myself with the rinse bucket, then towel down. The cotton weave of my dressing gown is so fine that it feels lovely against my skin. Like silk. Like a lover’s touch. Or so I imagine.

I sit on the edge of the bed and start working a comb through my hair. My hair is always horribly tangled after a bath. The trick is to get it combed out before it dries enough for the waves to set in, which make combing even more difficult.

Even after my hair is tangle free, I continue combing. Finally I fold my dirty clothes into a neat pile so I can either have them laundered or stashed in my pack in a hurry.

I look around for something else to do. Then I plunk back onto the bed, my face falling into my hands. I’m wasting time with my barely acknowledged hope that Hector will be the one to knock.

Yes, our love is a mutual thing, a thing between equals, but we can’t escape the fact that I am his queen. It is up to me whether or not we see each other this night. I must decide.

I walk to the door. I take a deep breath. I knock.

It swings open so fast I recoil a few steps.

Hector’s hair is damp and curling from a recent bath. He wears a fresh pair of pants and a white gentleman’s blouse, untucked. His feet are bare.

Neither of us moves.

“Good evening,” I say, then curse myself for stupidity.

But he answers in kind. “Good evening.” He runs a hand through his hair and says, “I wasn’t sure . . . that is, I thought with the battle today, and learning about your father, and—”

I blurt, “Are you going to come inside or not?”

His face breaks into a wide grin, and he steps inside, shuts the door behind him, and pulls me into his arms.

We fit together so beautifully, and without my bodice, without his armor, I can feel him at last, and I am dizzy with it.

“I’m a little nervous,” he admits.

“Me too,” I whisper. “We’ll probably be awkward and ridiculous.”

He reaches for the ties of my nightgown, and I marvel how the slightest touch of his fingertips on my neck can make me shiver so. “Probably. But you and I”—he brushes the collar of the gown aside—“are students of knowledge. We believe in careful practice to attain perfection.”

“Yes, practice,” I breathe as he leans down to kiss the collarbone he just bared. “I am a very good student,” I manage.

He slips my dressing gown off the other shoulder. It drops to the ground, and I am n**ed before him.

“I never peeked, you know,” he says. “I always turned my back.”

“I know.”

But he’s looking now, and looking thoroughly, as I tell my worries and my nervousness to go bury themselves in a snowdrift. His gaze roves the entire length of my body, and it’s almost a palpable thing, this caressing with the eyes. I grab his hands and back toward the bed, my skin flushed everywhere, with desire, with fear, maybe a little shame at being so exposed. But the urge to cover myself drains away when he says breathlessly, “You are even more beautiful than I imagined.”

I lie back, and he bends over—toward the Godstone. He studies it carefully. Then he lowers his head as if to kiss it, and my heart breaks a little. Because even though everything in my life is about the Godstone, always the Godstone, I want this to be a magical exception. I want this to be just about me. Heartsick, I lift my hands to push his head away.

But his lips brush my skin, and I gasp. I’ve misread him.

It’s not the Godstone that had captured his attention; he doesn’t even seem to know it’s there. Instead, he’s kissing the scar I received from an assassin’s dagger, all along its near-deadly length. Tears prick at my eyes.

“This,” he says, “won’t happen again.” He straightens to pull off his shirt and toss it aside. I swallow hard. He is strong and dark and so beautiful my chest aches.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’ll keep this one.”

“Well,” I say, unable to tear my gaze away from him. “If a scar makes you kiss me like that, I might hire some mercenaries to give me a few more.”

“No need to go to such lengths,” he says with a half smile. He puts a hand to either side of my head, then he dips to kiss me hard. I wrap my arms around him and pull him tight against me, not wanting even a whisper of air between us.

Hector sighs into my neck. He says, “I love you, Elisa.”

We are awkward and ridiculous, with knees and elbows and bedsheets in all the wrong places, and even some laughter. But after a while, the awkwardness is subsumed with warmth and light and the tenderest moments I’ve ever known. It’s not perfection yet, but it’s perfect.

35

IT is not quite morning. The air is cool but not cold, for winter is gentler here in Basajuan. The open windows of my suite face eastward. A breeze flirts with the wispy ivory curtains, flashing views of jagged mountains that are black in relief against the bright edge of dawn.

Strange to think that I just came out of those mountains. They look so huge and foreboding, yet my companions and I conquered them thoroughly.

Hector stirs beside me but does not wake. I don’t know how he’s managed it, but the top sheet is twisted inextricably around his leg. He has shifted toward the middle, arms flung wide, and I think, We are going to need a bigger bed.

I study everything about him, memorizing each detail—the tiny freckle at the crease of one eye, the morning stubble that contrasts so beautifully with his pale lips, the puckered scar running across his lower back. I want to know the stories behind every one of his scars.

I can’t help myself; I reach out and gently trace it.

His eyes flutter open. “Good morning,” he says sleepily.

In answer, I kiss him hard. His arms snake around me and he pulls me against him. “I guess this means you have no regrets?” he says, and his hands start exploring my body in very interesting ways.

“None. I’m so glad it was you,” I say. “And not—and not . . .”

“Alejandro.”

“Yes.”

He releases me in order to lift a lock of my hair, which he studies intently. “I admit,” he says, rubbing the hair between thumb and forefinger, “there were times I wanted to punch him.”

“Oh?” Never, ever have I heard him say such a thing. “Why?”

Hector’s eyes grow distant. “The way he treated you. He had the greatest prize of all, and he didn’t realize it until it was too late.” He leans forward and kisses me soundly, then says, “Can’t seem to help myself anymore.”

I put a forefinger to his lips to forestall yet another kiss, even though I’m smiling. “Wait. Just how long, exactly, have you been in love with me?”

He winces. “It’s highly inappropriate.”

My eyes widen. “Hector! Tell me!”

He flops onto his back to stare up at the canopy. “Remember the day I found you here in Basajuan?”

That long ago? “Yes. You saved me from Conde Treviño.”

He snorts. “Hardly. As I recall, I walked into his office to find that you had pinned him to his desk, holding his own daggers to his throat.”

I grab his hand and bring his fingers to my lips. Never in my life have I been so glad to see someone as I was to see Hector that day. “A few reinforcements would have had me dead in moments. If you hadn’t walked in when you did . . .”

“Afterward, one of my men said, ‘I’m so glad you recognized the princess. I was about to put a sword through her, for raising a blade to a nobleman of the realm.’ And I had to ask myself—how did I know it was Elisa?”

I don’t remember any of Hector’s men being there. Just him.

He turns onto his side to face me. “You had changed so much,” he murmurs into my hair. “You were wearing the clothes of a desert warrior, holding weapons. Your back was turned. But I knew it was you. Instantly. I had memorized everything about you. The way you stood, the way you moved, the sound of your voice, the sheen of your hair. . . .”

I blink against threatening tears. Hector loved me even then. Before I found my own way. Before I did or became anything.

“Your turn,” he says. “When did you know?”

“When I healed you. The thought of you dying . . . it was awful.”

His smile is as bright as the sun, and I marvel that I have such power over this man, that a mere declaration of love can affect him so.

“Hector, going back to Brisadulce might be the scariest thing we’ve faced together. I mean, it’s civil war there. And a civil war is a particularly awful sort of war, with friends and family fighting against one another, killing one another.”

He nods. “I’m sure General Luz-Manuel has control of the palace and the city. We’ll have to lay siege to our own home. But we can’t just wade in, flinging magic and swords at everyone. We can’t destroy our own city, murder our own people.” One of the reasons I love Hector so much is that he is never patronizing. “We will have to be fast, efficient, and perfectly timed to pull it off.”

Exactly what I’ve been thinking. Bludgeoning my way back into power at the expense of my people would do irreparable damage. But my signed treaty with Cosmé and Alodia will create sentiment in my favor. If I’m lucky, all I have to do to diffuse the war is remove a few key individuals.

Until recently, I have always chosen precision over power, stealth over frontal assault. It’s a precarious way of doing battle, even though there are times when it’s the only option. But in my own home, surrounded by my own people, it will be more dangerous than ever. “If it doesn’t work,” I say. “If we fail, and we have a chance to get away, would you consider . . . that is, would you be willing to . . . flee? With me?”

He reaches up to tuck my hair behind my ear. “I’m never leaving you again.”

I lean over and kiss him deeply. He pulls me close and returns my kiss, rougher this time, demanding, and I love it. I will never have enough of him.

Someone pounds on the door.

Hector swears, and I stifle a giggle.

I grab my dressing robe and move to answer the door, but Hector jumps out of bed and intercepts me, grabbing my forearm. “Let me,” he says. He tugs on his pants, pulls my dagger from my pack, and holds it just out of sight as he cracks open the door.

It’s Cosmé’s mayordomo. Hector lowers the knife.

He is young for the position, with a roundness to cheek and chin and a slender frame that promises further growth. But then almost everyone in Cosmé’s court is young. Basajuan lost an entire generation in the last war with Invierne. “Apologies, Your Majesty,” he says. “But the Inviernos are up and awake and making demands, and I have no idea what to do with them. Her Majesty Queen Cosmé said you had claimed responsibility.”

I grimace, knowing our guests are probably being as arrogant and difficult as possible. “I’ll take care of it,” I tell him, and he abases himself with such relieved gratitude that it’s hard not to smile.