Darius closed the door behind him, feeling relieved to be here, away from all the others.
Michal looked up from where she sat on the bed. She was wearing a long, silky gown, one of the flimsy things she wore to sleep in. It was late. He liked the way she looked there, her dark hair falling in tight ringlets around her shoulders. By some miracle, she was his, and he hadn’t harmed her yet.
She smiled up at him. “How did it go?”
“They deliberated for hours,” he said. “That’s why I’m so late.”
“But they did finish? Or has the decision been put off until tomorrow?”
“No, they did decide. They found in favor of Gabriel.”
A smile broke over her features, and she leapt off the bed to wrap her arms around him.
He breathed in her scent, cream and cinnamon, all things sweet.
“I’m glad,” she said. “Everything’s right now.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Especially now that you’re here.” She smiled up at him. “I missed you.”
He caressed her cheek. “How is it that you’re never frightened of me?”
“You’ve never hurt me,” she said. “Not really, anyway.”
He pulled aside the neck of her gown, looking for the bruise he’d left there the night before. When he was with her, he often couldn’t help himself. He bit her—not into her, but just leaving an impression on her skin. She smelled so delectable, and it was the only way he could taste her.
But the bruise wasn’t there. He ran his forefinger over her unmarred skin.
She pulled the gown up and moved away from him. “So, how did Gabriel seem? Was he happy?”
“Where did the bruise go?” he asked.
“What bruise?” She picked up a comb from her table and began to work it through her curls. “I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have been. That was what he wanted, after all. And what’s going to happen to Simon?”
Darius went to her. He put his hand on hers, stopping her movement.
She looked up at him.
“I like your curls,” he said. “Don’t comb them away.”
She looked away, bashful. “They never go away. Not completely.”
He took the comb from her. “What happened to the bruise?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do,” he said. “I know you felt it. You let me… do things to you, and you don’t complain, but I feel guilty about harming you. You’re so beautiful—”
“Well, maybe you aren’t really harming me.” She smiled at him. “Let’s not worry about it. I’m okay.”
He knew the bruise had been there. Unless it hadn’t been as bad as he’d initially thought. Was it possible that it had already faded?
Michal opened her gown to him, and he caught sight of her round breasts, and all thought fled from his head. He had to put his hands on her, his mouth on her.
She sighed beneath him as they made love. She gasped when touched he her, when he covered her skin with kisses.
And when his passion was at a fever pitch, when he couldn’t make sense of the rush of his desires, anymore, he clamped his teeth into her skin just as he found his release.
And she bucked and writhed against him, moaning out his name as if she liked it.
He pulled away from her and flung himself onto his back.
“Darius?” She propped herself up on an elbow. “Is something wrong?”
He could see the imprint his teeth had left on her neck. He touched the marks.
She shivered.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
She shook her head. “No, you shouldn’t… It doesn’t hurt exactly.”
He narrowed his eyes. The imprint of teeth was already fading away. He rubbed it. It seemed that he was rubbing it away.
Michal put her hand there, giggling. “That tickles. What are you doing?”
He sat up. “Why is it fading so quickly?”
“Is it?” She looked up at him innocently, unconcerned. “I guess you didn’t bite as hard as you thought you did.”
He flopped back onto the bed. He knew that wasn’t true. There was no reason for that mark to be fading so quickly.
But Michal had crawled onto him, straddling him, and she was kissing his chest.
He tried to hold onto his thought, to think about what it might mean. But she was distracting, and soon he was consumed with nothing but thoughts of her body and her mouth.
* * *
Ezekiel had long since given up struggling against his bonds. He was held fast to this tree, and he wouldn’t be getting free on his own power. He was exhausted and thirsty. They did bring him water, but never as much as he wanted—only enough to keep him alive, it seemed.
He knew now that he’d been an idiot to try to come out here to revenge Honor’s death.
In some ways, he wasn’t even sure his distress was about Honor. He had been so angry with himself, so disgusted by the way he had given in to Gabriel, that he’d despised himself. Maybe some part of him had set this up as a suicide mission, a way to end things once and for all.
But now that Ezekiel had come face-to-face with the idea of dying, he found that he didn’t have much taste for it after all. He wanted to stay alive, abomination that he was. Besides, he knew that God wouldn’t want him to kill himself. That wasn’t the way of the Lord.
Ezekiel was alone, tied to a tree, and he had a lot of time to think.
He thought about King David, the man after God’s own heart. King David had committed atrocious sins brought about by lust. Not only had he taken Bathsheba, another man’s wife, but he had murdered her husband so that he could have her himself. God had punished David by taking the son that he and Bathsheba had conceived. But God had not taken everything from David. He had left David with much of what God had given him—the kingdom, his wives, his wealth.
Ezekiel sinned because of lust as well. He knew that it displeased God, but perhaps he was confused to the degree that God was displeased. After all, the only story he knew of in the scriptures about faggotry was the story of the angels in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Lot had welcomed angels disguised as men into his home, but the people of the city hadn’t respected Lot’s hospitality. They’d begged to be given the disguised angels so that they could forcibly have sex with them.
God had destroyed all of Sodom and Gomorrah as a result.
But Ezekiel was sure that there was a vast difference between rape and consensual lust. He had often been told that all sins were equally horrible in the sight of God, but he didn’t think that God’s actions in the scriptures warranted that. God seemed to vary his punishments in regards to the crime.
Well, except in the case of Job, that is. But God wasn’t punishing Job, he was testing him.
Of course, it was possible that this attraction to men that Ezekiel felt was a test as well. If so, Ezekiel was fairly sure he was failing it.
He knew that Gabriel didn’t even believe in God—the letter had made that clear. Gabriel seemed to think of God as someone who created the world and then disappeared. He was convinced God wasn’t interfering in the lives of humans.
But Ezekiel couldn’t believe anything like that. He could see how it would be easier to simply believe that pleasurable things weren’t evil, but that didn’t make sense to him. It wasn’t the way the world worked. Everything had its price. Everything. To get grain, one had to work the fields. Too much running in the sun led to exhaustion. Things had to balance. Gabriel could think what he wanted, but he lived in a dream world.
Ezekiel thought about Gabriel a lot. More than he should have. He’d left the capital city to get away from Gabriel, but it seemed that he was haunted by thoughts of the man. He contemplated Gabriel’s ideas. He closed his eyes and saw Gabriel’s nude back, the muscles in his shoulders rippling in candlelight…
What was wrong with him?
He was almost glad when his captors came to taunt or talk to him. They were rarely kind. Now that they knew he was a faggot, they called him names, jeered him, and sometimes poked at him with a stick. That was until the one called Zachariah made them stop hurting him. Zachariah seemed to be the leader. Even though their attentions were unpleasant, Ezekiel liked the distraction. He didn’t want to think of Gabriel.
Zachariah himself came to talk to Ezekiel one evening. He brought the other one, Nathaniel, along with him, but Nathaniel hung back and didn’t say much.
Zachariah had a jug of water, and he gave some to Ezekiel. “Do you know the news from the capital city?” asked Zachariah.
Ezekiel kept drinking. He’d heard that the city had been overrun with revenants, and that the emperor was dead. He would have been more worried if it hadn’t been made clear that Gabriel was the new emperor. Since Ezekiel knew Gabriel was all right, he hadn’t concerned himself with it.
Zachariah took the water away.
Ezekiel groaned a little. He was still thirsty.
“They have a necromancer,” said Zachariah. “Did you know that?”
Ezekiel hadn’t. He furrowed his brow. There hadn’t been a necromancer in over fifty years.
“That’s the only way your lover survived,” said Zachariah. “He’s protected.”
They kept using that word. “He’s not my lover,” Ezekiel croaked.
Zachariah laughed. “We read the letter. Don’t try to deny it.”
Fine. Let them think what they want. Ezekiel sighed. But he didn’t want it called that. What had been between Gabriel and himself had been nothing like love. It had been lust and need and aggression. There had been nothing tender about it.
Zachariah surveyed him. “Listen, Nathaniel here thought you might be worried about what we’re going to do with you. He thinks that you might be concerned for your life.”
Ezekiel felt his stomach drop. They were going to kill him. He was terrified of that. Ironically, he may have had a death wish when he arrived, but he’d do anything to stay alive now.
“Don’t be concerned,” said Zachariah. “It turns out we need you alive. See, you’re important to the new emperor. We don’t think he’d want anything to happen to you. And it turns out that we could really use a necromancer. So, we’ve sent off a messenger to the capital, offering the emperor a deal. He trades the necromancer for you.”
Ezekiel’s eyes widened. “What? That’s ridiculous. Gabriel would never do it.”
“You’re his lover.”
“I told you, I’m not. It isn’t like that. We didn’t… care about each other. It was only about lust.”
Zachariah chuckled. “Don’t bother trying to talk us out of it. It’s done. The messenger’s on his way.”
“Well, the messenger’s wasting his time,” said Ezekiel. “Gabriel will never agree to any kind of trade for me. I’m not that important to him.” But then he thought of Gabriel riding after him in the night, riding his horse ragged until he overtook Ezekiel’s carriage. All so that he could give Ezekiel a letter?
Ezekiel tried not to let his concern show on his face. He didn’t know who these men were, not really. But he didn’t think it would be a good idea for them to have a necromancer at their beck and call.
* * *
Michal stood at the edge of the banquet hall, a glass of wine in her hand. Darius was beside her, and he seemed to like to stick to the shadows and corners. The longer she was with him, the longer she began to enjoy the shadows as well. She had even adopted a similar attire to Darius, who was always in his traditional necromancer’s robe. (Well, always except when they were alone together, when he was gloriously uncovered.) She wore a robe as well. Hers wasn’t black, but deep scarlet. It was reminiscent of the robe she’d worn to meet him on their wedding night, but not bright red. No, this robe was so dark that it appeared nearly black. It was only when it caught the light that its red color was apparent.
The two of them floated at the outskirts of the banquet, hidden and watching.
Michal liked it. She’d spent her whole life feeling as if she didn’t fit in at this court. Now, she felt as if she was exactly where she belonged. She belonged with Darius. She’d never felt more at home.
The banquet underway was a celebration of Gabriel’s coronation as emperor. There had been a ceremony earlier in the day, and now there was feasting. She and Darius watched. She was hoping that he’d soon suggest that they slip out and retire to their room together. She couldn’t get enough of his cool, dark skin. He was like silk, the touch of him so soft. His skin against hers pulled the heat from her, sucked her down into a deep well of sweet water. And yet… when he was inside her, when he left his cold seed in her body, she always felt more alive than she ever had.
She bit down on her bottom lip, thinking about taking matters into her own hands and convincing him that they should go.
But he spoke. “I never thought I’d be in a place like this.”
“What?” She took his hand. “What kind of place?”
“Around so much… wealth and excess.”
He’d been raised a commoner. She forgot that. He seemed so exotic and powerful now, that it was hard to picture him as normal or regular.
She stroked his hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He smiled at her. “As am I.”
“What was it like? Before this happened to you?”
He got a far away look on his face. “It was… different. It’s funny, because after it first happened, all I had was rage toward Simon for changing me into a monster. I wanted to be the man that I had been. But now… now that I have you, now that I’ve sent Simon to prison, I can’t for the life of me understand why I’d change it.”
“Things are better for me too, now that you’re here.”
He interlocked his fingers with her own. “I don’t really have happy memories of being a grown man, I suppose. I worked on the wall at Jeffsotow, twelve hours every day. Sometimes at night, sometimes during the day. We drove off the revenants, stabbing them with spears. They would change the shifts, so that no one always had to work at night. That was so that we wouldn’t be completely cut off from the rest of society, always working at night. But the transitions were difficult. And I was lonely, anyway. The people there were wary of my dark skin. They were all polite enough, I suppose. But they seemed to keep their distance. I didn’t have close friends. It’s odd, though. It wasn’t like that when I was young.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t remember if anyone cared. I know that my mother was lighter than me, but that didn’t seem to be a problem.”
“And your father? Was he dark-skinned like you?”
Darius shrugged. “He died before I was born. He volunteered to go out on one of those missions to clear the wilderness of revenants. He didn’t make it back.”
Noblemen—third or fourth sons mostly—often took groups of volunteers out to clear out land and expand the empire further. Many of them would have no land to inherit otherwise. If they were successful, they founded their own regencies.
“I have happy memories of her,” he said. “She was sweet and kind and good. I remember a soup she would make for me, songs that she would sing to help me go to sleep.” He smiled at the memory. And then his smile faded. “But she died too.”
Michal squeezed his hand. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”
“I was fifteen,” he said. “She was ill. At first it seemed like a cold, something harmless. She told me that she’d be back on her feet in a day or two. But the days wore on, and she got worse and worse. And then, finally, she was gone.”
Michal’s eyes filled with tears. Her heart went out to poor Darius, too young to take care of himself, losing the only person he could count on. The difficulties she’d faced seemed to pale in comparison.
He cocked his head. “Why are you crying?”
“I just…” She wiped at her face. “It made me so sad to think of you that way. I wish I’d known you, then. I wish I could have saved you.”
“You wouldn’t have even noticed me then.” Darius gave her a wry smile.
“That isn’t true.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Michal, how many commoners have died in your lifetime? Do you have any idea?”
She looked away. “Well, I guess I just didn’t think about it before. But now—”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty. Of course you don’t know. I don’t know either. None of us do. One person can’t understand the suffering of so many. It’s simply not possible.” He touched her cheek. “Besides, I have no illusions about your position, sweet one. You may have always been the emperor’s daughter, given the best clothes and food. But when it came down to it, you didn’t have any power. You didn’t even have the ability to save your own life.”
“What do you mean?”
“You couldn’t get away from me. You couldn’t keep yourself from marrying me.”
“Well, but that turned out rather nicely.”
Gently, he pulled his hand away from hers. “I don’t think you understand how close I came to… How close I sometimes still come.”
She grabbed his hand again. “I wish you’d stop talking that way. You wouldn’t hurt me. I know that. Somehow, deep down, I’ve always known that.”
He sighed heavily. He stared out over the banquet hall at the other people enjoying the feast. “All I was trying to say was that you couldn’t have saved me. No one could have. I was powerless then.”
She squeezed his hand again. “I guess we both were.”
He turned to look at her. “But now… I influenced who the next emperor would be. Without my testimony to sway it, it could have gone either way.”
She smiled. “You did more than that, Darius. You saved the city from the revenants. You saved the empire. You’re not powerless anymore.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not.” There was something in his dark eyes, something triumphant.
She felt triumphant too. She leaned close, lowering her voice to whisper to him. “In some ways, Darius, you’re the most powerful man in the empire.”