The journey, at least, was uneventful. Tarkan’s army was headless without him. No one followed us into the plains, and no one came to fight us back from the north.
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Erekkus remarked on our first day of travel. “If an Obitraen kingdom was being invaded like this, I can promise you the kings of any of the three houses wouldn’t be letting you take a single step forward.”
At this, Atrius had grunted a hm of a response, eyes trained to the horizon, which I knew meant agreement.
I agreed, too. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. The Pythora King gave significant power to his warlords—that was key to how he had managed to take control of the kingdom twenty years ago—and warlords were often self-serving in how they chose to exercise it. In the beginning, I thought that the lack of a direct move from the Pythora King was because of poor relationships with distant warlords and an unwillingness of others to sacrifice their men for each other’s benefit.
Now? Now Atrius was making significant headway. It seemed downright strange that the Pythora King wasn’t shifting onto the offensive by now, instead sitting back and letting Atrius pick off city-state after city-state.
Why?
This question was on all our minds as we traveled. Erekkus said it aloud, frequently. Atrius never said it aloud, but I knew it was just as present in his mind.
Still, mine was in other places, too. Atrius gave me a seal that allowed me to send letters by magic back to Vasai, which I was deeply grateful for. The minute we stopped for our first daybreak on the road, I spread out a sheet of parchment in my tent to write to Naro. My pen had hovered over the page for a long time. I was so certain that I needed to write him, and yet, with the paper in front of me, I had no idea what to say.
I settled on a few clipped sentences and a single question: How are you?
It wasn’t enough, and it was too much. Eventually, frustrated, I folded it up, stamped Atrius’s wax seal on the back, and waited until the letter dissolved into nothingness.
When daybreak approached, for reasons I didn’t quite understand, I went to Atrius’s tent.
I announced myself and didn’t wait for him to answer before I let myself in. He was sitting on his bedroll, papers spread out before him. He was shirtless, and wearing loose linen pants that fell low around his hips. I could feel the warmth of his flesh from across the room. The removal of even a single layer between us was so noticeable, I found it distracting.
“I didn’t call for you,” he said.
“I know.”
I closed the tent flap behind me, then crossed to him. He didn’t move. I was so aware of the way his attention tracked my every movement. I wore my nightgown—very thin white cotton. It would be mostly transparent against the backlighting of the lanterns.
I’d debated changing before I came here. I could hear the Sightmother whispering in my ear, It’s good if he wants you. It’s good if he trusts you.
In the end, I kept the nightgown—and left behind the dagger that would have been far too visible beneath it.
I knelt before Atrius. His presence rolled over me, stable and strong. I wondered if he had intentionally started letting his guard down around me, or if I had simply learned how to read his threads over these last few months. Now it seemed impossible to think that I had ever felt nothing from him. He had one of the most complex souls I’d ever felt—so many contradictions, all kept under such delicate control.
I pressed my hand against his chest. His walls parted for me. His pain was excruciating, even though he tried to hide it.
“It’s been a week,” I said. “You’re hurting.”
He lay his hand over mine. My skin tingled where his palm, rough and calloused, engulfed it in warmth.
“It’s not an order,” he said softly.
A twinge of complicated compassion, as I realized how much he really wanted me to know that.
“I know,” I murmured. “I want to.”
Another twinge, as the words didn’t feel as forced as I thought they would.
Atrius let me work, undoing as much of the damage of his curse from the last week as I could. And then, together, we drifted to sleep. I kept my hand to his chest. And this time, I let him pull me into an embrace, our bodies curled around each other, his aura and his body enveloping me like a cocoon.
I had to keep his trust, I told myself. It was important to maintain that, for when the time came.
But I was not thinking about plans or daggers or wars when I fell asleep in Atrius’s arms.
I was thinking only of the words I’d said to him, but felt in my own heart: