Radiance (Wraith Kings Book 1)(49)
Ildiko sought and found the a partial lie to tell. “I was crying.” She hiccupped a giggle at Sinhue’s bewildered look. “Humans weep when they’re sad. I was missing my family. I’m fine now, though I’ll take that cloth.”
By the time she’d bathed her hot face and changed into her nightrail, the sun had risen enough to turn the plains into a golden sea. Ildiko slipped quietly into Brishen’s room and found him, still dressed, standing in a clot of shadows near the open window. He stared eastward, into the blinding dawn and didn’t turn as she padded closer to him.
“Stop, Ildiko.”
Startled by the abrupt command, she halted. “Brishen?”
A faint sigh, and his voice gentled. “It will be best if you sleep in your bed alone today.”
An icy rush of hurt punched her in the gut. She staggered inwardly for a moment, then righted herself. This had nothing to do with her. His recounting of his sister’s death had left her emotionally wrung out. She suspected that for him it had torn open old wounds that had scabbed but never healed. He wanted to tend them in isolation.
Solitude, however, wasn’t always the best comfort. She eased another step forward. “Are you sure you wish to be alone in your grief?”
His dry chuckle held no humor. “If it were just grief, no. I’d want you here.” He still refused to face her. “I’m not only grieving, Ildiko. I’m bitter; I’m angry and I’m lusting.” His voice deepened on the last part of his declaration and sent Ildiko’s heartbeat into a gallop. “Those emotions together offer nothing but misery and violence for both human and Kai. It’s dangerous for you to be in here with me. Go to your room. I’ll talk with you tomorrow.”
She fled, carrying with her his words before she shut and bolted the door between them.
“Thank you, sweet Ildiko.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There were times when the day lasted forever and night never came. For Brishen, this was one of those times. He stared unblinking at the bolted door between his and Ildiko’s chambers until his eyes burned. He’d caught it—the brief flinch of hurt tightening the skin around her eyes before it disappeared, and her pale features eased into an expression of concern.
Brishen thanked the gods he and Ildiko had begun this marriage with such unadorned honesty between them. She’d taken his warning at face value and done exactly as he hoped by fleeing and bolting her door. No cajoling or long explanations for why he wasn’t fit—or even safe—company at the moment. She might not be able to discern emotion in his eyes, but she knew him well enough now to know his words weren’t empty ones.
Even through the thick walls and closed door, he heard her soft voice and Sinhue’s as they both prepared to sleep. The words were indecipherable, but he found their cadence soothing. They soon faded, leaving only a heavy quiet that leached from the walls to join the shadows that fled from the encroaching sunbeams and pooled at his feet.
Twenty-two years had passed since he witnessed his mother murder his sister, and the memory remained as clear as if it happened the previous night. Secmis’s hands cupping Anaknet’s head, fingers like spider legs that curved around the tiny skull until her claw tips touched. The baby’s fists curled in innocent sleep. Partially concealed behind the nursery door and made mute with horror, Brishen watched as the queen gently held Anaknet’s head for a moment and gave one quick twist.
He shook his head to clear it of the memory. He could block out the image but not the grotesque sound—a soft snick, barely more than a whisper that over time gained the volume of a thunderclap in his dreams and recollections.
Brishen never imagined he’d tell another person about Anaknet. Only two other people knew what he’d seen and done those many years ago. One died a decade earlier of old age; the other would cut out her own tongue before she surrendered her knowledge. Both had been pivotal in helping him abscond with Anaknet’s mortem light and release her fragile soul before Secmis claimed it, and he remained forever grateful to them. His old nursemaid and his cousin were braver than any ten Kai warriors combined. Had Secmis discovered their roles in his plan...he shuddered at the thought.
Now Ildiko knew as well. Brishen turned away from the door separating him from his wife. She was like a skein of raw silk, strong as steel with a luster woven into her blood and bones. She held him in her arms as he keened an old grief. Like all Kai, he didn’t shed tears. Ildiko; however, had shed them for him, and he’d caught the taste of salt and sorrow on his lips when she brushed her mouth across his in a gesture of comfort.
The need to embrace her, clasp her hard to every part of his body had almost overwhelmed him then. She was solace enrobed in smooth flesh and scented hair. He had kept his hands light on her back, knowing that to hold her the way he wanted, he might injure her in his enthusiasm. Her very human body was far weaker than her character.
Such knowledge hadn’t stopped the lust rising inside him. Warped by anger and simmering hatred for the queen, that lust poisoned the growing desire he had for his wife, turning it into an ugly thing.
When Ildiko appeared in his chamber, dressed in her nightrail and prepared to sleep with him as she did each day, he’d almost lunged at her, blinded by the desperation to sink into her, body and soul. Every part of him ached with the need. Brishen pummeled the temptation into submission, chilled to the core by images of a woman bloodied and broken by a man possessed.