Jessamy rose from her bow and approached the dais. “Our houses were always meant to stand together,” she said.
Colsar’s eyes had already drifted toward the tall windows.
“Our bloodlines strengthen one another. Our territories complement each other. Although I am illegitimate, I carry the royal glyphs of my line, a symbol of a strong bloodline.”
She stepped closer. “Look.” Her fingers moved to the neckline of her gown. The fabric slipped lower. The curling lines of her glyphs appeared beneath her collarbone. Jessamy smiled faintly.
Colsar did not notice the doors open behind her. He did notice something else. The room had gone silent. Every guard along the walls had suddenly gone still.
Jessamy frowned slightly, sensing the shift.
Then she turned.
Asharin
I stepped into the throne room just as her dress fell, and for a moment neither of them noticed me. Jessamy stood close to him, one hand resting lightly against the lowered neckline of her gown. Colsar stood only a few steps away from her.
The intimacy of the moment struck me like a physical blow. My eyes moved between them slowly. Then I reached up and removed the crown from my head. The gold circlet felt strangely heavy in my hand. It crossed the chamber in a bright arc before striking Jessamy and clattering across the marble floor. “Take it,” I said.
My voice sounded calm. “It’s yours.”
Colsar was already on his feet. “Asharin.”
“I’m leaving.”
His expression hardened immediately. “No.”
A laugh escaped me, harsh and brittle. “I have given you everything,” I said. “Everything. And still it is not enough.”
“Nothing happened.”
“I do not care.”
My eyes flick briefly to Jessamy. “This is the woman you hurt me for on our wedding night.”
Jessamy opened her mouth.
I cut her off without even turning toward her. “The woman who mocked me in Veynar while you watched.”
My eyes returned to Colsar. “And now I walk in to find you alone with her, while she disrobes in front of you.”
Jessamy lifted her chin. “I was merely demonstrating the compatibility of our houses.”
I ignored her completely. “Our children will always be yours if you want them,” I said quietly.
I paused. “But I will not be. I will not chase after a man who does not want me.”
Colsar stepped down from the dais. “You are not leaving.”
My expression did not soften. “Perhaps I should go disrobe in front of your brother,” I said. “In the name of diplomacy.”
“Sevrin may be insane but I know, without a doubt, that I am all he thinks about.” I step forward. “And Teorin, he may be a liar. But he traveled from Thrykis to come find me, yet my own husband can’t even travel twenty paces from his study to dine with me.”
“You are mine,” Colsar said. The air tightened around us. I felt it before I saw it, the pressure of his power gathering, pressing inward, the room itself responding to him the way it always did when he stopped holding back. The marble trembled beneath my feet.
My own power rose to meet it without thought, light gathering beneath my ribs and driving outward, meeting his pressure and forcing it back. The torches along the walls flare.
We stood in the middle of it, neither of us yielding.
