“You didn’t ruin it at all. I don’t just love you when you are happy, Arienna. I love you when you’re sad and crying. I love taking care of you. I love just being with you.”
I cry harder, my body exhausted, my brain overwhelmed with its mere existence.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs as he holds me close. “Let it all out. Crying is good.” He shifts me a bit to put the plug in the bath and turn on the tap. “I love you. You’re just dropping. It’s okay –”
“It’s not okay!” I wail. “I’m on the ground! Dropping when I’m not flying isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.” I dissolve into sobs and hiccups.
A low chuckle escapes him before he silences it. “I’m so sorry, my queen. It isn’t fair. But it’s okay. I’ve got you. I love you. Just let it all out.”
He pulls me into the bath once it’s ready. He washes me, then holds me. All night, he stays by my side. And into the morningtoo. I’m no longer crying, but I still feel so awful and needy and sad.
He misses his first debate to stay with me. I try to get him to go, knowing how much it means to him, but he just shakes his head.
“I love you more,” he says.
He misses the next debate too. We’re supposed to be in another city, but he spends the day with me instead. Making sure I eat. Making sure I’m cared for. Loving me even when I’m difficult.
As the day turns into night, I finally start to feel like myself again. I apologise profusely. He says there’s no need. Lying in his arms in the bedroom he carried me to earlier, I say, “I love you, my king.”
Holding me tight, he says, “I love you too, my queen.”
Thirty-Eight
Only a foolish queen falls in love.
I am a fool.
- King Richard
If they take her from me, I’ll kill the gods to get her back.
I can’t lose her. I couldn’t lose her before, but now that I’ve said the words, now that I’ve given myself permission to believe in our future – I can’t lose her. This vote has to see the monarchy end.
So I debate harder and longer, adding new cities to my tour, trying to make up for the day I missed. I counter every point the Court makes. I take the time to educate even the morons rather than dismiss them. I do not sleep the night away, leaving my wife alone in bed. I work, finding answers to the questions I didn’t know, finding new arguments to sway them.
Until finally, today is the day.
My people are voting.
But despite how much I try to relax in the presence of my queen, a dark restless energy moves inside of me. I need an outlet that she can’t give me.
Which is how I find myself down in the dungeons, inside Kiki’s cell, Tanya’s niece, and the last member of the group of women who tried to assassinate me on my wedding day. I don’t want to be a monster that Arienna fears, but today, I cannot quiet the hunger. Not when I’m so terrified of losing her.
My thoughts racing, I step up to Kiki’s naked body. She cowers on the soiled ground, bloody and bruised from her earlier attempt at fighting. Her arms and legs are spread eagle, chained to points on the floor.
“Please,” she begs as she stares up at me, but all I can concentrate on is the fear coiled in my belly.
What if we lose the vote?
What if they order Kiki to be executed on the day of my wife’s coronation?
Kneeling over her, I pull out a box of toothpicks from my pocket.
“Noooo!”
I stab one after the other into the fleshy parts of her body: breasts, stomach, cheek, eyes – all places where they won’t hit bone and snap. The trick is to slam them in fast and to let go without jerking one’s hand so they stay intact. If they break, they don’t go in as far and it’s an absolute pain to pull them out.
My mother taught my father how to use them just right. He then taught Seqora and Aurelia while she went off to fight the Alzans. I learned from watching them practice.
