Page 37 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth
And then he was kissing her and she was kissing him back, and he was salty and warm, the sea and the sun. She breathed Ileem, and Ileem breathed her, and for a while, nothing else seemed to matter.
But at last they drew back to breathe air again, and Ileem sprawled out on the roof tiles. Eda tucked her head into the hollow of his neck, drinking in the scent of him, drinking in this moment. “Do you know,” she mused, running her finger along his ear cuff, “I think I’m in love with you.”
He smiled, his own fingers tracing the line of her jaw. “I thank my god every day that he brought me to you. That we’re to be married and our vows forged together into one.” He caressed her neck, and lightning shot down her spine.
For so long, Eda had told herself she didn’t need anyone, and she’d proved it to herself, over and over. But now that everything was set to rights again—Niren well and whole, her Barons subdued, Rescarin’s threat eliminated—she found she no longer wished to be alone. She didn’t want to have to sleep with a knife under her pillow, waiting for everything she’d fought so hard for to be ripped away from her.
She realized, all at once, what that meant. “I want to crown you as my Emperor,” she told Ileem, “not just my consort. I want to share power with you. Equally, for everything that’s mine to be yours.” Her fingers curled tight around the material of his silk robe, the heat of his body emanating behind it. She swallowed, trying to quell the raging of her heart.
He brushed his fingertips across her cheek, her eyelids, her lips. She could hardly breathe.
“I would be honored to rule the Empire beside you, Eda.”
Peace unfolded in her belly. She wrapped her hands around his jaw, and pulled his mouth once more to hers.
It was only later, when she slipped back in through her window in the dark hours before dawn, that she allowed herself to think about Niren’s troubling revelation, and the shadow that wouldn’t stop haunting her—the shadow Niren could see.
But Eda had won, hadn’t she? Niren was alive, the temple was nearing completion, and Eda’s throne was secure.No thanks to the gods,Eda thought, and then immediately chastised herself. After all, where would she be without them?
Here,Eda told herself.What did the gods even do for me, really?Imade myself Empress.Ibrought Niren back from the brink of death. What have they done?
There was an attendant waiting by her door, half asleep. She jerked awake at Eda’s arrival, and dropped a wobbly curtsy. “Apologies for the intrusion, Your Imperial Majesty, but there’s a prison guard in the antechamber, waiting to speak with you.”
Eda smoothed her hair and made an attempt at brushing the dirt from her trousers, then followed the attendant from the room.
Eda recognized the guard with a jolt as the one she’d ordered to cut off all Rescarin’s fingers. Her stomach flopped over and she wondered that she’d pushed her encounter with Rescarin so far out of her head. “What is it?” she snapped.
“Your Imperial Majesty, I’ve come to inform you that Rescarin Haena-Ar, former Baron of Evalla, was found dead in his cell this evening.”
She tried not to let her shock show. “Dead? Of what?”
“Complications from his wounds, Your Imperial Majesty. They became infected.”
Eda had hated Rescarin for almost her entire life—now she hated that the news of his death made her feel sick. She waved one hand dismissively. “Send his body back to his family, and don’t bother me with anything like this again.”
The guard bowed. “My apologies, Your Imperial Majesty.”
Eda went back to her bedchamber, but she didn’t undress for bed. She sat by her window and stared out into the remnants of the night. She wondered how it had been so beautiful up on the rooftop with Ileem and was so wretched down here.
She drifted off just before dawn, cramped in the window frame, and dreamed of Niren, the Emperor, and Rescarin, walking together through a shadowy landscape, their ankles heavy with chains. “You did this to us,” said Niren. “You trapped us here.”
“But you’re not dead,” Eda objected. “I saved you.”
Niren reached out her shadowy fingers to touch Eda’s forehead. Heat pierced through her, as it had when Raiva touched her down in the well. “Oh Eda,” said Niren sadly. “You haven’t saved anyone.”
The whole palace—the wholecity—had turned into an anthill kicked by a boot. The preparations for Eda’s seizure of the throne and subsequent coronation had taken place slowly and in secret. Wedding preparations, however, were being conducted very much in the open. And with the wedding date fixed for the main feast at the end of the nine-day Festival of Uerc, there were mere weeks left to get everything done.
Eda’s approval was required on everything from the final selection of musicians to the color of the napkins for the table settings. It was driving her mad. And to make everything even more disagreeable, Ileem had similar demands on his time. She saw him briefly every morning, when they brought their joint oblations to the Place of Kings, but there was hardly a chance for more than a few words before their oblations were ended and their attendants pulled them off in separate directions. Eda began to despise the sight of the Imperial Steward, who seemed to desperately need her five hundred times per day.
Any time she wasn’t with the Imperial Steward she was riding back and forth to the temple site, overseeing the finer details of construction, telling the artisans where their carvings and curtains and candles should go, instructing three brand new priestesses in their coming duties. It seemed her hands were always covered in dust.
She saw Niren even less than she saw Ileem. Niren rarely attended council sessions and seemed to prefer taking dinner alone in her room.
The morning before the first day of the festival—ten days before the wedding—the Imperial hairdresser came to Eda’s chambers to discuss Eda’s wishes for the ceremony. Eda sat down in front of her dressing table while Niren leaned against the wall, playing with the clasp of a sapphire necklace Eda had given her for her birthday. Eda had commanded Niren’s presence like she was a wayward attendant, and to her surprise, Niren had actually come. She looked thin, tired. Her eyes wandered often to the corner of the room, where her shadow self watched them in ghostly silence.
“What do you think, Your Imperial Majesty?” said the hairdresser, laying down a comb and stepping back from the dressing table.
Eda inspected herself in the mirror. For her wedding, she planned to emulate the wind goddess, Ahdairon, in a nod to the ancient belief that Ahdairon blessed marriages because she was so content with her own marriage to the wind god Mahl. Part of Eda’s hair was done up in elaborate braids woven with blue and gold silk ribbons. On the actual day, there would be sapphires and diamonds sewn in, as well as tiny wings crafted out of real gold. The ensemble would be completed with a gauzy gold veil. Eda turned to her friend, who had barely looked up during the entire process. “Niren, what is your opinion?”
