Nyx pressed his face, very briefly, to Azaiah’s chest. “Good. I’m yours, you know. I don’t want to be anyone else’s. I don’t just mean sex, I…” He shook his head, pulling away with obvious reluctance.
“I know,” Azaiah soothed, wishing he could take Nyx into his arms again. “The emperor’s claim will not be forever. We have time.”
They said their farewells, and Nyx turned and reluctantly headed back toward the palace and all that waited for him there. Azaiah watched him go, that pang of grief piercing him again, and bent to pluck one of the blossoms that were now nothing more than husks. He snapped the bloom and brought it to his mouth to kiss the petals, and what was left of it crumbled into dust.
Azaiah sighed and threw it to the ground. He could feel that he was needed, and where that need was, he would go. But he thought of the flowers as he drew up his hood and disappeared into the dark, into the storm that carried him forth.
ChapterTen
Lamont didn’t waste any time. Nyx woke a little after sunrise to a page at his door, holding a summons in both hands. Most of the pages in the palace were young witches or children of wealthy families Lamont favored, and they had a complex hierarchy within their own ranks that seemed at the moment to center on who could wear the most flowers in their hair. The boy at Nyx’s door looked like a veritable garden, and judging by the way the flowers were still growing and twining about each other, he was using his witchling status to his advantage.
“What kind of prince lives in the barracks?” That was definitely a witch question—noble children were too polite, while witchlings were always prying and poking about when Nyx’s back was turned. Sure enough, the boy leaned in the doorway and peered at Nyx’s sparse furnishings while Nyx read the summons.
“A bad one,” Nyx said. The boy snorted, and he raised his brows.
“You’re not bad, you’re just weird. Thena says you’re adegenerate.” He seemed to savor the word.
Nyx smiled. Thena would say that. She was still a little distant with the royal family, as the new head witch of the Crypts, but she spared a sardonic remark for Nyx whenever they passed. “How is the crone, anyway?”
“Ooh, she’ll curse you for that.”
“Be sure to tell her I said it, then.” Nyx handed a coin to the boy and made sure the door was locked when he left—not that a locked door would stop an enterprising witch in training. But the chance of seeing Thena in a huff must have been more interesting than Nyx’s room, because the boy was already thundering down the steps when Nyx entered the palace.
Lamont lived on the top floor, as his father had, and Nyx ground his teeth as courtiers stopped to stare as he passed. The stairs were wide and elegant, with couches and chairs every few paces, so most courtiers lounged there to gossip while everyone else did the hard work of keeping the empire alive. A few called out to Nyx, eyeing his belt with the imperial crest, but most merely glanced at him sidelong.
He did stop to look in on Andor and Kelta’s schoolroom, which was just past the nursery. They twisted round in their seats when they heard the door open, and Kelta waved before Andor gave her a hard look and she remembered that this was supposed to be the first time she’d seen him since he left.
“Oh!” she said unconvincingly. “Uncle!”
“It’s been so long,” Andor said, kicking her under their desk. The witch tutoring them gave Nyx a weary look, but Nyx stopped in nevertheless to give Kelta a hug and nod approvingly at Andor’s workbook.
“We’re studying the movements of the third emperor’s army,” Andor said, grinning.
“Despite my best efforts to teach themmath,” the witch said. Andor turned enormous eyes to her, and she scowled. “That worked on me once and once only, your imperial highness.”
“No, it works on her always,” Kelta whispered to Nyx, and Nyx smiled. The poor witch—Andor and Kelta were little terrors when they conspired. “Practice tonight?”
“Tomorrow night,” Nyx whispered. “I have work.” He couldn’t afford to risk sneaking the prince and princess out of their beds every night, witch stone or no.
Kelta rolled her eyes, and Andor drummed his fingers on his book. He looked as if he was about to say something, but then he smiled. “We’ll see you then, Uncle.”
Nyx wondered, as he climbed the rest of the stairs, if he couldn’t convince Nadia to send the twins away to school a little earlier. They were clearly bored, if they were resorting to tricking their tutors into teaching them what they wanted. And it would get them out from under Lamont’s eye until one of them was old enough to take the throne.
He’d been back for less than a day, and palace life was already chafing. He couldn’t stop thinking of Azaiah. The way he’d held Nyx in the garden, how his touch seemed to linger as Nyx forced himself to walk back to his chambers. Azaiah had time, but Nyx didn’t think he could wait much longer. With every day that passed, though, his connection to the living strengthened—whether it was to Nadia, who wrote him letters when he was at the front and kept sneaking off to his rooms to talk when he was here at the palace, or the twins, who loved Nyx so completely that the thought of leaving them made his stomach twist with guilt.
He’d break their hearts when he went with Azaiah, and that—more than Lamont’s threats or the growing political unease in the empire—was what kept him where he was. He couldn’t make Kelta and Andor grieve him.
Lamont left Nyx standing at the door for a good five minutes before Nyx heard movement on the other side and braced himself. When the door swung open, Nadia was there, her hair curled and her face twisted in a scowl. Her expression softened somewhat when she saw him, and Nyx bowed. It wouldn’t do to hug her in front of Lamont, even if he had all but discarded her by now.
“General.” Lamont’s voice was a low, lazy drawl. “Brother. Come in. I have orders for you.”
“My soldiers only just returned from the front,” Nyx said, and Nadia shook her head minutely as Lamont groaned. When Nyx stepped around her, he saw Lamont was sprawled sideways on the throne, legs dangling like a child’s. Beside him, a woman in a blue gown sat on a stool and nervously eyed Nadia, who made her way to the window. She leaned against it, and the woman glanced down at her feet.
“Only a day back, and he’s already questioning me,” Lamont said to the woman, who smiled briefly. “Nyx, this is my latest companion. What’s your name?”
“Else,” the woman said.
“Right, yes. She’s my favorite, so be sure to show her deference. She had three boys before she came to me, so she should be useful.”
