[30 Kisses] [Fire Emblem 10] Afterword - II
Afterword - II
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Theme: 02 - news; letter
Gauntlet Theme: 33 - the delicious pleasure in making the first move
Words: 2863
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: I said it all in the first note, I guess. Written to make me feel better.
..........................................................................
The announcement regarding the wedding of the bird tribes with the house of Altina was met with a silence Lehran would have called reverent - or perhaps horrified - if he hadn't known Sanaki held most of them by the throat and no longer allowed dissent of any kind when decisions affecting the whole of the empire were made. Her critics would call her a tyrant, but recent history had proven the lower echelons of the government unreliable. It was clear she listened to her advisers; he stood in during the meeting she called to discuss this decision, with Reyson and Naesala, the new vice-minister, and Oliver, and of course Sigrun was at her side with a hand resting on her sword.
Was his marriage to Sanaki politically wise? Well, it depended on one's view of politics - conservative, or progressive. She only employed the latter.
Would it mend relations with Serenes and the other laguz? One could hope.
Were they courting disaster?
Most likely.
They were appraised of the possibilities: accusations of blasphemy, rebellion in the provinces - especially in the form of the old senate's supporters, slinking about with their heads down, still unfortunately in existence despite the eradication of their masters. Public disdain. Popular insurgence not just within Begnion's borders, but elsewhere, anywhere belief in the old tales still lingered. When Lehran asked Sanaki if she'd kept the truth about the events and revelations of the judgment from her subjects after all, she shook her head.
That would be the other problem, Sigrun said, seizing the opportunity. Her voice was soft, but the others stopped to listen. Your betrayal of the empress is no secret.
That became clear when the public audience adjourned and he walked out of the hall with the other Serenes representatives, and later when he escorted Sanaki to the banquet and took the place of honor at her side. The chair had remained empty when she was a child; none of her lovers were accorded the honor of sitting to her right or sharing the utensils and plates reserved for her use as a security measure, according to Naesala. They weren't important enough to poison, anyway, she said under her breath while they waited for the first course, dipping slices of bread into a shallow bowl of spiced olive oil and vinegar. Such vivid flavor bit his tongue after so many years consuming only fruit and simple prepared foods like bread or yogurt, and sometimes rice.
Mainal's banquet hall was larger than the formal audience chamber. The ceiling rose three stories high, domed at the center with colored glass, and six chandeliers hung from the ceiling on steel chains plated with gold to hide their cold gleam. Ashera's rood was inlaid on the cream-colored marble floor in gold and obsidian, stretching the length of the room from the entry to the dais where Sanaki's throne waited, draped in red velvet. The tables were in a carpeted alcove, separated from the open space by an arch and two columns, the colors warm, yellow, red, white, shades of brown and candlelight. They sat apart facing the rest of Sanaki's guests; in his peripheral vision, Lehran saw musicians take their place on the far side of the room, behind more columns.
"For once," Sanaki said, brushing crumbs from her fingers over a plate, "I think they're having trouble deciding who to stare at."
Lehran swept the three tables with his gaze, saw the flicker of eyes toward their position - not unusual in the company of his empress - and whispers exchanged while leaning and bowing heads at angles indicating they didn't want to be noticed. Also not unusual-- when the aristocrats in question were few and far between, whispering behind pockets of louder, oblivious companions. The murmur of conversation hardly echoed. "You're quite striking in any shade of red, Sanaki."
She lifted an eyebrow and tapped the bowl of her glass for more wine. A red-headed pegasus knight came to refill it. "They didn't believe me," she said, leaning against the high back of her chair. Her arm draped down, her fingers found the edge of his wing, and she flicked a feather with her nail. "I'm sure they thought you had the good of Begnion in mind when betraying us, or I wouldn't have let you live. Now they see the shape of your wings and realize their error."
He looked down at the golden glow in his glass. "I did have the good of the country in mind," he said. "As personified in you."
"Too trite." She sipped.
"At least one of your guests will be trying to read my lips tonight."
Her golden gaze slanted his direction, the corner of her mouth slightly turned up. Then she sighed and rolled her eyes just dramatically enough to make a show. "I'm the one who will have to beat people away from my escort with a stick."
Lehran told her that made no sense if her speculation were true, but Sanaki didn't let him press the issue. She stood up to make a pretty speech about the closing of the rift between races, reparation for the tragedy thirty five years ago, and her hope for greater wisdom to drive Begnion's policies in the years to come so a goddess's judgment would not be necessary to set them right. Lingering on Serenes and the right of the heron clan to demand reparation brought an appropriate hush to the room and shadows to the eyes of several at the tables he thought might be real. He supposed they must realize a heron could not be purchased and shown off to rich friends if the clan remained diminished and died out. Most of the men and women sharing the room with them had gone through the motions of education in concepts like logic and mathematics-- some of them might even remember the basics.
He closed his eyes when she sat down, bowed his head slightly, and the floor was given to others: Oliver, who dwelled on the legitimate trading opportunities in heron-made artwork, food products, et cetera, and Naesala, who said something to the effect he hoped their business relationship would be long and profitable, that the oath of revenge against Begnion was withdrawn as long as their people - Lehran, though he didn't mention it directly - were treated with respect. What smooth manner he'd taken with the gentry before the war was gone. Threat was implicit in his voice. Reyson declined the opportunity to speak, just as he declined every dish and refreshment offered to him, and watched the beorc gathering with a smooth face.
No one wanted to look at him directly. His white wings glowed, the candlelight gleamed atop his hair like a circlet. He drew effusive courtesy, deep bows, and averted gazes.
"You'll have to talk to them some time," Sanaki said after they'd finished the small bites of food served to their table - crisp pieces of flat bread and three varieties of pate, skewers of roasted peppers, eggplant marinated in pungent spices he couldn't recall the names for offhand, served over saffron-dyed rice. They left the table for the throne arm in arm, trailed by the ghosts of her guard in their formal uniforms with their silver swords. "If not today, then tomorrow, or in a week, or a month. You can only hide in our rooms with your loom for so long before you crave sunlight and wind."
Lehran helped her ascend the steps of the dais, held her hand while she seated herself, and again took his place at her side. "I don't have to avoid them tonight," he said, watching his diplomatic companions approach the dais, and noting the trickle of guests into the wider part of the room, across the rood, where they would dance once the musicians came in and took their places beyond the columns. "Prince Reyson will stave them off with the power of his glare."
The remark did not draw a smile. "If looks could kill," Naesala muttered.
"You'd be long dead." Reyson extended his hand, and Sanaki met him halfway, her wrist bent at an angle to imply it was intentional. "Empress. We'll stay a while to prove our sincerity, but this kind of gathering isn't meant for our kind."
She wasn't afraid to meet his gaze directly - she never was, or so Lehran was told, even when Reyson spat his hate into her face, among the ruins of the forest. "I apologize. I'd hoped the banquet would last longer, but they're an impatient sort of people."
Reyson smiled slightly, released her hand. "I trust you to think of things like that," he said. "You haven't disappointed me so far."
"It's the wings," Naesala said when Sanaki tilted her head. He hadn't bothered to don a formal costume; his leather sleeves creased and creaked when he crossed his arms, when his wings drew close to his back. "We don't do dances, so most of us don't learn how. It'd only turn into a brawl with everyone shoving everyone else around. I'm a rarity, and Lehran is just a liar."
Lehran sighed and looked over the raven's shoulder at the party. A dozen musicians wove into the room, instruments in hand - violins, flutes; a pale man sat at the harp. Naesala took a place at his left, and Reyson stood at the empress's other side, murmuring an apology when Sigrun had to move to see past his wings. Lehran edged closer to the throne. "You are the expert on that, of course."
Tradition obligated the empress to take the first dance, and Lehran would have banished his wings to make the dance easier if they weren't half the point of making the relationship public. Sanaki asked quietly if they should make it a short dance, but he declined; as long as he focused on how he shifted his weight when they made a turn and skipped any steps placing them back-to-back, there should be no problem. She directed him off the dance floor once the waltz ended and another piece invited their guests to join the festivity. Next time, he told her, again holding her beringed hand when she sat down, I will attend in a shape more convenient, but she only shrugged and said, I would rather have an excuse to turn everyone else down.
Several opportunities presented themselves. Sanaki smiled, let them flirt, waved them away. Lehran nodded to each and wondered if the goddess had recovered enough yet to answer a prayer for the temporary return of his birthright, so he could peck their eyes out of their sockets personally. Most were strictly proper, but he knew the men she'd bestowed her attentions upon by the way they held her hand, lips lingering over her knuckles, speech formal only in the most generous sense - all honorifics applied, all formulaic courtesies observed. One had the nerve to ask if she would go apart to speak with him, and Lehran turned his glare onto the orchestra, his feathers standing on end and pressed to the wall.
Naesala leaned closer, wings angled so they wouldn't touch him. "Five hundred gold."
Lehran turned his head slightly, sharply, the raven at the corner of his vision. "Don't be ridiculous. Three hundred would be too good for him."
"Expenses are what they are, your highness," Naesala said. "Four fifty. I'll find a way to blame it on Oliver."
"Lehran," his empress said with a smile she didn't bother to hide, directed at the retreating figure of the most recent offender, "Fredric is the only reason the Gaddos government still functions. If he disappears or resigns without good reason, I'll send you to take his place."
"That was brazen of him, all told," Reyson said. "Cultural differences, empress. You'll censure him, I hope - privately."
Sanaki said nothing, but her smile had faded.
*
Sanaki's rooms were lit by candles and small glass lamps on the tables, their domes small enough to fit in Lehran's palm. Tanith's sidelong glance followed him all the way to her bedroom door before he was allowed respite in closing it and turning the lock with a backward flick of his fingers. One lamp lit her bedroom, turned low on her bedside table, casting yellow light to dull the hue of her dress into the color of dried blood. The glow of her white chemise traced her arms, her spine between the laces, peeked from beneath her skirt.
"I'm sorry." She walked round the bed to the dressing table and pulled the hooks of her diamond earrings out. Her gaze avoided the mirror, and his reflection in it, gleaming more brightly, as if in defiance of the dulling effect the light had on her hair.
Nothing else. She removed the long double-loops of her citrine necklace, the choker, the rings of her golden bracelets, the slender, lacquered sticks decorating her hair and the matching combs. They clattered onto the wooden table, followed by her rings and the smaller pins holding her hair up. A hint of herbs and honey touched the air when it tumbled down her back, spiraled loose, clinging to the folds of her skirt and the laces of her dress.
"You should have waited for the dress," Lehran said, leaving his place by the door. Sanaki's hair slid in his hands, cool, like dark midnight water curling around his fingers. He raked his hand through it twice to loosen every strand and twisted it over her shoulder. The knot securing her laces defied him a moment, its intricacies hidden in the shadow between them. "Now." It loosened. He hooked his fingers into the first stitch and pulled, listened to the loud, sharp slither of silk. The sound prickled along his spine. "What do you think you're apologizing for?"
Her shoulder blades stood out, their shadows cast sharply, and by the way she moved it had the same effect on her. Still, she did not meet his eyes. "Reyson is right."
"Yes." He pulled her laces out quickly and freed her from the sheath of heavy brocade. Her chemise, long, shapeless, and wrinkled where it was twisted and folded against her body, swirled when she stepped out from the skirt of her dress. A shadow cast by the lamp revealed the shape of her body. "But we were prepared for that." He shook her dress out, laid it over the bench before her table. "I was ready, rather."
Sanaki smoothed the chemise over her hips, looking over her shoulder at him. Her mouth was still set in a frown.
Lehran brushed her hands away and felt his way around her waist with his fingertips. "It was offensive." He felt each rib, slight ridges beneath the silk. "Will you let me kill him now?"
"No."
He sighed, made it heavy and martyred, watched tendrils of her hair flicker and dance on the rush of air, curling around her throat. "Stubborn." Lehran pulled her back, an arm around her waist, another pinning her beneath the breasts, and worked his nose into her hair to breathe her scent. "I thought you were sorry. I deserve to see his head on a pike at the city gates, at least."
A slight smile creased Sanaki's lips, narrowing her averted eyes. "How old-fashioned. Do you know how many letters we'd get complaining about the view?"
Lehran bent to kiss the side of her pale neck. His fingers found the ribbon gathering the chemise around her shoulders so it wouldn't fall, and wanted to pull. She was warm, and soft, and smelled lovely. The way she leaned into his arms he thought she wanted to respond to him, but tension stiffened her legs, her arms, her back, so he felt it through the thin fabric. Poor Sanaki. "It wasn't your fault. Relax." He let go to turn her by the shoulders. "This will not be the first time a monarch has been caught between the conflicting interests of her suitors, and it will not be the last."
She rolled her neck. It cracked loudly. "I know."
He embraced her again, held her tightly. "It isn't even unusual to think you might neglect your consort in favor of others they consider more deserving."
Sanaki led her cheek rest on his shoulder. He felt her breath against his throat, hot through his high collar. "I won't do that."
"I know."
He thought she rolled her eyes, by the motion of her head. Her fingers tugged the tie of her chemise. "So confident."
Lehran lifted her chin, placed a chaste kiss upon her lips, and smiled.
.
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9/10
Theme: 02 - news; letter
Gauntlet Theme: 33 - the delicious pleasure in making the first move
Words: 2863
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: I said it all in the first note, I guess. Written to make me feel better.
..........................................................................
The announcement regarding the wedding of the bird tribes with the house of Altina was met with a silence Lehran would have called reverent - or perhaps horrified - if he hadn't known Sanaki held most of them by the throat and no longer allowed dissent of any kind when decisions affecting the whole of the empire were made. Her critics would call her a tyrant, but recent history had proven the lower echelons of the government unreliable. It was clear she listened to her advisers; he stood in during the meeting she called to discuss this decision, with Reyson and Naesala, the new vice-minister, and Oliver, and of course Sigrun was at her side with a hand resting on her sword.
Was his marriage to Sanaki politically wise? Well, it depended on one's view of politics - conservative, or progressive. She only employed the latter.
Would it mend relations with Serenes and the other laguz? One could hope.
Were they courting disaster?
Most likely.
They were appraised of the possibilities: accusations of blasphemy, rebellion in the provinces - especially in the form of the old senate's supporters, slinking about with their heads down, still unfortunately in existence despite the eradication of their masters. Public disdain. Popular insurgence not just within Begnion's borders, but elsewhere, anywhere belief in the old tales still lingered. When Lehran asked Sanaki if she'd kept the truth about the events and revelations of the judgment from her subjects after all, she shook her head.
That would be the other problem, Sigrun said, seizing the opportunity. Her voice was soft, but the others stopped to listen. Your betrayal of the empress is no secret.
That became clear when the public audience adjourned and he walked out of the hall with the other Serenes representatives, and later when he escorted Sanaki to the banquet and took the place of honor at her side. The chair had remained empty when she was a child; none of her lovers were accorded the honor of sitting to her right or sharing the utensils and plates reserved for her use as a security measure, according to Naesala. They weren't important enough to poison, anyway, she said under her breath while they waited for the first course, dipping slices of bread into a shallow bowl of spiced olive oil and vinegar. Such vivid flavor bit his tongue after so many years consuming only fruit and simple prepared foods like bread or yogurt, and sometimes rice.
Mainal's banquet hall was larger than the formal audience chamber. The ceiling rose three stories high, domed at the center with colored glass, and six chandeliers hung from the ceiling on steel chains plated with gold to hide their cold gleam. Ashera's rood was inlaid on the cream-colored marble floor in gold and obsidian, stretching the length of the room from the entry to the dais where Sanaki's throne waited, draped in red velvet. The tables were in a carpeted alcove, separated from the open space by an arch and two columns, the colors warm, yellow, red, white, shades of brown and candlelight. They sat apart facing the rest of Sanaki's guests; in his peripheral vision, Lehran saw musicians take their place on the far side of the room, behind more columns.
"For once," Sanaki said, brushing crumbs from her fingers over a plate, "I think they're having trouble deciding who to stare at."
Lehran swept the three tables with his gaze, saw the flicker of eyes toward their position - not unusual in the company of his empress - and whispers exchanged while leaning and bowing heads at angles indicating they didn't want to be noticed. Also not unusual-- when the aristocrats in question were few and far between, whispering behind pockets of louder, oblivious companions. The murmur of conversation hardly echoed. "You're quite striking in any shade of red, Sanaki."
She lifted an eyebrow and tapped the bowl of her glass for more wine. A red-headed pegasus knight came to refill it. "They didn't believe me," she said, leaning against the high back of her chair. Her arm draped down, her fingers found the edge of his wing, and she flicked a feather with her nail. "I'm sure they thought you had the good of Begnion in mind when betraying us, or I wouldn't have let you live. Now they see the shape of your wings and realize their error."
He looked down at the golden glow in his glass. "I did have the good of the country in mind," he said. "As personified in you."
"Too trite." She sipped.
"At least one of your guests will be trying to read my lips tonight."
Her golden gaze slanted his direction, the corner of her mouth slightly turned up. Then she sighed and rolled her eyes just dramatically enough to make a show. "I'm the one who will have to beat people away from my escort with a stick."
Lehran told her that made no sense if her speculation were true, but Sanaki didn't let him press the issue. She stood up to make a pretty speech about the closing of the rift between races, reparation for the tragedy thirty five years ago, and her hope for greater wisdom to drive Begnion's policies in the years to come so a goddess's judgment would not be necessary to set them right. Lingering on Serenes and the right of the heron clan to demand reparation brought an appropriate hush to the room and shadows to the eyes of several at the tables he thought might be real. He supposed they must realize a heron could not be purchased and shown off to rich friends if the clan remained diminished and died out. Most of the men and women sharing the room with them had gone through the motions of education in concepts like logic and mathematics-- some of them might even remember the basics.
He closed his eyes when she sat down, bowed his head slightly, and the floor was given to others: Oliver, who dwelled on the legitimate trading opportunities in heron-made artwork, food products, et cetera, and Naesala, who said something to the effect he hoped their business relationship would be long and profitable, that the oath of revenge against Begnion was withdrawn as long as their people - Lehran, though he didn't mention it directly - were treated with respect. What smooth manner he'd taken with the gentry before the war was gone. Threat was implicit in his voice. Reyson declined the opportunity to speak, just as he declined every dish and refreshment offered to him, and watched the beorc gathering with a smooth face.
No one wanted to look at him directly. His white wings glowed, the candlelight gleamed atop his hair like a circlet. He drew effusive courtesy, deep bows, and averted gazes.
"You'll have to talk to them some time," Sanaki said after they'd finished the small bites of food served to their table - crisp pieces of flat bread and three varieties of pate, skewers of roasted peppers, eggplant marinated in pungent spices he couldn't recall the names for offhand, served over saffron-dyed rice. They left the table for the throne arm in arm, trailed by the ghosts of her guard in their formal uniforms with their silver swords. "If not today, then tomorrow, or in a week, or a month. You can only hide in our rooms with your loom for so long before you crave sunlight and wind."
Lehran helped her ascend the steps of the dais, held her hand while she seated herself, and again took his place at her side. "I don't have to avoid them tonight," he said, watching his diplomatic companions approach the dais, and noting the trickle of guests into the wider part of the room, across the rood, where they would dance once the musicians came in and took their places beyond the columns. "Prince Reyson will stave them off with the power of his glare."
The remark did not draw a smile. "If looks could kill," Naesala muttered.
"You'd be long dead." Reyson extended his hand, and Sanaki met him halfway, her wrist bent at an angle to imply it was intentional. "Empress. We'll stay a while to prove our sincerity, but this kind of gathering isn't meant for our kind."
She wasn't afraid to meet his gaze directly - she never was, or so Lehran was told, even when Reyson spat his hate into her face, among the ruins of the forest. "I apologize. I'd hoped the banquet would last longer, but they're an impatient sort of people."
Reyson smiled slightly, released her hand. "I trust you to think of things like that," he said. "You haven't disappointed me so far."
"It's the wings," Naesala said when Sanaki tilted her head. He hadn't bothered to don a formal costume; his leather sleeves creased and creaked when he crossed his arms, when his wings drew close to his back. "We don't do dances, so most of us don't learn how. It'd only turn into a brawl with everyone shoving everyone else around. I'm a rarity, and Lehran is just a liar."
Lehran sighed and looked over the raven's shoulder at the party. A dozen musicians wove into the room, instruments in hand - violins, flutes; a pale man sat at the harp. Naesala took a place at his left, and Reyson stood at the empress's other side, murmuring an apology when Sigrun had to move to see past his wings. Lehran edged closer to the throne. "You are the expert on that, of course."
Tradition obligated the empress to take the first dance, and Lehran would have banished his wings to make the dance easier if they weren't half the point of making the relationship public. Sanaki asked quietly if they should make it a short dance, but he declined; as long as he focused on how he shifted his weight when they made a turn and skipped any steps placing them back-to-back, there should be no problem. She directed him off the dance floor once the waltz ended and another piece invited their guests to join the festivity. Next time, he told her, again holding her beringed hand when she sat down, I will attend in a shape more convenient, but she only shrugged and said, I would rather have an excuse to turn everyone else down.
Several opportunities presented themselves. Sanaki smiled, let them flirt, waved them away. Lehran nodded to each and wondered if the goddess had recovered enough yet to answer a prayer for the temporary return of his birthright, so he could peck their eyes out of their sockets personally. Most were strictly proper, but he knew the men she'd bestowed her attentions upon by the way they held her hand, lips lingering over her knuckles, speech formal only in the most generous sense - all honorifics applied, all formulaic courtesies observed. One had the nerve to ask if she would go apart to speak with him, and Lehran turned his glare onto the orchestra, his feathers standing on end and pressed to the wall.
Naesala leaned closer, wings angled so they wouldn't touch him. "Five hundred gold."
Lehran turned his head slightly, sharply, the raven at the corner of his vision. "Don't be ridiculous. Three hundred would be too good for him."
"Expenses are what they are, your highness," Naesala said. "Four fifty. I'll find a way to blame it on Oliver."
"Lehran," his empress said with a smile she didn't bother to hide, directed at the retreating figure of the most recent offender, "Fredric is the only reason the Gaddos government still functions. If he disappears or resigns without good reason, I'll send you to take his place."
"That was brazen of him, all told," Reyson said. "Cultural differences, empress. You'll censure him, I hope - privately."
Sanaki said nothing, but her smile had faded.
*
Sanaki's rooms were lit by candles and small glass lamps on the tables, their domes small enough to fit in Lehran's palm. Tanith's sidelong glance followed him all the way to her bedroom door before he was allowed respite in closing it and turning the lock with a backward flick of his fingers. One lamp lit her bedroom, turned low on her bedside table, casting yellow light to dull the hue of her dress into the color of dried blood. The glow of her white chemise traced her arms, her spine between the laces, peeked from beneath her skirt.
"I'm sorry." She walked round the bed to the dressing table and pulled the hooks of her diamond earrings out. Her gaze avoided the mirror, and his reflection in it, gleaming more brightly, as if in defiance of the dulling effect the light had on her hair.
Nothing else. She removed the long double-loops of her citrine necklace, the choker, the rings of her golden bracelets, the slender, lacquered sticks decorating her hair and the matching combs. They clattered onto the wooden table, followed by her rings and the smaller pins holding her hair up. A hint of herbs and honey touched the air when it tumbled down her back, spiraled loose, clinging to the folds of her skirt and the laces of her dress.
"You should have waited for the dress," Lehran said, leaving his place by the door. Sanaki's hair slid in his hands, cool, like dark midnight water curling around his fingers. He raked his hand through it twice to loosen every strand and twisted it over her shoulder. The knot securing her laces defied him a moment, its intricacies hidden in the shadow between them. "Now." It loosened. He hooked his fingers into the first stitch and pulled, listened to the loud, sharp slither of silk. The sound prickled along his spine. "What do you think you're apologizing for?"
Her shoulder blades stood out, their shadows cast sharply, and by the way she moved it had the same effect on her. Still, she did not meet his eyes. "Reyson is right."
"Yes." He pulled her laces out quickly and freed her from the sheath of heavy brocade. Her chemise, long, shapeless, and wrinkled where it was twisted and folded against her body, swirled when she stepped out from the skirt of her dress. A shadow cast by the lamp revealed the shape of her body. "But we were prepared for that." He shook her dress out, laid it over the bench before her table. "I was ready, rather."
Sanaki smoothed the chemise over her hips, looking over her shoulder at him. Her mouth was still set in a frown.
Lehran brushed her hands away and felt his way around her waist with his fingertips. "It was offensive." He felt each rib, slight ridges beneath the silk. "Will you let me kill him now?"
"No."
He sighed, made it heavy and martyred, watched tendrils of her hair flicker and dance on the rush of air, curling around her throat. "Stubborn." Lehran pulled her back, an arm around her waist, another pinning her beneath the breasts, and worked his nose into her hair to breathe her scent. "I thought you were sorry. I deserve to see his head on a pike at the city gates, at least."
A slight smile creased Sanaki's lips, narrowing her averted eyes. "How old-fashioned. Do you know how many letters we'd get complaining about the view?"
Lehran bent to kiss the side of her pale neck. His fingers found the ribbon gathering the chemise around her shoulders so it wouldn't fall, and wanted to pull. She was warm, and soft, and smelled lovely. The way she leaned into his arms he thought she wanted to respond to him, but tension stiffened her legs, her arms, her back, so he felt it through the thin fabric. Poor Sanaki. "It wasn't your fault. Relax." He let go to turn her by the shoulders. "This will not be the first time a monarch has been caught between the conflicting interests of her suitors, and it will not be the last."
She rolled her neck. It cracked loudly. "I know."
He embraced her again, held her tightly. "It isn't even unusual to think you might neglect your consort in favor of others they consider more deserving."
Sanaki led her cheek rest on his shoulder. He felt her breath against his throat, hot through his high collar. "I won't do that."
"I know."
He thought she rolled her eyes, by the motion of her head. Her fingers tugged the tie of her chemise. "So confident."
Lehran lifted her chin, placed a chaste kiss upon her lips, and smiled.
.