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Little witch, you are my wife. This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Little witch, where are you? Memnon calls. Come out, come out.
“Every part of us longs for the other—even our magic.”
I’m not just marrying Memnon but also getting coronated.
He’s looking at me like he could live in this moment forever; I know I could.
This love is the thing of dreams and wishes. Too sweet for the real world.
“I will get you whatever your heart desires so long as you draw breath—maybe even after that as well,”
There aren’t many things truly worth living for in this life, but a good woman is one of them.”
I never touched another woman before you, and I do not intend to—ever.”
“You should always be worried with me, little witch.”
“Disrespect me, and I will punish you. Disrespect your queen, and I will kill you.”
When I was a child, I could not fight back. I could not protect my family or anyone else. Now I can.
Killed them. I killed them. Powerful queen, Memnon says down our bond. Protecting our people. I could not be prouder.
Hold on, I say down our bond. I’m coming for you. No, Roxi, Memnon begs. Stay with our people. You are my people.
He looks monstrous, so it makes no sense that pride swells in me at the sight of him bathed in gore.
You can hate me, but you will do so in my arms.
“It is because I love you, dear daughter, that I insist you become a dangerous thing.
I hate how, despite how spooked I still am by him, I preen under his praise.
Is my wife being protective of me? my husband says, his tone light. He will sooner die than touch you, I vow.
One day, people will learn not to threaten you in front of me,
Don’t let me distract you, I say, my earlier fear rising once more. Impossible not to be distracted when you’re so beguiling, he responds. Is Memnon…flirting with me? On the battlefield, surrounded by enemies? Yes. Tell me you like it.
There’s no word for this loss. Nothing that can encapsulate losing something so beloved before you even had it.
I feel grateful that at least if the world is falling apart around us, I still have him in all his painful, messy glory.
I have always moved through life as a guest in strange lands. It is all I’ve known.
She seeks to worm her way under my skin. That doesn’t mean I have to let her. I don’t have to listen to her at all.
A possessive sort of anger rises in me at her actions. She treats my husband the same way she treats this place—as though he is hers.
You are a wildfire, my fierce queen, he says. I could not be prouder of the way you protect our people.
I’m not sure that’s what I want most, but perhaps it’s what he wants most, and I certainly cannot deny him anything.
He must realize, stranded in this windowless room, that even though our group is small, his life is in grave peril. And if he could see magic, as I can, he would know this for certain.
“I will conquer the world,” he vows, echoing his long-ago words to me, “just to lay it all at your feet.”
Memnon, who has always valued me for who I am and not what I offer.
I’ve barely managed to stay civil with her during her few visits. I cannot possibly reside under the same roof.
“You wear jealousy like a cloak, dear daughter. I thought you had learned by now not to let others see your vulnerabilities.”
Of course Eislyn’s overtures toward Memnon grate at me, but my distrust of her is more than jealousy.
There it is. The truth she’s gilded in logic and strategy. She wants Memnon to take another wife.
“I intend to give you the world,” he says, perhaps a touch pleadingly. I can feel his bloodlust and his ambition, his grief and his need to appease it in some way. “All I’ve ever wanted was you.” I touch the diadem nestled in my loose hair. “Not this crown. Not this palace. Certainly not the world.”
“Foolish man,” I whisper, “I’d walk through the Underworld for you. So if we’re to do this, really do it, then we do it together.”
These are Sarmatians who’ve fought at my side for years, who’ve killed dozens of people for reasons far less noble than this, and yet it’s now, when I’m trying to save their queen, that they decide I’ve done something unconscionable.
I cannot prove Eislyn tried to harm me, just as I cannot prove she was near the battlefield this morning, but I do know that the protective wards placed on me failed when they should not have, and Eislyn was the last familiar face I saw before I was struck.
“Curse me, fight me, it doesn’t matter, Empress,” he breathes. “I won’t risk your safety.
“This palace, my power, my people—it all comes second to us.”
You can do anything you wish. So wish for something better than death and destruction.”
“My fierce little witch,” he says fondly. “I could spend the rest of my life doing nothing but gazing upon your face. It would sustain me for all my days.”
“I will always love you and in all ways. The gods made you for me and me for you.”
I am reliving old pain, but I am no longer a child, and these men shall suffer.
I never thought of myself as particularly malicious, but apparently, for my soul mate and my family, I am.
I want peace. For me, for my soul mate. A single lifetime where we can love each other without the fear of our enemies killing us.
“I will find you again, my king. I am eternally yours.”
