Symphony for a Deadly Throne (Mousai, #3)

by E.J. Mellow

That is the nature of people when they do not understand a thing, when they fear what is not like them.

It was a Knowing. One that came from two souls touching and finding they were made up of similar threads, similar dust and bones.

He would soon learn that she was more than real. She was another secret to steal: the eldest daughter of the Thief King. And he would come to love her.

The memory Arabessa saw next would rewrite every one that had followed.

After all, emotions were often wasted on the emotional. Later Arabessa could dissect and study her current innate feelings and come to a logical and reasonable conclusion and path forward. Just as she was the conductor to the madness of the Mousai, Arabessa would steady the madness currently coursing through her thoughts.

“I thought you gave up gambling,” said Arabessa, attempting to catch up with her sister’s abrupt appearance while dodging drink trays and protruding disguises. “I have given up gambling with the pirate,” Niya clarified as she let go of her wrist to approach a crowded table of match-a-roll.

“Not every emotion you read is correct,” she pointed out. “At least not with to whom it’s toward.” “But I am usually correct,” he countered. “Especially when I am with you.”

“You, Arabessa, are the most interesting creature I have yet met as well as the most contrary. It’s thoroughly enjoyable to watch you smile but know that you’re actually quite outraged. Or see you paste on an expression of indifference when nothing but the sweetest scent of joy lifts from you. You see”—he leaned forward conspiratorially—“you may not share your thoughts, but feel them you certainly do, and loudly.”

Zimri’s gaze was liquid gold. “Arabessa,” he whispered, said her name as if it were one of Aadilor’s great wonders. “Music of my heart.”

“I love you, Arabessa. So much so that I have been happy to hold only pieces of you for all these years even though I know there is much more of you that you hide away. That we hide from your family. But I can’t keep this charade up forever. I cannot only care for you partially, love you in half measures. That is like asking the sea to not yearn toward the shore with its waves. I will forever be reaching for you, Arabessa, but the question I keep asking is whether you will ever reach back.”

“Until you enlighten me to a better reason than these weak justifications—” “Because I’m scared!” she burst out, hating how the ballroom echoed her words. Words she despised saying, was desperate not to feel lest he sense it.

Arabessa realized then how painful it was to grow. To move forward into something new. How hard it could be to carve one’s own path and who might have to be left behind in the process.

Arabessa was suffering. Just as he was. You fool! he wanted to cry. It did not have to be this way. But it was. She had refused him, broken him, and still he wanted to rush to her, pull her from the stage and stay her pain. Zimri wanted to wrap her in his arms and demand she forget reason and duty and his promises made to dead parents. They needed to be together. But only her king and father could demand anything of Arabessa Bassette. Duty. Arabessa’s guiding compass. One that was apparently failing her now.

“How else could we collect the Collector?” asked Niya by way of an explanation. “You only ever showed Arabessa the way up to your private floor. Not that we couldn’t find it ourselves eventually, but this felt a much faster approach. Oh, Zimri, do not frown so.” Niya waved a hand at his scowl. “Ara never told us she had been up there, but we are no fools. No one needs to be in the lavatories that long or that often.” “Unless they suffer chronic irritable bowels,” pointed out Larkyra. “True,” mused Niya. “Arabessa does suffer irritability, but I would say it plagues her overall demeanor rather than specifically her—”

“Even after I marry Kattiva?” he challenged, needing to press the realities. “Even if your sister and I will never be able to be mended?” There was a beat of quiet, a spike of sadness through the air. “Yes,” said Larkyra. “Even then. You must have learned by now that it takes a great deal to get rid of a Bassette.” “Worse than weeds, we are.” Niya nodded.

“You are still our brother, Zimri,” replied Larkyra, gaze steady. “We love you as we love Ara, no matter the divide between you.” “Our loyalty is with our family,” added Niya. “And you are family.”

“Well, I am in no mood for what wise lessons you may have learned,” said Arabessa, still distraught. “I do not see how I can survive this.” “As you once said to me, sister,” began Niya, “you will survive it as we must all things. One sunrise at a time.” “That’s horrible advice,” muttered Arabessa, not enjoying her own words used against her. “I thought so, too, at the time.” She smiled. “But do you want to know the worst of it?” “Do I really have a choice not to?” “You were right,” she said. “You’re always annoyingly right, Arabessa.

“But I will tell you this.” Zimri stepped closer, their bodies a grain’s distance from touching. “If there was a way to still convince you to say yes, I would hunt it down.”

“While I appreciate the generosity,” said Arabessa to Kattiva, voice deceptively even, “I have my own party waiting. As for pleasures, I fear what I desire is no longer available.”

I would rather suffer the fate of my own mind than from the decisions of another.

Perfection is a made-up construct. It is much like time: it cannot be held, and only fools would waste sands falling in an attempt to try.”

“Act on every desire you have for me, Arabessa. They are assuredly no match for the desires I have for you.”

Thank the lost gods for fickle sisters,

Arabessa settled on this thought. She would go to him later tonight. After all, this was a perfect first chance to prove their new relationship. And as she had already proved she could stay in control this evening, surely she could master her emotions once more. For a friend.

“Yes,” declared Arabessa. “That’s exactly what I’ll do.” “I beg your pardon?” “You need a good spanking, Collector.” She pulled at his arm, attempting to spill him onto her lap. “Absolutely not.” Zimri jumped back, nearly knocking the nearby table and glass of water over. “The only spanking happening will be from me to you when you beg for it.”

“Good boy,” said Arabessa, taking the empty cup to place it back on the table. Zimri glared at her. “I shall not be patronized in my own home.” “I apologize.” There was a hint of a smile in her voice. “I’m just so very proud of you for drinking all of your water.”

“Zimri,” Arabessa groaned, pulling at his shirt. “Yes, my love, I will give you what you need. I will give you what you want.”

Zimri was the only one who could take the ropes of Arabessa’s sails so she could be the wild wind. She could soar free with him, and tonight she would revel in every grain fall of that freedom. Tomorrow is tomorrow, but tonight, let go. Let go.

“My bed has missed you,” he said, a slow glide of his hands starting at her ankles and moving up her legs as he came to drape himself over her. “I have missed you.” His skin was warm against hers, a delicious bath of familiarity, settling her magic to purr content in her blood. Home. Our home.

“Look at me,” he asked of her again. Her eyes opened to hold with his. They burned with lust, with love, with a promise. I’ve got you. I will catch you.

He watched with dark satisfaction as Arabessa’s eyes rolled back, a beautiful gasp escaping. “I will drink you instead,” he said, his voice a rumble of an approaching storm. “And if I grow hungry, I know exactly what I’ll eat.”

“You give me more than what I want,” she said, gaze a blue pool of desire. “You give me what I didn’t even know I needed.”

“And checking on me includes breaking into my safe?” “We may be your sisters,” explained Niya. “But do not forget, we are also thieves. Breaking into a hidden safe is too tempting to deny.”

“You are the magnificent one,” she breathed. “You are the one who makes me whole.”

Her chest ached to console his fears as he consoled hers. “I trust you with all of me,” she said, and it was every bit true.