Around midnight, she stood, leaving Caelen in their shared bed.
Her heart was hammering, but it wasn't fear... it was the thrill of the hunt.
The Emperor's study was a tomb of flickering candlelight and the scratch of a quill. Soren sat at his desk, his eyes burning with fatigue. He was staring at a report on the Virelya silver mines, but he hadn't actually read a word in twenty minutes.
His mind was a repetitive loop of Eris. The way she had looked in the chair earlier that afternoon. The way she had said she wanted him to be at the festival.
Tomorrow, he thought, rubbing his face with his hands. I have to stand beside her for hours. I have to be the Emperor while my chest feels like it's been caved in.
He thought of how he was hard to defeat by anything except his own thoughts... The dark persistent corner of his own mind.
